Friday, April 17, 2009

Magic Wands: April 17, 2009

-ESPN's NBA super scout David Thorpe thinks Courtney Lee is one of the top defenders of his draft class. Proves that the right situation can help immensely late in the draft. And Lee is really really good.

-During the weekend, ESPN writer Marc Stein released his awards ballots. The winners? LeBron for MVP. Stan Van Gundy for Coach of the Year. And Dwight Howard for Defensive Player of the Year. Plus he makes the argument that Howard, not Dwyane Wade, should be third on the ballot as the vastly underrated MVP of the year.

-Orlando Magic Daily has posted some wonderful highlights of everyone's favorite player from Poland against the Cleveland Cavaliers (includes his first 3-pointer!!!!). Now he just needs to post video of him dunking from the free throw line.

-Hedo Turkoglu's injury scare had some people thinking catastrophe -- like back when Nelson went out. But Zach McCann at Orlando Magic Daily, now part of the TrueHoop Network of blogs, gives us reasons why we need to re-sign Hedo.

-Isiah Thomas is apparently going to be head coach at FIU. Good thing they don't have a salary cap or draft picks to give away... I think.

-Dwight Howard is the reason you cannot, say, "cut the cheese" at Magic practice. Thanks a lot Dwight. More to come hopefully on the Sports Illustrated cover boy. And by that I mean, no SI curse (he was also on the cover of the season preview issue).

-The horrible irony of all this is that Jameer Nelson will not be able to play a playoff series in his hometown. Hopefully next year Jameer will get his chance.

-Always the odd connections entering a playoff series. Brian Schmitz of The Orlando Sentinel details how the Philadelphia 76ers had an integral part in shaping the Orlando Magic.

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