While perusing the Internet, I came across an article at NESN written by Liam Martin punderfully (that's a mix between pun and wonderful, btw) titled "No Magic in Orlando's Offseason Moves." It is an attempt to critique Orlando's moves since they lost in The Finals to the Lakers in 5. The keyword here is attempt. I can sum it up by saying my 4 year-old kid possess more logic than Mr. Martin... And I don't even have a kid.

I guess you should read the article first, but I don't know if it is worth giving NESN the traffic. After the jump, we'll start from the beginning:

The Magic haven’t made an upgrade at a single position. I’d contend, in fact, they’re considerably worse off. Perhaps the most general way to state the case is this: Name, in order, the players most important to Orlando’s 2008-09 postseason run:

1. Dwight Howard
2. Hedo Turkoglu
3. Rashard Lewis
4. Rafer Alston
5. Courtney Lee

Martin is already wrong. I'll give him the first 3, however, Rafer was not the 4th most important player to the Magic's playoff push. He wasn't even the 5th. You see, he forgot Mickael Pietrus. The Magic's super-sub played more important minutes than Rafer, and had the toughest defensive assignments. Rafer spent plenty of 4th quarter minutes sitting the bench. Also, Rafer shot 38% from the field. Pietrus shot 48%. Skip shot 32% from 3. Air France shot 39%. Next!

Let me get this straight. You’re trading away your backup point guard (the same one who led you to the Finals while Jameer Nelson sat out with a shoulder injury) and a 6-foot-5 starting two-guard with huge upside and defensive ability for a 32-year-old, injury-prone cry-baby, coming off one of the worse statistical seasons of his career?

Alright. First, Vince is injury prone? In the last 4 season Vince has played in an average of 79.25 out of 82 games a year. You're right Liam, he's hurt as much as Grant Hill.

(Just for sake of argument, I did some comparisons. In the same period of time Kevin Garnett averaged 70 games a season. Ray Allen averaged 71.25, and Paul Pierce averaged 71.75. Finally, Hedo averaged 77.5)

Congrats, you won that year, but now you're old, and you get hurt a lot

And Vince came off one of the worse statistical seasons of his career, eh? Cater scored 20.8, assisted 4.7, rebounded 5.1, and shot 43.7% from the field and 38.5% from 3 point land. His career averages are 23.5 / 4.3 / 5.5 / 44.7 / 37.6. Some stats were slightly better than average, some were slightly below. What Martin did here was paint the picture of a man who is a shell of himself - a man who couldn't hit the strike zone after years of Cy Young efforts. Of course this wasn't true.

As for a trading their backup point guard, Rafer is just that, a backup point guard. He had proven to be a bit of a problem in the locker room and is due to make $5.3 million next year. Anthony Johnson, Orlando's backup last year, averaged 18 munutes a game. If Rafer were to take AJ's minutes next season, is 18 minutes worth $5.3 million? Rafer still thinks he is a starting point guard. Carlos Arroyo thought he was a starting poing guard. Orlando doesn't need that.

He also failed to mention Ryan Anderson, the 6-10 shooter who averaged 7.4 points in his rookie season. He might not have Courtney Lee upside, but by no means was filler in this deal. Anderson, combined with Gortat, Bass and Rashard Lewis all of a sudden gives Orlando a ton of able bodies down low.

To compare the addition of Carter and the subtraction of Hedo, Liam notes:

Turkoglu, to add insult to injury, will be making about $10 million a year with the Raptors. Carter’s getting $16.3 million next season, $17.3 in 2010-11 and has a team option for $18 million the season after that. Turkoglu for less, or Carter for more. What would you do?

Wrong. It's Hedo for more, Carter for less. If Orlando had signed Hedo to the same contract Toronto did (5 years, $53 million) they would be in for, well, $53 million. Orlando will only have to pay Carter just under $34 million. In 2014 Toronto will be paying the 35 year-old Turk $10 million. So, while this deal might have the Magic paying a lot in the beginning, it gives Orlando plenty of flexibility in a few years.

Laim must love Hedo, which is cool. I liked him too, but I'm not going to make him out to be Larry Legend. I already noted that Vince didn't quite put up the numbers he did the season before. Well, Hedo didn't either. He scored less, assisted less, rebounded less, and shot worse.

But what about all that Hedo as Mr. 4th Quarter talk? A recent article at OrlandoSentinel.com sheds some light:

In 75 fourth quarters last season, Carter shot better than 46 percent from the field and converted on 80.6 percent of his free throws. Turkoglu shot just under 38 percent in 101 fourth quarters last season and hit 79.6 percent of his free throws. [...] But Turkoglu, whose 3-point percentage was 36 for the game, only made 31 percent in the fourth. Carter hit 38 percent of his 3-pointers in the fourth, which is about the same as his percentage for the game.

In other words, Hedo has taken more shots, but Carter has been more efficient.

Back to Martin, and finally, Gortat.

When the Dallas Mavericks offered career backup Gortat a five-year contract for $34 million, no one — not even Gortat — thought the Magic would match it. And why would they? The Poland native played just 12.5 minutes a game last season behind Superman, averaging 3.8 points and 4.5 rebounds. Sounds like a 7-million-dollar player to me, especially when you consider that Gortat has said repeatedly he doesn’t want to play for Orlando, and that Smith is now almost $80 million deep for the upcoming season, placing the club well into luxury-tax territory.

First, Gortat will not be a $7 million dollar man until 2012. In 09-10 he will earn $5.8 million. That is important to note, especially considering Gortat can be traded on December 15th. That said, there is always a market for quality bigs. If we just stay in the state of Texas, Dallas signed him and Houston was eager to have a shot at him... Now they must really want him considering Yao is out for the upcomming season.

Combine Gortat and the massive trade exception that was garnered from the Hedo deal - something Martin failed to mention - and Orlando has the ability to go out and get a huge piece in the middle of the season. This is a much more attractive situation than the typical late season over-the-hill additions a lot of contenders make.

The problem here is a guy who gets a platform at a viable name (NESN) who doesn't really know his material. He watches SportsCenter and drinks the LA, LeBron, and Boston Cool-Aid. He probably didn't even watch a Magic game unless it was against the Celtics until the second round of the playoffs.

Not to worry, though, Ainge. Liam Martin thinks Orlando are “worse off."

Thanks to jamie-online and API for the images.

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