The Fan Voice: "Summer League Observations - Day 4"

By Live or Die Magic | July 13th, 2007


The Orlando Magic website has streaming video feeds of the Pepsi Summer League games, complete with a two man play-by-play team. The website also provides box scores, rosters, and short recaps. Basically, everything you need to know the outcome of each day’s games.

So what I hope to provide from my experience at the Pepsi Summer League is my observations – anecdotes, if you will – of what I saw and what it was like being there. Since I was there as a fan, I am certain that my experience was quite different than those of the coaches, players, and various other league and team staff. Please note, any opinion provided is mine alone, any quotes attributed are conversations that I personally overheard or took part in. This is meant strictly to be interesting and entertaining to my fellow Magic fans.

Deshawn Stevenson made an appearance at the Pepsi Pro Summer League on Thursday. He recently signed a contract with the Washington Wizards, who are not playing here this week. I can only assume that he still maintains a permanent residence here (you know, on the boat in Isleworth!). I actually wanted to go up and tell him that I feel bad about the way things ended here. In hind sight, I think he is a better option at the 2 spot than Keith Bogans.

Walking through the food area, I walked right by Scott Skiles. Up close, this guy is huge! He is much more built than he looks on camera. Plus, he is a legitimate 6 feet, 2 inches. He had an extremely attractive (and tall) woman with him. I assume this is his wife. I tried not to look at her too much, but what could I do, she was looking at me!

I noticed Brian Hill and Lawrence Frank (head coach of the Nets) talking just before the Magic game started. No word has come out yet about whether Hill is going to go back to the Nets as an assistant. But it would certainly be an advantage for the Nets to employ the former head coach of a team that should be serious competition for the Nets this year.

Thursday must have been “Kids Get In Free” Day. There were kids all over the Magic practice gym.

I thought it was strange that I hadn’t seen Patrick Ewing at all this week. Considering that he was hired to be our big man coach, I thought he would be here working with James Augustine and Marcin Gortat. It made me wonder if perhaps he was hired to strictly be Dwight Howard’s personal coach. I asked a Magic staffer about it and was told that Ewing had arranged in advance to be absent for a couple of weeks.

Speaking of “no shows…” Michael Jordan has been absent all week. Considering that he runs the basketball operations for the Charlotte Bobcats, I figured he would be here at least a little bit. Bernie Bickerstaff, who works with Jordan in the front office, has been here all week. I haven’t checked, but I guess it is possible that Jordan is scouting the Vegas Summer League.

I noticed quite a few spectators that seemed to be Eastern European, based on their appearance and language. It was hard to tell who they were with or where they were from because most of them were not wearing credentials.

I saw Bob Vander Weide for the first time this week. He stood talking to Dave Twardzik for a while. Incidentally, Twardzik had just gotten back from spending the first three days at the Vegas Summer League. He commented to the Sentinel’s Tim Povtak that he was in the gym from 1 PM to 9 PM each day.

Fellow Magic Message Boarder “Marc Acres 3:16” had asked “DB Magic Man” to find out what Larry Bird eats on his pizza (pizza was the food being served on Thursday). Word came back that Larry Bird did not grab any pizza (Larry Bird doesn’t eat pizza??!!) but did grab a bag of Doritos and a Pepsi.

I noticed a group of Orlando Magic Ticket Sales representatives watching the games. No truth to the rumor that they were running around telling all the fans that we had signed Darko, Gerald Wallace, and Steve Blake.


Bulls vs. Magic

Otis Smith and Dave Twardzik watched the game from the top of the bleachers. Stan Van Gundy watched the game from the other end of the bleachers. He was sitting and chatting with a gentleman I did not recognize. Lon Kruger watched his son Kevin from courtside

Thebo Sefolosha and JJ Redick guarded each other throughout the game. Both players took a bunch of shots, but shot poorly. Still, I’d say that JJ had the better game. JJ played adequate defense against Thebo, but Thebo was obviously quicker. JJ had trouble getting open for shots against Thebo, but he was able to take Thebo off the dribble several times.

JJ Redick once again seemed to take charge of the team. At the end of both halves, he was responsible for a several key baskets that allowed the Magic to maintain a sizable lead. At the end of the 1st half, it was three assists in a row in the closing minutes. At the end of the 2nd half, it was two huge baskets (including a 3 ball) to close out the victory.

I am completely sold on Marcin Gortat. The guy can play. He is still raw, but he is eager to compete and learn. You can just tell that he wants to be here. He is also a sponge for knowledge from the coaching staff, as evidenced by the intensity with which he was listening to Magic assistant coach Brendan Malone during timeouts or when Gortat was on the bench. I could just be hearing things, but when the Magic coaching staff call Marcin, it sounds like they are saying “Martian.”

I do hope now that Darko is out of the picture, we can bring Gortat over. He may not be the answer right now at power forward, but if the rumors are true that we may be playing Rashard Lewis at the 4, then having Gortat coming off the bench for 20 minutes a game would be beneficial to him and to us.

More about Gortat…the guy has a very soft outside touch. He is slightly smaller and quicker than Mario Kasun. He is an extremely effective blocker. He has several monster blocks during Thursday’s game. More importantly, all of his blocks were one-on-one blocks. I’m not saying that he can’t block weak side, but it is nice to see that he can block a fellow post player (even if the player is Aaron Gray).

Incidentally, Aaron Gray and Marcin Gortat are both listed as 7 feet tall, but Gray appears to be slightly taller when looking at the two players standing side by side.

Joakim Noah, sitting in street clothes on the Bulls bench, was trying out for the title of “Highest Paid Cheerleader.” He had a chair, but I’m not sure he needed it, what with his standing up after every play. Oh, and Noah is a LOUD clapper!

Magic draft pick Milovan Rakovic, who hasn’t gotten into the games yet (I believe he is injured), looks, um…..tall.

For the second half I sat courtside (instead of in the bleachers). I was sitting next to “DB Magic Man,” and “Magic Matt.” Both guys are on the Magic staff and work closely with Rock Chalk. DB Magic Man fields the email questions that come through the website and then sends the good ones up to Dante and George, who then answer the questions on air during the webcasts. All the Magic staffers get a big kick out of listening to Dante and George on the webcasts. I suggested that a “best of” audio clip needs to be made from the five days worth of material.

My seat at courtside was the last seat closest to the Magic bench, so I was less than 10 feet from where the players and coaching staff gathered during timeouts. It was very interesting to listen to Magic assistant coach Steve Clifford talking to his players late in the game about the importance of getting stops late in the game. The Magic were up by 10, but there was still 5 minutes to go. The Bulls made a small push to try to get back in it, but the Magic did get some stops (and some big buckets late by JJ) and pulled out the victory.


This message was not subject of approval by the NBA or the Orlando Magic. The views expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect the views of the Orlando Magic or the NBA, but solely the writer.

"My life will go on, this much I know. Cars and games will come and go. But never once will I forgetta, the way we danced, dear Dick Bavetta." - from "I Left My Heart In Dick Bavetta"

I appreciate you and DB finding out the important stuff for me!

What is this about Larry liking fireworks?

Was JJ trying to create his own shot or were they running him off screens against Thabo. I doubt we have him creating during the season too much so I'm curious if Thabo was controlling him off screens or not since that is probably what we will be doing with him.

I don't know if B-Hill will help the Nets too much against us, he has no clue what JJ does on the court nor will he recognize anything about our offense.

Great stuff!

What your impressions of the new assistants after listening to them and seeing them in action?

Did you see any expressions by Otis or SVG that showed they were pleased with the play of Gortat and JJ?

great read (again) :-)

about P. Ewing - SimPOL said that M. Gortat told him that Patrick will start practices with team after Summer League, because now he is only some days after operation.

so Thabo was guarding JJ ? interesting, when I saw low percentage on JJ account then a suspect that some really good defender was guarding him,
but Thabo was held to low percentage also, so JJ defense was probably quite good too

btw: where is Day 3 report ? :-)

I am officially on the bring Gortat to camp bandwagon!

Hey Live or Die, surely you were close enough to players and or the action to give us a little more insider scoop than this?(Lol)

Seriously, give us "all" the gossip you heard.

quote:

Originally posted by ball junkie:
Hey Live or Die, surely you were close enough to players and or the action to give us a little more insider scoop than this?(Lol)

Seriously, give us "all" the gossip you heard.

Well, I WAS close, but it wasn't like I was sitting in their laps or anything. Also, as a fan (and not a member of the media), I struggled a bit with being "star struck" and I often was a bit nervous about approaching people. But the last day, I was more comfortable.