Rebirth Of Turk

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Wha..Do the Homie? Nah...

 Ah, 2009. Memory's are hazy, but those were good times. Jamie Foxxx was blaming it on the Goose, Soulja Boy was idiotically begging to be kissed via telephone, and the Orlando Magic looked primed to be NBA bullies for years to come. After toppling the LeBron-led Cavs powerhouse, they battled the powerful Lakers admirably well before falling in the Finals. In the future, who could deal with their Mad Scientist line-up??? Dang, interchangable 6'10" forwards who could beat you off the bounce or stroke it from 3? A 7' beast of a center who ran like a guard and pummeled rims and shots with equal ferocity? A Mighty Mite PG with ice in his veins? "Man, as long as they grow together and add a real 2, these guys are trouble". And Hedo Turkoglu was the straw that stirred it; post up buckets, dimes, long treys, easy oops to Dwight Howard, he was the Do-It-All MC for these upstarts. The bad thing? He knew it. Never mind that the Magic system and this system ONLY was the one place that he would max out his good-at-alot-excel-at-nothing skillset. Hell, if Jerome James could parlay 12.5 ppg and fake hustle during a playoff run  into a $30 million contract, Hedo's 16-5-5 line was about to get him PAID. The cliched "it's a business" was bandied around by both sides and the Hedo was packing his bags (to be fair, who would TURN DOWN 56 mil?). And BOY, would they all be sorry.



Toronto was supposed to be on the CUSP in '09-'10: a veritable United Nations of talent from around the world, a statistically dominant power forward in Chris Bosh,  Uber-Euro wunderkind Andrea Bargnani, a front office not afraid to spend the cheese. Turk & Co. killed all that optimism right off the bat, playing uninspired, disjointed, defenseless ball, with Big Money Turk being a main culprit. Out of shape? Check. Disinterested? Check. Sulky? Uh-huh. Silly stuff like his his "stomach bug" party night drew hate, both sports AND legitimate, from even the biggest Raps supporters (PLEASE, read that Eric Wright diatribe. My blood got angered just reading it. Fantastic stuff). Portland breathed a sigh of relief for missing on him. So he was done, right? Washed up? Doomed to attempt to rejuvenate his career in Phoenix with Nash, while the Magic kept trying to convince themselves that Vince "pinata" Carter was a championship difference maker? He spent the summer trading nasty barbs with Toronto management, and was embarrassingly pathetic this season in Phoenix. Nash was the ball handler supreme, Jason Richardson was the designated scorer, Jared Dudley and Channing Frye the 3 point aces, Hakim Warrick was the nonrebounding power forward; Turk was QUADRUPLY useless.  The "if he only had stayed with the Magic" tsk-tskers were out in full force.

"You never left my heart."

But the Basketball Gods smile on the game; against all odds,  Zombie Turk has been resurrected in Orlando.  We all know where the story is at now, but it's a very, very rare thing that we're seeing in Orlando: a professional athlete leaving a situation, flaming out elsewhere, then actually coming "home" to success. Have we EVER seen it before? Steve Francis tried going back to Houston after his humbling turn with the Knicks. Um, that didn't work too well.  And honestly, how refreshing is it for a front office bigwig like Magic GM Otis Smith to not only admit making a mistake, but actually move to RECTIFY it?? As absolutely pathetic as Turk looked  with the Suns (again, to be fair, it's nigh-impossible to replace the preposterous Amare' Stoudemire production, but 9 ppg and 4 rpg for 10 mil a season really sucks), he's looked equally as good with the Magic. The 12.5 ppg isn't eye popping, but his 6.5 apg  and 5.3 rpg are both career highs. More important than all the numbers though, is his energy, his confidence, and his playmaking. He was Pouty in Toronto, Lost in PHX, now he's Turk in Orlando. That's what makes basketball so confoundingly hard to project; raw numbers, even advanced stats, don't necessarily tell the story. Anyone can take an average player and find statistics somewhere that make him seem like garbage, or like the Second Coming in disguise. A good team isn't just the talents of the players, it's a synergistic thing, where 2+3 isn't always 5; it might equal 7 ('04 Pistons), or it might equal 3 ('04 Lakers, Vince Carter). Turk is what he is, a tall, unathletic dude with a good feel for the game, no fear of the clutch who's the perfect 2nd or 3rd banana. Yeah, he was a cry-baby in Toronto and looked like a bum in Phoenix, but now back in Orlando, he's once again Turk the Jerk, nailing step back Js and flipping 13 foot high passes for Dwight Howard to lunch on, smiling like a madman the whole time. For fans of good basketball, it was kinda sad playing "what-if" when he left, and it's just as exciting watching Turk and Dwight re-develop that chemistry they had in The Good Old Days. We don't know if we can call it redemption; let's see how the next few years go. Personally, I'm just glad to see Vince Carter let off the hook of being a key peice on a good team, now he can return to the random 38 point explosion and extra-lacksadaisical play in games that don't matter. The NBA- Where Prodigal sons happen.

Oh, and this is what's tough about blogging; I'm finishing this,doing a lil more research, and find  articles in the same vein by better, smarter writers. Dang. Great reads, shout out to Kelly Dwyer at Yahoo's Ball Don't Lie and  Rob Mahoney at NY Times Off The Dribble blog, you guys get outta my head.

When The Smoke Clears...Magic Make Things Appear.

So there I was, it's 11 AM on a Saturday, I'm gettin' my head kicked in by a Statistics final, and my phone goes nuts. Texts. 3 missed calls. Twitter alerts. After I turned my test in, dried my tears of failure, it was time to see what the fuss was abo...DAMN! So Orlando is trying to do what the Cavs and the Raps couldn't do and and now the Nuggets and Hornets are trying so desperately to do: keep the Franchise content with his lot in the NBA landscape. Dwight Howard's locked in until 2012, and best believe, as jokey and "aw shucks" as he seems, he's got a shark's eye on the moves of the Heat, and the Bulls, and the moves that CP3 and 'Melo make. It's a business, the leagues Last Dominant Big wants to win. the Magic have been Mavs East (regular season juggernauts who look lost when they get ousted in the playoffs), so Orlando rolled the dice: Said "our bad",bringing back Turk, along with athletic streak scorer Jason Richardson and enigma Earl Clark, while shipping out the gutless VC, Martin Gortat, and Michael "Peaches" Pietrus. Almost simultaneously, they admitted that 'Shard Lewis fooled 'em into giving him that utterly ridiculous 119 million dollar (goddamn) contract and swapped him Gilbert Arenas, AKA 2010's fontrunner in the "Mike Vick Comeback Award". For some reason the rumbles seem to be that 1) Orlando panicked, that 2) replacing VC with Arenas/Richardson is a somehow a downgrade, and that 3) Turkoglu being brought back is pointless. Well, let's see...
1) Define "panic". Is it panic because, while the Magic looked unstoppable at times last season, especially in the 1st 2 rounds of the playoffs, the front office realized that the throttling they recieved by the Lakers 2 years ago and the thrashing the Celts laid on them in the '10 would continue if the Magic didn't make some significant moves? This team isn't the Blazers or the Thunder, being built painstakingly and lovingly via draft and shrewd midlevel free agents; the "let's be patient and let it marinate" tact won't fly, D. Howard's clock is ticking. Panic or not, this is what a GM is SUPPOSED to do; see your teams weaknesses and try to improve on them.

2) Richardson is a MUCH better defender than VC, and J-Rich in last year's playoffs was SPECTACULAR, providing timely scoring and clutch play. Arenas? For all the baggage; the bad knees, the bonehead gunplay, the silly "faked injuries", Arenas still has to be feared by the opposition for his scoring and his fearlessness in the clutch. Sure, the shooting percentages don't look good, but how quickly we forget the insanely clutch play Arenas showed just 3 years ago, when he was turning his back and celebrating while the ball was still in-flight on a last second shot he put up. Plus take into account that Gilbert was handed the keys to 2 of the most dysfunctional franchies out there, G-State and Washington. A team with strong leadership in Van Gundy  and an exceptionally bigger star like Orlando should bring out the best in Gil while keeping his insanity in check. Give me Arenas/J-Rich over Carter any day, hands down.

3) Championships aren't won by stars, they're won by stars driving the engine built on role players. Turk in Orlando was a unique thing. he was a role player who carried himself like a star, but THE STAR WAS COOL WITH THAT. Why they let him leave is baffling to me, and it's cool to see Otis Smith pretty much shrug and say,"my bad, lemme get that back and try again." He was good when he had 2 things; the ball in his hands and someone to pass to. He was bad when he was expected to do "little things" and be a catch-and-shooter. This is a win-win; he comes back to the situation that made him look so good, and Orlando get the ONE thing that really made them devastating; the 6-10 guard who can create a matchup nightmare for anyone. And Lewis? Lewis was like paying Lambo money and having it show up with a Camry engine: Camry's are ok, but Lambo money should NEVER be spent on one. At least he should bring some professionalism and shooting to the Wiz, alleviating the Arena/Wall overlap, and shoot ALOT of 3s.

Honestly, the thing that may hurt the Magic in the short-term is the absence of Gortat and "Peaches", leaving the bench pretty dang thin. Somehow Gortat got labeled as a "starter" talent which is foolish, but the guy was quality in his short stretches. Same with Peaches; he might never be the player HE thinks he is, but his shooting, D, and athleticism will be missed, at least by Chuck Wagon. I dug watching the Polish Hammer and Air France when they'd dominate lesser second units, or when they were plugged in with Howard and Nelson and were part of a ridiculous 23-4 scoring run.
Memo to the Heat and the Bulls; Orlando may have been stumbling, and they haven't been a "story" all year. They realized that they were juuuust a cut below the Celts and Lakers,  while the Bulls, Spurs, and Heat are all bristling with talent, so they made a huge gamble. At the very least the Magic now are a team to watch as they try to integrate new variables into the always elusive "team chemistry" while attempting to slug it out with the NBA big boys, and at most they've thrown their hats into the ring with the rest of the contenders. Can't wait to see Nelson running with Agent Zero on one wing and J-Rich on the other with Howard rumbling down the middle behind them. Your turn, N'awlins!