Orlando Magic News for October 26th: Dwight Howard's Power to Shape the NBA, the Need for More Offense, Pregame Festivities, and More

Mike Prada, my SB Nation pal and the head honcho at Bullets Forever, lists Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard as the most important figure in the entire NBA this season. Why? "[T]here remains no player in the NBA more capable of completely dominating both ends of the floor," Prada says. But if Howard doesn't make the leap this year, then "Orlando's title window pretty much ends."

At The Point Forward, Zach Lowe wonders if Orlando has enough perimeter offense:

Stan Van Gundy has spent the preseason experimenting with ways to make his team’s offense less predictable. Will it be enough? Or do the Magic need to look elsewhere, perhaps dangling [Vince] Carter’s partially guaranteed 2011-12 deal as bait?

The Magic will pull out all the stops for their first regular-season game at Amway Center this Thursday against the Washington Wizards. According to a press release, "the team will hold a special pregame presentation [...] culminating with a high energy video on the NBA’s tallest, most high-definition, center-hung videoboard." The release advises fans attending the game to reach their seats by 7:55 so they won't miss the action. An outdoor "Fan Fest" on Church Street, between Hughey and Division, will start at 6.

Good buddy Eddy Rivera contributed an essay about LeBron James to Voice on the Floor, a new NBA audio blog--not a podcast--from the indefatigable duo of Matt Moore and Rob Mahoney. Give it a listen, won't you?

Boston-area radio station WEEI asked me to write a few words about the Magic and the Celtics for its season preview. You can find the resulting paragraphs here.

John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com says second-round draft choice Stanley Robinson, whom the team waived last week, "is expected to go to Europe to play" due to the more lucrative contracts teams over there offer compared to what he might earn in the D-League. Denton also says Robinson could "resurface" in the NBA "if he continues to improve."

Via Twitter, Sam Amico says the Magic might be interested in free-agent shooting guard Rashad McCants. The Magic just waived Robinson, earning quite literally the smallest possible NBA salary, to save money, so I have a hard time believing they'd pony up to add a third-stringer, but maybe I'm wrong.

McCants, a scoring machine who's averaged 10 points in 20.2 minutes per game over his four NBA seasons, didn't play in the league last season. That he can't find work is surprising, even given his reputation for being a knucklehead.