Some links on a Friday night for you all...
- The J.J. Redick Trade Odyssey continues. Otis Smith told Brian Schmitz he has no plans to trade J.J. "at this point." Schmitz believes Smith might be more inclined to deal Keith Bogans instead. If J.J. can't crack the rotation this year, he's not ever going to crack it, and the team should unload him.
- Tony Battie is looking forward to returning to the Magic's lineup this year, as he tells John Denton. Battie says he should come off the bench, saying of the starting lineup, "If it's not broke, don't fix it." I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. Part of me thinks he should start and Hedo Turkoglu should move to the bench as a low-rent version of the San Antonio Spurs' Manu Ginobili. The other part of me agrees with Tony. We'll see what happens in camp. I doubt Stan Van Gundy changes the starting lineup, though.
- The Orlando Magic are hosting their Select-A-Seat event this Sunday, September 28th, from 12:00-3:00 at the Amway Arena. Choose your seat for next season while meeting Magic players and coaches. Details at the team's website.
- The NBA Store now has Dwight Howard,
Rashard Lewis(EDIT: no Lewis jerseys at NBA.com, but they are available at OrlandoMagicShop.com. I really should get my vision checked...), Hedo Turkoglu, and Jameer Nelson jerseys for sale in a variety of styles. - Doug Smith, a Toronto Raptors beat reporter and one of my favorite mainstream media bloggers, tells a mailbag question submitter that he doesn't think Hedo Turkoglu will leave Orlando when he opts-out next summer. Teams with cap space aren't going to waste it on a borderline All-Star type next summer when they can instead save it on a bona-fide franchise cornerstone in 2010.
- The parade of NBA teams unveiling new uniforms continued last night as our neighbors from
America's HatCanada, the Toronto Raptors, showed off their new black threads. Very nice, especially the maple leaf on the back. Can't wait for the Magic to back to black in 2010. - The Milwaukee Bucks also unveiled an alternate jersey earlier this week. They went red. I'm not a huge fan of the color -- it reminds me of that weird ketchup-like alt the SuperSonics had in the mid-90s -- but I love that the city's name is across the front. BrewHoop agrees.
- The Chicago Bulls invited banging D-League power forward Elton Brown, among a few other players, to training camp. I'd love to have seen Brown in Orlando, but Dwayne Jones should do nicely, too.
- Finally, in a bit of site-related news, all SB Nation sites are now mobile friendly. Read more about it at Blog Nation, the network's official blog. I can't wait to
stealborrow my roommate's iPhone to see how 3QC looks.