SATOLS

This isn't on YBR. Don't shoot the messenger. But YBR, I hope Dwight knows that leaving Orlando is no guarantee he's going to win titles either. T-Mac thought he and Yao were destined to win some, too, and they never made it out of the first round. The Lakers were the only team he ever said he would play for that really would give him a chance to win one. Dwight should also keep in mind through all his fury that Orlando did do a lot, too. They've been more successful than about 25 other NBA teams in the time that he's been here. They did at least get him to the Finals, which most other teams cannot say in that span. It cost them a lot to do that, too, though Otis didn't spend money very wisely (don't get his whole belief that it's only about the money; they have spent more to try to help him than 28 other teams have spent the past few seasons). They made his dream of being the No. 1 pick come true (and were criticized roundly for it by the same people that his agent has crushing the Magic now). They set up the entire team to feature Dwight. They hired coaches that could help improve his game, especially his defense. Some of his teammates sacrificed some of their own games so he could be featured. The Magic promoted him for DPOY, all-NBA and MVP. He has the misfortune of playing at the same time as Lebron, who the media decided would be the player of his generation before either of them even had been drafted (S.I. cover story when Lebron was a junior in HS). Same thing happened to guys in Jordan's era. Yes, Orlando has just been awful to him. They have made some mistakes, no doubt. But it's not for a lack of trying.

With the reports out there now, roster moves were not going to be enough to satisfy him if Hennigan had walked in there with a handful of them ready to present to him. According to what we read tonight, he has no desire to set foot in Orlando again, he still cannot understand why the Magic disrespected him by not trading him to either the Nets or the Lakers for late draft picks and a bunch of contracts it doesn't want, he went on a tirade at Hennigan for not doing so, and he didn't bother listening to anything Hennigan had to say about the Magic's future because he will not be a part of it. That's pretty definitive. This might shock Dwight, but the Magic are likely pretty frustrated with him, too. He has spent the previous year, for which he always was under contract, making life very difficult for the Magic and the fans that he has claimed to love so much. I'm sure he doesn't care about that. But he will end up winning this battle no matter what happens so it seems a little out of place that he is reportedly so furious.

I'm not going to go that far. If your goal isn't to win, then what's the point? That's a loser's attitude. I mean, I guess we have to accept that the Magic are going to have to rebuild. But it sucks -- because why? The Lakers never have to rebuild. The Celtics supposedly were going to have to rebuild, and they have set themselves up for the Next Generation. It shouldn't get to the point that we have to start over every 5 years.

Hate to say it, but I don't know if this is true, at least as far as HWNSNBU is concerned. I have read that HWNSNBU and Cuban are good friends. That Dallas team that won the title.....like a third of that team was made up of HWNSNBU's clients. And a significant dollar figure of the players under contract to the Mavs in the upcoming season are on expiring deals.

Larry Ridley is in the TV business (just like Ping and all the ESPN hot shots), not the newspaper business.

Tony Mejia has been covering the Magic and the NBA for Pro Basketball News (lives in Orlando, though) for AT LEAST a decade. Guy is on the radio every week on 1080 in Orlando. Not a homer.

So, Larry Ridley (WESH news director, since everyone always asks) talks to someone in Dwight's family over the weekend and is told that Dwight expects to start the season with the Magic. Then Broussard writes this. ESPN told him they needed some news that wasn't Penn State-related. Sounds to me like a new tactic from Dwight's camp (discourage suitors in hopes he still ends up in Brookyn). All the "insider" trolls the past couple days are good at reading the rumors that have been going on since before the trade deadline and throwing them up together in large posts as "inside information." There is nothing in any of those posts that you couldn't have found on the web sometime in the past few months. I call bull on all of them. But they are entertaining. Kind of ironic that everyone just keeps saying, "Just get a deal done already. We just want it over." So, in a way, the length of time it has taken has made it easier for Magic fans to accept? Magic will love that. They figure no one will be mad at them when it's done.

I'm thinking that there are some "sources close to Dwight Howard" or representatives of "sources close to Dwight Howard" who are posting on this board and trying to influence opinion. And I don't mean YBR. Anyone who thinks that T-Mac didn't have plenty to say even after the Magic traded him to Houston (his desired destination) clearly didn't spend much time reading NBA-related media during his first season in Houston. I'm pretty sure he did one with SI that was pretty bad. We can expect the same once Dwight is gone, whether he ends up with a team he wants to go to or not. He's already put DMs out there to at least one of his Twitter followers and leaked some of his complaints via "sources close to Dwight Howard." Re: Agents. The Magic have spent years paying some of their clients more than anyone else likely would pay them and/or putting them in position to receive plenty of recognition and awards (and more often than not, in the playoffs). So far, it hasn't really helped the Magic much when it really counts.

Well, if you believe Ping (don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger), he also said in that Fox radio interview that the LEAGUE (as in NBA front office, not other owners) wants Dwight in L.A. because it needs another top-of-the-line team in the West to go with the Thunder. And it doesn't think the Lakers as currently constructed are at that level and that they need him for after when Kobe retires. It's fine with the teams in the East (Miami, Boston, Chicago, New York). I'm not saying I believe that. As far as why Hennigan is in Vegas....most of the league GMs are there so it's easier to make deals that way -- whether it's signing free agents or trades. He can talk face-to-face with the Lakers and Rockets GMs. Or anyone else who wants to talk with him. There also was a report that HWNSNBU was meeting with the Lakers today so they could try to convince him to get Dwight to extend. But who knows if that's true? Someone also said today that at the end of this week, all the Magic execs are taking a week off -- no matter what is still on the table. Seems kind of strange to me considering how much is still to be resolved, but who knows if it's true.

Thought you'd like to know that David Pingalore, the sports director at WKMG who was the first guy to report that Dwight wanted Stan fired, was on JT the Brick's radio show overnight (Fox) pretty much bragging that he is responsible for the Magic's situation. He said that Dwight was really embarrassed about how things unfolded with that Stan news conference and from then on, he probably was too sensitive to come back because of what happened because he wants to be liked. And for those of you who think that means Dwight's reputation is done, J.T. (who is in Vegas) and his broadcast partner, Tom Looney (sp?), who is in L.A., pretty much said, "Oh he just has some bad PR. He'll get to L.A. and win some titles and everyone will love him again." (FWIW, J.T. is a Knicks fan, and Looney is a Lakers fan.) And Ping then said, "Well, if the Magic don't end up taking Bynum back, they'll probably get some cheap draft picks and just start over from the ground up." J.T. asked how the fans, especially the season ticket holders, were going to react to that. And Ping said, in essence, well, they've had some people cancel season tickets, but the people here are used to that because they already had it happen to them with Shaq. So, I just thought you'd like to know that Ping is bragging about being responsible for what has happened to the Magic. If you're a Magic fan, you might want to think about never watching that channel, or at least its local news. Ping is pretty much laughing at the Magic and all their fans now. You can be pretty sure that he'll make fun of them every chance he gets, too.

We obviously have no idea what kind of head coach any of these guys would be so I can't pretend to know who would be better. But the thing I liked about both Shaw and Malone was experience. Shaw had been an assistant for 6-7 years, and Malone has been an assistant for 10-plus years. Both have been lead assistants, too. Vaughn, for example, has been an assistant for just 2 years, and he's at most the No. 3 guy in San Antonio. Yes, we know they are rebuilding. But if it doesn't work and you have to fire the coach after a couple years, then you're starting over again because the new guy would bring his own philosophy and maybe want an entirely different group of players and system. I worry when the Magic start thinking outside the box. It just seems like a bad idea to have an entire organization of people who have never done what they are being hired to do. And I'm getting antsy about these "details" they are trying to work out in Jameer's contract. They've been working on contract details for 6 days?

I'm not saying you had to be an NBA player to be a coach. A lot of the guys who weren't NBA PGs are assistant coaches for a long time before becoming a head coach. But most of the former point guards who are NBA coaches were good point guards -- i.e., Doc Rivers, Mark Jackson, Skiles. Avery Johnson was at least known as a motivating floor leader. Vinny Del Negro was nothing to scream about either, but he was OK. Not all former NBA PGs were good coaches either. Johnny Davis was an NBA point guard, too, (and he won a championship) but hasn't panned out as a head coach (though he supposedly is a real good assistant). So, you're honestly going to tell me that you are confident that Jacque Vaughn will be a good NBA head coach? Because it makes so much sense if you are planning to have a team mostly with guys who haven't played in the NBA to have a coach who has limited experience coaching in the NBA (Vaughn 2 years as an assistant and Hunter 1 year). Or are you just disagreeing to disagree with me?

If the Magic hire Jacque Vaughn as their head coach, then either everyone else told them no, or they are just trying to punish the fans. They won't be trying to build for the future. They'll just be biding their time. For God's sake, the best things you could say about Vaughn as a player was he didn't turn over the ball and he was an adequate defender. Hennigan needs to get a look at some old game film. The Magic hated him as a PLAYER so much that they only kept him on the roster one season. He played 10-plus years but never averaged better than 6.6 pts and 4.3 assists.

The guy who is in charge of the Kings' basketball operations is the same guy who put together the Sacramento roster that was so good for so many years and nearly beat the Shaq/Kobe Lakers in the Western Conference Finals a while back ago. When did facts become negative? They are what they are. We don't know if Hennigan knows what he is doing yet. I'm not saying that he doesn't. But the only thing he's done so far is fire people and make 2 draft picks.

There is a happy medium there somewhere -- not all young guys or all aging vets. We'll see. I've seen how the swings on this forum go. Today, you love it. In the next year, you'll want to fire everyone. The history of going all young just doesn't look that good to me. Just because it worked for the Thunder/Sonics (after 6 years, 5 of which were in Seattle) doesn't mean it's going to work that way every time.