Tony Battie C-F 6-11 240 2/11/76 Texas Tech '98 7 10 Keith Bogans G 6-5 215 5/12/80 Kentucky '03 1 13 Kelvin Cato C 6-11 275 8/26/74 Iowa State '97 7 55 Andrew DeClercq C 6-10 255 2/01/73 Florida '95 9 13 Derrick Dial (FA) G 6-4 184 12/20/75 Eastern Michigan '98 4 3 Steve Francis G 6-3 200 2/21/77 Maryland '99 5 8 Pat Garrity F 6-9 238 8/23/76 Notre Dame '98 6 33 Grant Hill F 6-8 225 10/05/72 Duke '94 9 12 Dwight Howard F 6-11 240 12/08/85 SW Atlanta Christian Academy ( R 31 Britton Johnsen (FA) F 6-10 210 7/08/79 Utah '03 1 5 Cuttino Mobley G 6-4 215 9/01/75 Rhode Island '98 6 14 Jameer Nelson G 6-0 190 2/09/82 St. Joseph's (PA) R 45 Sean Rooks (FA) C 6-10 260 9/09/69 Arizona '92 12 2 DeShawn Stevenson (FA) G 6-5 210 4/03/81 Washington Union HS (CA) 4 15 Hidayet Turkoglu F 6-10 220 3/19/79 Turkey 4 that roster is gonna surprise a lot of people. all of them are good/great defenders, and can also run. the nets and nuggets did very well running a fastbreak offense, and did very well the first year doing it. they also surprised a lot of people. battie, cato are great defenders. howard is blocking shots, francis and mobley are also great defenders, and bogans is said to be our best perimeter defender. the pistons won last year with d... I dont think we will have any problem scoring either, francis can set people up or score, mobley/garrity/hill/bogans/hidayet can all stretch the opposing defense. hopefully, the magic will surprise, and i think they can do it. what are your thoughts? how does the defense and fastbreak look?
We are looking pretty good. I honestly can't see Rooks on our team again. I think that Mario Kasun will be on the team this year. We will be sorta like the Bucks of last year. Surprise a lot of teams with a very quick style of play. Our defense shouldn't be worst in the league again.
Take all of those free agents off of the list and that is what our roster is going to look like. The only free agent that hasn't been signed back at this point that I think might have a chance of staying with Orlando is DeShawn Stevenson, but that's a long shot as Weisbrod has said numerous times that there just might not be a place to put the guy unfortunately. Sean Rooks left the team last year on bad terms, Britton Johnson isn't really much of anything and will probably end up back in the NBDL, Derrick Dial is just useless. As for how the team looks so far, I think that this is probably the strongest Magic roster I have seen since 1996 (last year of the Shaq/Penny era). I expect this team to do much better than last year's team and I think that people will be surprised how well our transformation into a completely different team has gone so far. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Our D should be vastly improved but I'm beginning to think we might have a tough time scoring. THe Next Pistons?
I'd like to see Magic turn out like Bucks/Nuggets/Pistons. The team will be much more fun to watch offensively (the T-Mac over guy shots got old) and defensively (anything would be better than last year). Magic have a lot of good-character/hard-working guys, and I expect a lot of teamwork from the team, something that hasn't happened in O-Town for a long time... I see Orlando posibly signing Snap Hunter, Mario Kasu, and or a veteran or two to fill space. But I'm also strongly against re-signing anyone else from our previous roster.(Britten, Rooks, Dial...) The only thing I see these guys and britten doing is trade filling and bench warming(at least Britten doesn't take up much space)...
I think that the roster is good enough to go far. Though what will deside how far is the coach. What type of style will he play what type of offense will he run. A team could have a very talented roster, but if the coach doesnt use it right like oneal did with the 8 man rotation in toronto last year. That team had talent, but it wasnt used right.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Pure Skillz:</div><div class="quote_post">I think that the roster is good enough to go far. Though what will deside how far is the coach. What type of style will he play what type of offense will he run. A team could have a very talented roster, but if the coach doesnt use it right like oneal did with the 8 man rotation in toronto last year. That team had talent, but it wasnt used right.</div> I have to agree with you, the talent is here. There is no excuse for this team not to be a winner. From what I have read, JD wants to try to go with a more uptempo offense than last year's and try to score points on the fast break. Of course, that makes the team really reliant on defense, so I think that will be the key to the Magic winning games this year. I think that we need to give JD a chance though, last year he was taking the helm of a sinking ship, I wouldn't be surprised to see him do much better as a coach this year.
The magic will take a couple of yeasr before they develop and contend. But they do hav nice young guys who can play. Jameer Nelson is gonna be a futurre star and leader for the magic.
Here is a big question I have Jameer Nelson is a great player everyone here knows he will be a future super star. Why did he slip down so far in the draft. Why did portland draft telfair over him when they had a chance to get him. Along with that why didnt the blazers,heat, clippers, and bulls who all took point guards in the first since I consider ben gordan an off guard not take jameer. I can under stand the clippers and bulls not taking him livingston and gordan are great players, but then I look at the points that miami, portland, and other teams who were in need of a guard made I just ask my self what were they thinking?!?!?! Even the raptors who were considering taking jameer nelson passed to take a player no one expected to go that high. Does anyone got an explination on why jameer fell in the draft. From what I understood he had a great work out for every team he visited. Is it because of his size he fell?
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Pure Skillz:</div><div class="quote_post">Does anyone got an explination on why jameer fell in the draft. From what I understood he had a great work out for every team he visited. Is it because of his size he fell?</div> I don't think that anyone understands why he slipped so far. The size issue is really a moot point since the guy is going to be playing point guard, which doesn't require a guy to be tall at all (see Earl Boykins). He's the college player of the year, so it wasn't anything that he did in college. There is nothing wrong with the guy and we just got lucky.
