Orlando won't be doing much in the offseason. Vince is staying, Barnes may be leaving, and Orlando won't make a blockbuster trade like we all hope we would.
Vince will likely be staying:
Magic GM Otis Smith told the Sentinel that he "anticipates" Vince Carter remaining with the team.
Barnes will opt out:
Matt Barnes will not exercise his player option for the 2010-11 season, but he added that he hopes to return to the Orlando Magic.
“As for me and my contract situation, I’m going to opt out,” Barnes told reporters gathered at RDV Sportsplex this morning.
“Always worrying about the team and stuff like that is something you have to do during the season, and I’m 100 percent with that. But now it’s about me and my family and what’s best for us. I’ve expressed throughout the season that I’ve loved my time here and would love to return. But I think I know more than anybody that this is a business. The organization has to do what’s best for the team. Hopefully, I impressed them enough to bring me back and give me something decent, but we’ll have to wait and see about that.”
Barnes was slated to make $1.6 million for the 10-11 season.
No major moves imminent:
Magic general manager Otis Smith doesn't plan on overhauling the team's roster this summer.
"We're not a team that's that far away, so I can't sit here and say, 'Yeah, we're going to make all these drastic changes because we're miles away,' " Smith said Monday. "We're not miles away. We're not at the bottom third of our league. We're at the top of our league.
"And with that said, we have to do things diligently and with the understanding of the aspect that we're putting the team-slash-puzzle together and that everything is going to have to fit."
Orlando made it to the NBA Finals last year, but still opted not to retain Hedo Turkoglu, while acquiring Vince Carter. They were eliminated by Boston in the Eastern Conference Finals on Friday.
"The season was great," center Dwight Howard said. "We just didn't finish what we started."
Smith made similar comments last spring, claiming he wouldn't shake up the team's roster before he pulled the strings that ultimately landed Turkoglu in Toronto and Carter in Orlando.
With all of that said, we can expect an offseason much like the last. Not many major moves, just signing some role players. A good offseason for me would simply be resigning Barnes and JJ, and addressing the backup PG situation. I expect a trade involving one of our PFs, as well.
This FanPost was made by a member of the Orlando Pinstriped Post community, and is to be treated as the opinions and views of its author, not that of the blogger or blog community as a whole.
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