Orlando Magic News & Notes: How Important is Rashard? Another Signing? Gortat in Europe, Tickets
The Orlando Magic have capped their season ticket sales at 13,000.
"“By capping season-ticket sales, this gives us the ticket inventory to provide the opportunity for those who can’t necessarily invest in a full season ticket to still have the opportunity to experience Magic basketball,” said Alex Martins, the team’s chief operating officer.The defending Eastern Conference champs already have sold about 12,700 season tickets. Last season, the team sold about 9,800 season tickets."
It’s clear that Orlando’s run to the finals had made them very popular in the city because less than 300 ticket packages remain. It’s also nice to see that the Magic care about getting people who can’t afford to buy season ticket packages to the arena to attend a game.
Josh Robbins has a nice piece about how well Marcin Gortat is playing in EuroBasket 2009.
Gortat has been tearing it up for Poland. He’s averaging 17.5 PPG, 11 RPG and 2.3 BPG. No wonder Marcin wanted to be a starter. If Marcin keeps this up into the regular season with Orlando’s new additions, the frontcourt could be scary good.
You can find excellent coverage of EuroBasket here.
Here’s another link where you can see a review from the day in Europe.
The Magic plan on adding another piece to their roster.
"The Orlando Magic plan on adding journeyman forward Linton Johnson to its roster, agent Brad Ames told HoopsHype.com. Johnson, who has played for eight NBA teams already, is expected to sign a make-good training camp contract with the Eastern Conference champions pretty soon.Johnson, winner of the NBA title with the Spurs in 2005, has career averages of 3.9 ppg and 3.3 rpg."
Linton Johnson is 29 years old and most recently played for the Chicago Bulls last season. He appeared in three playoff games for the Bulls, scoring 1.3 PPG and grabbing 1.3 RPG. His biggest NBA contributions came between 2005 and 2007 for the New York Knicks. He averaged 5.3 PPG in the ’05-’06 season and 4.2 PPG in ’06-’07 season.
As discussed earlier, Slam Magazine is ranking the top 50 players in the NBA. Jameer Nelson already checked in at #48 and now Rashard Lewis comes in at #38.
"Is he overpaid? Definitely. There’s no way he should be Orlando’s top earner through 2013. But at the same time, Orlando is on the cusp of getting to a place it hasn’t legitimately been able to think about about since 1995-96 and they wouldn’t be there without Rashard Lewis.While other players in the League have made careers out of putting up strong numbers on non-contenders and talking about winning, Shard has gone out and helped lift his team to that next level. When he steps on the court, his heart seems to be in the right place. Maybe it’s because his wallet acts as a stilt to get him there, but regardless, the guy has helped take Orlando into the elite of the NBA."
Slam even says that Rashard is Orlando’s second most important player behind Dwight Howard. Slam, like I do, loves the fact that Lewis doesn’t need to put up huge numbers – he just wants to win. Sure, he signed a monster contract, but he signed it with the team he wanted to go – a team that he thought could win now because it was being built around big man Dwight Howard. Differing to Dwight, Jameer, and now Vince Carter is what makes Lewis so great for the Magic. He doesn’t have to be the main man, but he still can if he’s asked to be – just ask Cleveland.
Fully Clips agrees that Eric Gordon is ready to break out.
Did you hear? MJ was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Sir Charles in Charge looks at John Stockton and David Robinson too, even comparing the Admiral to our very own Dwight Howard.
Life on the Dumars looks at Joe’s big summer.
Blue Man Hoop looks at Golden State’s summer.
(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger.Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)