Here are the facts.

1. In 2003-04 and 2004-05 when Darko was on the Pistons 12 man roster
the Pistons won one world title and lost in the Finals the other year. Since Darko has been gone from the Pistons we have not been able to get out of the Eastern Conference to get to the Finals

2. Darko played one full year for the Magic. They went to playoffs, Previous to that they were a lottery team.

3. Darko left the Magic after last season and the Magic have signed 3 big men in an attempt to replace him.

Magic bring big man Gortat over from Europe - NBA - Yahoo! Sports

Those are the facts.

Is Darko that good?

Probably not, but for sure when he is around positive things happen to the team that he is on so much so that the Magic felt that they needed to replace his departure with 3 big men, including one all star caliber player.

Are you saying Lewis is a big man?

Darko is being replaced by Marcin Gortat? That says a lot.

Better Marcin Gortat than Unko Debunkalogo.

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Every monkey like to be, in my place instead of me, cause I'm the king of bongo baby, I'm the king of bongo bong
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I am just quoting the article?

They said he was a big man.

Have a nice day

Didn't they sign Lewis first? And then Darko left? So how are you deducing from those facts that The Magic felt Darko was so good they replaced him with Lewis and whoever? What is the logic here Buddha?
If they felt he was that good wouldn't they have made it a priority to sign him? Or signed him to an extension when they could?

Regardless of what the article said, Lewis is not a big man.

So, you have 2 really crappy big men signed to replace Darko. The reason that they had to get poor quality big men was because they blew their wad on Lewis.

I agree that Milicic is a valuable commodity, but I don't think you can use his replacements to appraise his value.

The best way to guage his value is to look at the contract he just signed. That is exactly what he is worth.

yes. darko is that good. memphis will make the playoffs this year. yes shard plays the 4 at times. the magic left a big hole in the middle when darko left. yes we have had a big hole in the middle since darko left. darko would have started for us last year and would start for us this year.

in my opinion darko was given the boot from orlando with d. howard's blessing and maybe ultimatum. i don't think dwight liked the way darko's number started getting called at the end of the 4th quarter in the elimination game against us. darko was delivering and maybe signed his walking papers in the process.

At least we got something for him. Not a total disaster.

If Stuckey turns out to be 1/2 Wade-like, then it should ease the pain of letting a big man slip away.

Also, we would have had to re-up on Darko's contract at this point, right? So, we would be paying him a real #. If we would have used him correctly from the beginning and he would have flourished, then that salary # would be astronomical, and we would probably not have Chauncey on the team... or would have had to make other concessions.

I don't like the way it went down, but looking at this coming season, I don't think we are going to be that much worse off. I think that the past 2 years were the ones that we missed our opportunity on.

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"Will was rolling, wasn't he? I roll with the guy that's hot." MC

i think stuckey will be good. i've liked what i've seen from him so far.

he only wanted 10 million which is cheaper than chauncey. darko isn't about the money he just wants to play basketball. we may have had to give up mcdyess and never sign nazr. so i think that's ok in return for locking up a 22 year old for quite a few years. big men are what win championships. chauncey will be diminishing returns. even if he left for big money in free agency we probably would have 2 to 3 more titles.

yes. we are fine jmax, amir are coming along nicely.