In trying to crank out the Team Previews and actually get them finished, I let Rachel take one off my hands. I’m sure no one will notice.
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Addition by subtraction and then addition. That’s what the Magic did. They let Darko and Grant Hill go and landed Rashard Lewis. The Magic Dancers are hoping for the same kind of equation as they lost a few promising young ladies, brought back a bunch of middle of the road girls, and fleshed out the roster with what we in the business would call “upside potential.”
(Also, this blog should totally have been called Upside Potential)
Anywho, to check out a semi-retrospective of last year’s dance squad, check out Black and Blue Magic’s August Archive. You have to get about half way down and there’s a dancer tournament. It acutally starts in July, so you can go back there if you want to see more.
As for a semi-retrospective of the Magic fantasy team… check this:
Last Season’s Ratings (without TOs, with TOs):
14, 9 – Rashard Lewis
50, 98 – Dwight Howard
105, 114 – Hedo Turkoglu
113, 151 – Jameer Nelson
186, 207 – Trevor Ariza
239, 237 – Tony Battie
230, 238 – Keyon Dooling
289, 251 – J.J. Redick
255, 272 – Carlos Arroyo
292, 276 – Keith Bogans
308, 279 – Adonal Foyle
394, 383 – Pat Garrity
434, 393 – James Augustine
NR, NR – Marcin Gortat
NR, NR – Mikolan Rakovic
I put in the ratings with and without turnovers because in this case, it seems to demonstrate a pretty profound problem (hooray for consonance). If you’re drafting Dwight Howard, you know he’s going to hurt your FT% (8.1 attempts per game at 59%). But it might also help (or hurt) to note how much he’s going to kill your Turnovers, if that’s a category in your league (3.9 turnovers per game). The turnovers, though, should go down this season, because that generally happens as players get more experience and learn how to take care of the ball better.
Magic Starting Lineup:
PG: Jameer Nelson
SG: Trevor Ariza
SF: Rashard Lewis
PF: Hedo Turkoglu
C: Dwight Howard
With Ariza coming in at 186/207, there’s not a lot beyond the starting lineup that you’ll want to take in your draft. The Magic’s rookies, um, I’ve never heard of them. I’m pretty sure that any rookies who will be worth having on your team, I would have heard of them. Trust me. I don’t just follow the cheerleaders.
At least the Magic didn’t go after this guy:
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So here’s where you should draft these guys:
Dwight Howard – 2nd round
Rashard Lewis – 2nd round
Jameer Nelson – late 7th/early 8th round
Trevor Ariza – last round if there’s more than 12 rounds
Hedo Turkoglu – last round if there’s more than 12 rounds
And here’s some gratuitous cheerleader pics:
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Okay… so I’ve been waiting a while to bust out this kind of joke. Thank You Isaiah did it first with the Luolcats, and I think it’s pretty much the greatest thing ever. If you don’t get the reference, please click here. I would like to thank Rachel for giving me the opportunity to finally make use of the Lolcat Generator. I knew it had to be good for more than just cats.
If you’ve read this far, you may have noticed that I didn’t make LOL versions of the first two pictures that Rachel had in her gratuitous section. I leave that as a challenge to the reader. The first one should be pretty easy, but I couldn’t come up with anything short enough to fit on the picture. And yeah, I know the rock in mai boot one isn’t that funny. You want your money back or something?