The Spurs re-signed Kurt Thomas, the forward/center whom the Magic coveted at the deadline. Meanwhile, a day after acquiring combo guard Keyon Dooling from Orlando, the Nets sent backup point guard (and object of Magic fans' affection) Marcus Williams to the Warriors for a future first-round pick.

Oh, and the Magic's chances of re-signing Carlos Arroyo -- already a long shot -- took a big hit when he tore a leg muscle during an Olympic qualifying tournament.

But Javaris Crittenton, long connected to the Magic in trade rumors, is still in play. The Grizzlies' young combo guard is likely the odd-man-out in Memphis, which wants to focus on developing O.J. Mayo, Mike Conley, and Kyle Lowry. I think Crittenton would be a home-run acquisition for Otis Smith and the Magic. For one thing, he's tall (6'05"). For another, his presence would make both J.J. Redick and Keith Bogans more expendable than they already are... assuming they weren't the guys dealt for Crittenton in the first place. Finally, it would mean fewer minutes for Anthony Johnson, the Magic's 34-year-old current backup, whose talent level befits that of a third-stringer.

Could Mikki Moore be an option? The Kings spent their full mid-level on the veteran power forward last summer, but might look to unload him to free-up playing time for youngsters Spencer Hawes, Shelden Williams, and Jason Thompson. Kings fan pookeyguru, whom you may know from his participation in the Sactown Royalty community, would swap Moore for Redick and Brian Cook.

I still support the idea of swapping Redick and Cook for Jeff Foster, but I doubt the Pacers would part with him now that they've dealt Jermaine O'Neal to Toronto for T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, and riff-raff.

Maybe we overestimate the Magic's need for another player at the power positions. After all, Tony Battie will make his return this season, and figures to steal some minutes from Adonal Foyle (at center) and Rashard Lewis/Cook (at power forward). And Marcin Gortat, who played in more post-season games than regular-season ones, showed promise. But you'll forgive me for feeling nervous about a big-man rotation that includes Lewis, Battie, Gortat, Foyle, and James Augustine.

What's the Magic's biggest area of need? Whom should they target to fill that need?

Fairly small item (because we've known about it for days), but here it is: the Magic have officially traded Keyon Dooling to the Nets. Here's the AP story.

Best of luck to Keyon. We wish you the best, and thanks for everything. Especially this ridiculous stuff of Jannero Pargo:

Just don't go all Darrell Armstrong on us the next time the Nets play in Orlando. Please.

Al Iannazzone reported yesterday that the Orlando Magic and New Jersey Nets are close to finalizing a sign-and-trade deal which would send Keyon Dooling to New Jersey once he signs a three-year contract in the $10-11 million range. Orlando would receive the $3.3 million trade exception the Nets received from Dallas as part of the Jason Kidd trade. New Jersey has long had interest in Dooling, but thought it lost its chances when it signed free-agents Jarvis Hayes and Eduardo Najera earlier this week.

The exception, valid for one year after it's received, would enable the Magic to absorb $3.3 million in extra salary in a future trade. There's no guarantee they'll ever use it, though. Still, it looks as though the Magic might not lose Keyon Dooling outright after all. Not a bad deal, if it goes through.

UPDATE: Fred Kerber of the New York Post reports the teams have finished the deal and are merely waiting for the league to approve it (HT: NetsDaily). Meanwhile, Ira Winderman wonders why Miami passed on Dooling twice after he helped the Heat reach the 2005 Eastern Conference Finals.

Dave D'Alessandro brings Nets fans up to speed on New Jersey's pursuit of Keyon Dooling:

The Nets have been in touch with Rob Pelinka, they haven't made an offer for his client, and it's fairly obvious to both sides right now that this probably isn't going to happen unless the market dries up even faster than we thought.

[....]

Oh, you need more details: Keyon, of course, saw his market shrink when Orlando signed [Mickael] Pietrus, so his best bet to get into a more aggressive price range would be Golden State (now looking for a starter) and New Orleans (especially if [Jannero] Pargo leaves). They can give him midlevel money.

Meanwhile, the Nets, as you know, handed Eddie Najera a $3.4M jumpoff point, which leaves $2.18 from their MLE to give some worthy recruit.

So if they think that bargain recruit is Dooling . . . not gonna happen. Not until he exhausts all his other options, anyway. Funny thing about that: Some coaches would tell you that Keyon is good enough to start for a few teams in the league, but people are treating him like a September hire -- like he's Royal Ivey or Keith McLeod.

D'Alessandro goes on to mention that neither Dooling nor Pelinka should be surprised by the lack of offers. I'll grant him that this free-agent market is loaded with wings, but Dooling was arguably the best available point guard not named Baron Davis. I still can't get over the fact that Chris Duhon was a hotter commodity. Chris. Duhon.

The rest of free agency comes down to what Celtics forward James Posey decides to do. New Orleans is said to be in the market for him. Should he land there, he'd take all the Hornets' mid-level exception, thus whittling Dooling's options even further. Golden State might end up being Dooling's destination, although he might not start there, either. Currently, the Warriors have slotted Monta Ellis, last season's starting shooting guard, as their point guard, pairing him in the backcourt with Stephen Jackson while newly acquired Corey Maggette will man the three.

I'd be truly shocked if Dooling wound up having to accept an offer of less than $3.5 million annually. He's a better player than that. DeSagana Diop, of all people, got the full mid-level...

As expected, Keyon Dooling declined the Magic's two-year, $3.8 million offer. Dooling told John Denton that the offer "wasn't acceptable" and "ridiculous." He also had the following to say:

"We're not talking the same language. I don't know if the door is closed (on a return to the Magic), but we're not talking the same language. But I'm not doing any of the door closing. It's being closed in my face."

A similar situation occurred last summer when the Magic, in their efforts to sign Rashard Lewis, didn't even contact Darko Milicic, their own free agent, when the negotiating period began. Marc Cornstein, Milicic's agent, ripped GM Otis Smith in the press for reneging on his promise to at least negotiate with Milicic, whom he deemed a priority heading into the offseason. Unfortunately, it appears as though alienating free agents has become a pattern in Orlando under Smith's watch.

The meat of Denton's article, though, is the Magic have discussed trading for Memphis Grizzlies point guard Javaris Crittenton. The Magic absolutely need a point guard who can defend, and Crittenton, at 6'05", has enough size to hang with the league's taller signal-callers. If acquired, the Magic would become Crittenton's third NBA team in a little over a year. Drafted by the Lakers in 2007, he was sent to Memphis in the deal that yielded Pau Gasol and propelled the Lakers' run to the NBA Finals.

Denton also mentions that Glenn Schwartzman, the agent who represents Magic alums Darrell Armstrong and Michael Doleac, has contacted the Magic to see if they're interested in signing his clients. Additionally, Brian Schmitz reports the Magic have an ongoing dialog with Dan Tobin, who represents free-agent point guard Jason Williams, a veteran of Stan Van Gundy's offense.

What a day.

Brian Schmitz says the Orlando Magic have offered Keyon Dooling a two-year deal worth a total of $3.8 million, hoping it will be enough to retain the team's best defender. Unfortunately for us, Dooling would be wise to decline that deal because it fails to offer the long-term financial security that he desires and deserves.

I don't know whether to applaud Otis Smith for at least making an offer to Dooling or to criticize him for making such a low offer. It's the latest in a series of moves that Dooling could perceive as snubs. First, the Magic offered their back-up point guard job to Chris Duhon, regarded by most fans and media experts as inferior to Dooling. Then, when Duhon signed with the Knick, the Magic turned their attention to Golden State swingman Mickael Pietrus, whom they eventually signed. In so doing, they lost the cap space they could have used to make Dooling a competitive offer.

Bottom line: we'd love to see Keyon back, especially in light of Jameer Nelson's injury history, which Schmitz mentions in the article. But $3.8 million won't get it done. Once Dooling formally declines that offer, the Magic will probably extend it to Anthony Johnson, Jason Williams, or another such bargain-basement point guard in this barren free-agent market. If those options don't sound good to them, they could always try to swing a trade, using out-of-favor J.J. Redick as bait; Schmitz mentions Keith Bogans and Brian Cook are on the block as well.

n8c21 with the assist.

• Kyle Hightower of the Orlando Sentinel has some details on how the Orlando Magic plan to celebrate their 20th season. Chris D'Orso, the Magic's V.P. of Marketing, told Hightower the following:

  "This campaign embodies the history that has prepared us for today and the great moments to come. Every game, every play, every moment really is history in the making."

• At the end of this local-politics piece, Scott Maxwell, also of the Orlando Sentinel, has a brief note on Jameer Nelson's wedding, which took place last weekend.
• Fred Kerber of the New York Post says Keyon Dooling is the New Jersey Nets' most coveted free-agency target. Dooling played himself out of Orlando's price range, and the Nets might not be able to land him either unless they trade one of their surplus power forwards. Can the Magic execute a sign-and-trade with the Nets? That's a question I'd like to have answered, because Sean Williams is a shot-blocking machine. (Hat tip: NetsDaily)
• Another potential trade partner, at least in the minds of Magic fans, is Memphis. The Grizzlies have a bevy of point guards who could capably back-up Nelson. The web's best Grizzlies blog, 3 Shades of Blue, argues the team shouldn't trade any of its point guards.

The dominoes keep falling into place for the Magic. Tuesday, they agreed to terms with free-agent guard Mickael Pietrus; Wednesday, they decided they would not re-sign Keyon Dooling, according to the Orlando Sentinel's sources. Essentially, team made a marginal upgrade at its weakest position, only to make a significant downgrade at its second-weakest position one day later. At best, they've broken even. Dooling is, without a doubt, the best point guard left on the market. The best the Magic could hope for now is -- gulp -- over-the-hill Jason Williams, who just happens to be interested in signing here, also according to the Sentinel.

Whoop-de-freakin'-do.

The only thing keeping me sane right now is the knowledge that this team won 52 games last season. No need to panic, is there? I mean, it's not like other Eastern teams are making moves to get better. HAHAHAHAA!

Shoot me in the head.

Best of luck to you, Keyon, wherever you go. And I'm sorry you had to hear about the Pietrus signing while on vacationing with Jameer Nelson and Tony Battie in the Bahamas. That must have been... awkward...

Maybe the team will get a solid contributor in return for J.J. Redick, who seems to have accepted that he's finished here; for what it's worth, Otis Smith thinks differently. The Nile is not only a river in Egypt, friends.

What a miserable day.

A couple more details from the Orlando Magic's signing of Mickael Pietrus have trickled in. The team will host an introductory news conference to introduce its new starting shooting guard this Thursday, says Brian Schmitz.

• John Denton, who first broke the news of Pietrus' signing, has more details. It's a four-year deal worth $25.1 million. If you ask me, the Magic overpaid, but Pietrus fits their system and upgrades their weakest starting position from last season. Here's my favorite nugget from the piece, though:

  Also, Pietrus is close friends with Magic small forward Hedo Turkoglu and the two families recently vacationed together in Turkey for a week.

  So he's friends with Hedo and knows Otis Smith from his Golden State days. He should be comfortable here, especially since he'll play his natural position.

• Sean Deveney of the Sporting News spoke with Bill McCandless, Pietrus' agent, and gives us this information about which other teams pursued Air France:

  McCandless said 11 teams were interested in Pietrus but only five were serious. It came down to Orlando or Detroit, with Atlanta also a possibility. For the Pistons, Pietrus would have been a reserve. With the Magic he will start, McCandless was told, not at power forward, but at the more natural shooting guard spot.

  "It was not the most lucrative offer," McCandless said. "But the opportunity, combined with the money, to start for an up-and-coming team was too much to pass up. He could have gotten the same money, or more, from Detroit. But he would have been coming off the bench. ... It becomes a matter of timing. Orlando had the perfect spot for him. You have the threat of someone else moving into the spot. We did not want to wake up tomorrow and find that Otis had signed someone else."

  First, I love that we beat Detroit to signing Pietrus. I'm sure it's no big loss to Pistons fans, but it feels good to get something from them for once. Jeez.

  Deveney notes that the four-year deal includes an Early Termination Option for Pietrus after the third season.

• If you're wondering what this signing means for the Magic's chances of re-signing Keyon Dooling, you aren't alone. Dooling himself doesn't even know what's happening. When reached for comment, Dooling told Brian Schmitz the following:

  "It looks like they have filled their position at the 2. Pietrus will help us," Dooling said. "I don't know what's going to happen. Things are all over the place."

  The switch from third-person to first-person probably doesn't mean much, -- dude was probably a bit frazzled -- but it can't be a good sign that Dooling isn't confident he'll return. And, frankly, why should he be? The Magic made overtures to Chris Duhon, to Corey Maggette, and to Pietrus, but have yet to present him with an offer.

  The Magic can sign him, but doing so will bring them close to luxury-tax territory, which they want to avoid. The Magic's best bet is to make Dooling a long-term, front-loaded offer, which would give Dooling the money and security he wants while simultaneously freeing-up cap space as the salaries of Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis, and Jameer Nelson increase.

Woof. Busy offseason ahead. Either J.J. Redick or Keith Bogans will surely move via trade -- the smart money's on J.J., as he has more value -- and the Magic still have plenty of holes to fill.

You may remember this post from May, in which I tried to navigate the NBA's salary cap to see what the Magic could do this summer in free agency. Now that we're closer to the beginning of the free-agent signing period (Wednesday, July 9th), I thought I'd take another look at it. I've presented my findings in a Q-and-A format. For this post, I consulted Larry Coon's NBA Salary Cap F.A.Q., Storyteller's Contracts, ESPN's 2008 NBA Free Agent list, and the Orlando Magic's official roster page. We hope you find this guide helpful.

Question: How many players do the Magic have under contract next season, and what are they owed?

Answer: Currently, the Magic have 11 players under contract, owed a total of $60,553,339 next season. While the league has yet to release its official salary-cap data, we can say with absolute certainty that the Magic are over the salary cap. Here's how everything breaks down by player...

Note: for this table, "Age" refers to a player's age as of October 31st, 2008, when we expect the NBA season to begin.

... and by position...

Make the jump to read the rest of the Q-and-A.

Continue reading this post »