J.J. Redick, shown here moments after the Orlando Magic selected him 11th overall in the 2006 NBA Draft, asked the team to trade him if it doesn't expect to play him. It would behoove the Magic to grant his request.

Photo by Jason DeCrow, the Associated Press

I love J.J. Redick.

When I attend Magic games at the Amway Arena, I participate in the raucous "WE-WANT-J.J.!" chants that start when garbage time does. I'm one of those obnoxious fans who goes nuts when he gets up off the bench and walks to the scorer's table. I stand up whenever he shoots so, when the shot goes in, I'm already prepared to cheer. I want J.J. to succeed in the NBA.

But, as much as I'd like for him to make a name for himself here, I realize it isn't going to happen. That's why the Orlando Magic need to trade J.J. Redick this summer.

The logic behind unloading J.J. is obvious: he doesn't play. And it's not a matter of coaching, either. J.J. averaged more minutes per game under Brian Hill -- he of the three-point-averse, defensive-minded philosophy -- than he did under Stan Van Gundy -- he of the three-point-happy, offensive-minded philosophy. If Redick, a three-point specialist, couldn't crack Van Gundy's rotation this year playing behind the likes of Maurice Evans and Keith Bogans, there's no reason to expect he will next year. Magic GM Otis Smith is on the record as saying J.J. could move from third on the depth chart to first due to Evans' free agency and Bogans' potential free agency (he has a player option). However, if either those players leave, the Magic would have only Redick available to play the two-guard position, and they'd certainly focus their free agency efforts on signing a veteran to play in front of Redick. In other words, J.J. won't be any closer to NBA relevance next season than he was this season... if he stays in Orlando, that is.

Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News notes that basketball fans and analysts tend to overvalue spot-up shooters like Redick (and Rashard Lewis, too), which is probably true. David Friedman of 20 Second Timeout, who also offered this evaluation of J.J. in July, remains similarly unconvinced that Redick will ever make it in the NBA, to heck with what professional trainer David Thorpe thinks. However, NBA teams always -- always -- want shooters to fill out their roster. How else to explain the popularity of Kyle Korver, Wally Szczerbiak, Peja Stojakovic, and James Jones, to name a few? To that end, we submit the Magic should fulfill J.J.'s trade request sooner rather than later. So, where should the Magic look? 3QC has four suggestions, in alphabetical order:

• Golden State seems like an obvious destination because it places very little absolutely no emphasis on defense and only asks its players to shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. The Magic could try packaging Redick with Carlos Arroyo in a sign-and-trade deal to obtain Mickael Pietrus, nicknamed Air France for his nationality and athleticism, who can play the 2-through-4 positions.
• Memphis appears to be in rebuilding mode and, in Mike Miller and Juan Carlos Navarro, has a duo of 28-year-old two guards who will be well past their primes by the time it's ready to seriously contend for a playoff spot. Redick (24) is on the same timeline as small forward Rudy Gay (22); power forward Hakim Warrick (25); and point guards Mike Conley (20) and Kyle Lowry (22). Either Miller or Navarro would fit in well with the Magic.
• New York may also have interest in Redick. Its new coach, Mike D'Antoni, popularized the "run-and-gun" style during his tenure in Phoenix. He likes players who can score from anywhere. Redick, primarily a spot-up shooter, showed glimpses of having a drive-and-kick/distributor role on the Magic's summer team last year. D'Antoni is reportedly not keen on retaining David Lee, rebounder extraordinaire, because he's an offensive liability.
• Philadelphia is the worst three-point shooting team in the league. The 76ers don't regret getting rid of Korver -- dumping his salary freed up cap space to re-sign Andre Iguodala this summer -- but they do need to find someone who can shoot at a similar clip. Perhaps the 76ers would part with their first-round pick (16th overall) for Redick, the Magic's first-rounder this year (22nd overall) and future second-round picks.

Maybe all this speculations will turn out to be an exercise in futility. Maybe Stan Van Gundy read -- and subsequently agreed with -- Kelly Dwyer's thoughts on Redick ("J.J. Redick, you have to believe me, needs more minutes. The team needs more low-turnover/high-yield players getting big minutes"). Maybe Keith Bogans does his best (worst?) DeShawn Stevenson impression and opts out looking for more money. Maybe the Magic decide it's not worth tripling Maurice Evans' salary to keep him. But for right now, it's a safe bet that J.J.'s NBA future rests with another team in another city, and it's certain that Otis Smith needs to consider trading him while he still has value.

Not to pile on Otis Smith, but the Magic are the only Eastern Conference team currently over .500 not to make at least one roster move to improve itself in the past month. To recap:

1. Boston Celtics (44-12)
   • Sign forward P.J. Brown out of retirement
   • Sign free-agent guard Sam Cassell (bought-out by the Los Angeles Clippers, a decision with which ClipperSteve does not agree)
2. Detroit Pistons (42-16)
   • Acquire guard Juan Dixon from the Toronto Raptors for center Primoz Brezec
   • Sign free-agent center Theo Ratliff (bought-out by the Minnesota Timberwolves)
3. Orlando Magic (37-23)
4. Toronto Raptors (32-24)
   • Acquire center Primoz Brezec from the Detroit Pistons for guard Juan Dixon
5. Cleveland Cavaliers (32-26)
   • Acquire forwards Joe Smith and Ben Wallace from the Chicago Bulls for foward Drew Gooden and guard Larry Hughes
   • Acquire forward Wally Szczerbiak and guard Delonte West from the Seattle SuperSonics for forwards Donyell Marshall and Ira Newble

Okay, maybe the Raptors getting Brezec from the Pistons doesn't count, but the fact remains: the teams around us are at least trying to improve, and we aren't. The Magic, as constituted the day of the trade deadline, were certainly not talented enough to defeat Boston, Detroit, or Toronto in a seven-game series. Now? They're arguably not talented enough to take down Cleveland, either. Even more troublesome is the fact that Toronto and Cleveland are potential first-round playoff opponents for us, which makes the possibility of an early vacation for us much more immediate.

As MME wrote at Bold 'n' Blue, the Magic are the only team in the NBA this season to beat Boston and Detroit twice each. However, one win against each of those teams came on a game-winning shot, and another came down to a missed last-second shot by the opponent. Only one, the most recent victory over the Pistons, was decisive by any stretch of the imagination.

On the day of the trade deadline, I considered Detroit the most formidable of any of these plus-.500 teams. Now that Boston has added two talented, savvy, playoff-proven veterans, I'm even more frightened of them. In last season's playoffs, Detroit's Chris Webber and Dale Davis (who no longer play for the Pistons) hacked Dwight Howard into a funk he could not shake. They intimidated him. The Celtics now have P.J. Brown, who can similarly pester Dwight. Celtics coach Doc Rivers can also dust-off Scot Pollard, who is good for six fouls a game. Meanwhile, Sam Cassell has 115 games of playoff experience, and still has the skills to pick-apart younger point guards; see this season's 35-point undressing of the Pacers' Jamaal Tinsley for proof.

Theo Ratliff is finally healthy, and he gives the Pistons the same toughness that Davis and Webber provided them last year. He's still a good shot-blocker, and can be trusted in late-game situations; in the fourth quarter of Game 7 in a playoff series, with Rasheed Wallace fouled out, Pistons coach Flip Saunders will go with Ratliff over emerging youngster Amir Johnson 11 times out of 10.

Cleveland is similarly tougher with Ben Wallace and Joe Smith. Even with Wallace's declining skills, he's still more of a banger than Drew Gooden ever was or ever will be. Adding those two guys to a frontcourt that already boasted Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Anderson Varejao makes the Cavaliers a team built for hard-nosed playoff basketball. Also, they have LeBron James.

As for Toronto, they're already a better team. As ESPN.com's John Hollinger mentioned yesterday (Insider, although it's free for right now), Toronto has a better point differential than we do, and point differential is a better indicator of a team's ability that won-loss record is:

Let's put it more simply: The Raps aren't beating people, they're killing them. Toronto topped Milwaukee by 31, Washington by 39, Miami by 32, Minnesota by 23 and 22, New Jersey by 18, Orlando by 17, and New York by 23. In a 16-game stretch, half their games were blowout wins.

Sum it up and you'll see in that modest-looking 16-game stretch [during which Toronto is 10-6] the Raptors are outscoring opponents by an impressive 10 points per game.

Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard play well against each other, so the real difference-making factor for the Raptors in a series against us is the point guard tandem of Jose Calderon and T.J. Ford. There's no way that either Jameer Nelson or Keyon Dooling can shut both of those guys down; they get into the lane at will and have the three-point shooters to make defenses pay for collapsing on them. The Raptors, as a team, shoot 40% from beyond the arc, is tops in the NBA.

So should we just give up and concede the conference to these teams? No, of course not. We can beat any of these teams in a playoff series, but the odds are decidedly not in our favor. After reading this post by Matt at Hardwood Paroxysm, I decided to contact him to chat about D-League players who could help Orlando. Click "Permalink" below to read what he had to say.

Continue reading this post »

Tim Povtak has the scoop on the Magic's trade-deadline "activity," which yielded no roster moves. Here's an infuriating quote from the article:

"You have to ask yourself, 'is there something out there that could make us better?' The answer was 'no,'" said Magic General Manager Otis Smith. "So I'm not disappointed at all. I like what we have right now."

I understand Otis is worried about chemistry or whatever, but clearly there were big-men available. The Bulls dumped both Ben Wallace and Joe Smith today, receiving Drew Gooden in return. Less conspicuously, the Pistons dumped Primoz Brezec. And yesterday, the SuperSonics dumped Kurt Thomas. Povtak's article mentions the Magic were in the running for Thomas, but Otis was reluctant to part with Carlos Arroyo in the deal. Carlos Arroyo was the sticking point in a deal to acquire Kurt Thomas?! He was our best trade asset; not only was he the best player we had with an expiring contract, but his contract had the highest value ($4 million). A Jameer Nelson/Keyon Dooling tandem at point guard would have worked just fine. Sure, an injury to one of those guys would have sapped our depth, but not as badly as one might think. Hedo Turkoglu can handle the ball and is more than capable of playing point forward. Ugh.

This whole deadline has been incredibly disappointing. Cleveland certainly improved by acquiring Wallace, Smith, and Wally Szczerbiak, and now shuld be considered a more talented team than the Magic. Add to that the fact that Toronto's Chris Bosh and Jose Calderon both consistently crush us, and we suddenly don't look so good.

The trek to a championship just got a whole lot more perilous.

UPDATE: Some Magic fans are calling for Otis Smith to be fired after his decision not to make a move at the deadline. Hrm.

UPDATE #2: John Denton got Otis to comment on not trading the expiring contracts:

"If we would have [traded the expiring contracts], it might have precluded us from doing anything this summer. I like the flexibility. What you are taking back for those expiring contracts has to be something that you really like. And in a lot of cases it just wasn't much better than what we had already."

Um, what? Trading an expiring contract would have let us upgrade the team significantly right now, plus we'd still have the mid-level exception to use on another solid rotation player this summer. Now, we'll only have the mid-level. We had the chance to upgrade two positions; now, we'll only be able to upgrade one. Nice going.

Otis also mentioned that Tony Battie will not return at any point this season, not even for the playoffs. Brian Cook, come on down!

Dwight Howard dunks down 2 of his career-high 39 points against the Sonics on Wednesday night.
Photo by Joe Murphy, NBAE/Getty Images

It took career-highs from two key Magic players for the team to knock off the 2-13 SuperSonics, but they pulled it off in the end by going on a 17-2 run to close out the game. Here's the boxscore.

Dwight Howard posted 39 points, 16 rebounds, and 5 blocks, picking up the slack left by teammate Rashard Lewis, who managed just 9 points on 3-of-19 shooting in his return to Seattle. Carlos Arroyo, playing more minutes to accommodate an ailing Jameer Nelson, ran the offense splendidly by handing out 14 assists, a career-high, while committing only 1 turnover.

The game was much closer than the final score indicates, but it should not have been that way. The SuperSonics were a miserable 34-of-96 from the field, but managed to hang around thanks to a pesky zone defense and a plethora of offensive rebounds. Credit them for sticking with a far superior team and for not giving up on the game.

But credit the Magic for not giving up on their game plan. Despite the team's 7-of-26 mark from three-point range, Hedo Turkoglu didn't hesitate when he jacked a three-pointer with 2:31 remaining. It went in, boosting the Magic's lead to 102-94. Keith Bogans hit three pointers on consecutive possessions to ice the game for Orlando. Stan Van Gundy has made it clear to his players that they are to shoot the three-pointer if it presents itself, percentages be damned, and that strategy keyed the Magic's win this evening.

One of the Magic's keys to victory was J.J. Redick, who filled in for Keyon Dooling at backup shooting guard. Redick scored his first 11 points of the season on just 5 shot attempts to give the Magic an offensive boost.

The Magic get Thursday off before facing the Suns in Phoenix on Friday. They'll need all the rest they can get.

Half-awake notes:

• Rashard may have stunk it up from the field, but he did manage to pull down 10 boards, a season high.
• Kevin Durant and Wally Szczerbiak combined for 44 of Seattle's points... and shot a combined 12-of-41. Efficiency is not a hallmark of SuperSonics basketball, at least not this season.
• By my unofficial count, Dwight had 6 dunks.