Orlando
Philip Maymin
Basketball News Services
The mystery is over. Dwight Howard will wear Adidas shoes for the next many, many years.
Financial terms were not disclosed as Howard signed a contract with the sporting goods company yesterday, joining the ranks of Tracy McGrady, Kevin Garnett, and Tim Duncan.
Howard has long claimed his game was some kind of mesh between Duncan and Garnett and now he has proven it. He wears the same shoes!
With the signing, he also maintains an Orlando-area Adidas representative; the Magic Kingdom had been without Adidas representation for a few lonely, dangerous weeks now, ever since McGrady was shipped to Houston.
Joining Howard at Adidas are fellow rookies J.R. and Josh Smith and Sebastian Telfair.
TEAM NOTES
"I'd Do Anything":Reality television shows these days are a dime a dozen - this we all know. But ESPN has taken that a step farther. The sports network has developed a program where contestants duke it out in a number of sports-related competitions for the opportunity of a lifetime. Or, in this case - someone else's. Magic Dancer Deanna Clover was chosen to compete on the show which premieres tonight at 10pm.
The Atlanta Journal Constitutionwrites: Adidas has signed Orlando Magic rookie Dwight Howard to a multiyear endorsement contract.No financial terms were disclosed Tuesday in a statement from the sporting goods company.
The Edmonton Sunwrites: And teams haven't been beating down Toronto's door for Carter. While he said Orlando is attractive because it's near his hometown of Daytona Beach, Florida, Magic GM John Weisbrod doused any talk of a possible trade last week."I can say in no uncertain terms that we would not trade Steve Francis for Vince Carter," Weisbrod said. "There just aren't many scenarios you could draw up where we'd be a better team in acquiring (Carter)."
Dick Scanlon ofThe Ledgerwrites: The Magic are coming off a season bad enough to get the coach (Doc Rivers), the general manager (John Gabriel) and the superstar (Tracy McGrady) oneway tickets out of Orlando.The new GM (John Weisbrod) has a plan, and that's usually a good thing. His plan was to clean house, which isn't necessarily a bad thing when the old house went 19-63. The problem is that Weisbrod is building his new house with bricks he got for 70 cents on the dollar; when the decision is made to unload players regardless of what you get back, usually you don't get much back. Well, that's one problem. They are counting on Grant Hill and they still don't have a center or a proven big-time scorer.