As you may have noticed, Getty removed the pictures which depicted the new uniforms for the Magic, Timberwolves, and Kings from its website. Apologies if you didn't manage to catch them in time.
Onto the news...
- Beyond the Arc, a Grizzlies-centered blog, refutes a recent internet report from an NBA website which stated the Grizzlies and Magic were discussing a trade involving Memphis shipping Javaris Crittenton to Orlando for the rights to Fran Vazquez. Those discussions never took place, according to the Grizzlies' owner, Michael Heisley. If they had, I'd worry for Mr. Heisley's sanity. (HT: Ball Don't Lie)
- In a fairly meaningless Olympic tune-up, Team USA defeated Team Turkey (which played without Hedo Turkoglu or Mehmet Okur), 114-82. Dwight Howard had 14 points (7-of-8 FG) and a game-high 8 boards. Here's the boxscore.
- Orlando Magic Blog examined the players the Magic have lost this summer and raises a good question: who's going to absorb their minutes? Jameer Nelson, Mickael Pietrus, and Anthony Johnson better eat their Wheaties this year, that's for darn sure. Courtney Lee, too.
- After some intensive number-cruncing, The Arbitrarian has created the Model-Estimated Value (MEV), a statistic which seeks to accurately account for each player's value based on his box-score statistics. It's like John Hollinger's PER and Dave Barri's Wins Produced insofar as it sums-up a player's production in a single number. Anyway, this metric rates Dwight Howard as the sixth-most productive player in the league last season, trailing LeBron James, Chris Paul, Amare Stoudemire, Kobe Bryant, and Allen Iverson.
Otherwise, it's quiet on the Magic front. We're still waiting for them to acquire a third point guard and to unveil their new uniforms.