Done deal: Magic sends Vince Carter and others to Phoenix for Jason Richardson, Hedo Turkoglu
Matt Moore
Otis Smith just swung for the fences. We’ll see if he connects.
The Orlando Magic have traded Vince Carter, Mikael Pietrus, and Marcin Gortat to the Phoenix Suns for Jason Richardson, Hedo Turkoglu, and Earl Clark. The Magic have also traded Rashard Lewis to the Washington Wizards for Gilbert Arenas.
ESPN,
CBSSports.com, and
Yahoo! Sports have all confirmed the deal.
Here’s how it breaks down:
Orlando:
Orlando wants to win now. Not for the next few years, not down the line, growing together like a bunch of young saplings. Now. Otis Smith has acquired a dynamic scorer and playmaker in Gilbert Arenas who is not shooting well this year (39%) but has a chance to get some space now that he’s in Orlando. They acquired a power driving dunk artist with prolific three-point range in Jason Richardson, Hedo Turkoglu who is now old and not nearly the player he was two years ago, a first-round draft pick and Earl Clark, who will never see the floor, ever.
Gilbert Arenas has shown flashes of his scoring ability that made him so prolific four seasons ago. He managed to work reasonably well off-ball in Washington, and in Orlando will be granted license to run the offense. Jameer Nelson can work off-ball in conjunction with Arenas. How he’ll work with Dwight Howard will be a significant issue to keep an eye on. Arenas has never worked with a player like Howard before, and he’ll have to maintain the “it’s his team” at ude he had with Wall.
Richardson is the big win in this trade for Orlando. He’s averaging 19 points on 42% three-point shooting and he’ll get just as many open looks in Orlando. The question will be if he can play the kind of defense Stan Van Gundy will need him to and how he’ll fit in with the rotation. But Richardson is a clutch performer who has a history with Arenas in Golden State and should be thrilled to be going to a contender again.
Hedo Turkoglu is a no-lose option for the Magic. If he’s terrible, the team is deep enough not to worry about it. If he’s able to recapture anything close to what they had two years ago, they’ve got another great player to go to. His contract is long. So was Rashard Lewis’. And as we’ve seen today, no contract is unmovable.
Phoenix:
The future is later. Despite Steve Nash still being Steve Nash, the Suns have moved towards the future. Vince Carter is an expiring contract, they acquired a first round pick to build with, and ditched Hedo Turkoglu’s contract. They’re obviously moving towards the future. You have to wonder if this is a capitulation by Robert Sarver to move towards saving money. Vince Carter may experience a resurgence in Phoenix as so many players have with their training staff. But in the end, he’s just not a very good player anymore and not a player you can depend on in key situations. Losing Turkoglu at least clears up their frontcourt rotation and will allow Hakim Warrick more minutes. Phoenix looks towards the future.
Washington:
The Arenas-Butler-Jamison era is finally washed away completely. Agent Zero is over. Rashard Lewis is a marginal player at this point with a massive contract, but now the team is John Wall‘s, 100%. The Gilbert Arenas era is through. They’re a bad team and they just got worse. But they do save a slight bit of money and can try and take a new approach in order to move towards the Wall-led future. It was over before it started for the Arenas Show in Washington. You’ve got to move forward eventually. They chose now.
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