According to John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com, Ryan Anderson will start at Power Forward for the Orlando Magic tomorrow night.
"“As far as tomorrow’s game I know I am starting game,’’ Anderson said. “I have no idea if that’s while Rashard is out and it’s a regular thing. We don’t really talk about lineups because we have so many guys and we’ll play a ton of lineups this season.’’"
You can see Denton’s full story here.
I think the Magic would have been fine with either Brandon Bass or Anderson starting but I like this decision a little better. Lewis and Anderson are similar players so it can get the first unit adjusted to this style of play and will keep the second unit familiar with the way Bass plays.
Update: Orlando has picked up Ryan Anderson’s option for next year.
"The Orlando Magic have picked up team option for next season on forward Ryan Anderson’s contract, General Manager Otis Smith said Tuesday.“Done already,” Smith said in a text message.The Magic had to exercise the option before the start of the season on Wednesday night."
Click here to see the details.
Yahoo Sports takes a look at pre-season statistical oddities for the Magic. Here is what they had to say about the Magic.
"The Magic won all eight of their games, while downing teams by an average of nearly 18 points per game. Just saying.The team shot 41.6 from behind the arc, Dwight Howard had room enough to shoot 62 percent from the field … but, sure, they’ll miss Hedo Turkoglu’s “spacing.”"
See the full story here.
Chad Ford of ESPN is picking the Magic to win the championship according to his chat today.
"I think you’ve got a point. I”m worried about Ron Artest’s effect on the team. He can be selfish and unstable. I think it’s asking a lot for him to do neither all season. Celtics are very, very good if everyone’s healthy, but the word out of Boston is that KG’s only 60% and Rondo, despite the public posturing, isn’t happy with the summer smackdown that he was put through. I’m picking the Magic to win it all. But yes, the Spurs and Cavs are very legit threats"
See that chat here.
The Orlando Sentinel released their Orlando Magic season preview this morning. You can see the online version here.
Click here to see a behind the scenes video of Dwight Howard’s photo shoot for the Sentinel’s season preview.
Brian Schmitz has an article about Dwight Howard’s power in the preview that you can see here.
"The title of its cover story read: “Too Much Fun: Can The Magic’s Dunk Machine Get Serious For A Moment?”While the Magic were perturbed and Howard was bewildered at the portrayal, Superman offered the best punchline, er, response, imaginable:He took Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1995.In the process, he earned the league’s defensive player of the year award, leading in blocked shots and repeating as rebounding champ. He set an NBA record by receiving more than 3 million all-star votes.Howard somehow overcame that overbearing, debilitating smile to meet all the expectations laid in front of him since he jumped from high school as the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2004."
Check out another Magic preview at Nets Are Scorching.
3QC has an excellent roundtable discussion about the Magic that you can find here.
Don’t forget to check out my weekly college football blog here.
(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger. Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)