12/21/24
June 26, 2009
Orlando Magic Trade for Vince Carter: The Orlando Magic have traded Rafer Alston, Courtney Lee and Tony Battie to the New Jersey Nets for Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson. This is a homecoming for Carter, who grew up in Daytona Beach 45 minutes' drive from Orlando and won a state championship for Mainland High School. He was teaching at his basketball camp in Orlando when the news broke.
posted by rcade to basketball at 02:21 PM - 6 comments
It was going to be tough for the Magic to afford Hedo Turkoglu, and they probably had to trade either Alston or Jameer Nelson. I've wanted to see Carter come home for a while. I hope the team didn't wait too long.
posted by rcade at 02:24 PM on June 26, 2009
VC is in something like year 10 of his pro career? Give or take.
With that in mind, I thought they maybe gave up too much for him.
Lee seems to have promise, and went all the way to the Finals as a youngster with SVG as his coach. That is a heck of a nice developmental first year, with extra seasoning. Too bad they didn't keep him around to enjoy the upside.
The Magic are now on a win-now-or-bust track, like it or not.
Magic-Cavs just became a ton more interesting. The Celts are facing the possibility of being an afterthought in the East. Sometimes Ray Allen looks ageless...and then sometimes he doesn't. And those young Bulls are going to be hungry in the fall. They've tasted it now.
Billy Donovan, you've been busy grooming guys for the NIT of late. Are you sure you wouldn't want to be in the middle of all this?
posted by beaverboard at 02:58 PM on June 26, 2009
Turkoglu opted out today. I'm assuming, barring some major moves (Orlando's over the luxury tax threshold) that Vince will be at the 2, Rashard will move to 3 and maybe Ryan Anderson will start at 4? Either that or a combo of Pietrus/Reddick will get major minutes, which I'm not sure makes them a better team than having Turkoglu and Lee on the court.
posted by dfleming at 03:47 PM on June 26, 2009
I guess I'm leaving out the potential that Turkoglu goes under his market value and re-signs, in which case they're going to give everyone fits.
posted by dfleming at 03:51 PM on June 26, 2009
I have to agree with the Beav, even though Courtney Lee was a rookie, he played very well in the playoffs and my thinking is that he and the Magic could have capitalized on that next season. The Magic's loss is the Nets gain with Devin Harris running the point and the rest of the cast being a young nucleus that has shown promise. It seems that the Nets letting VC go was another move towards the LeBron James sweepstakes in 2010 but if this team does in fact perform well next year, they might not need LBJ.
posted by BornIcon at 09:14 AM on June 29, 2009
The East is shaping up to be pretty interesting in the coming year.