Magic sharpshooting guard J.J. Redick has openly discussed his displeasure with his role this past season, but according to Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel, he may have finally had the last straw. The ACC legend has recently voiced his virtual ultimatum, asking for either more playing time next season or a trade.

“I want to play. There were a lot of things that were said last summer and in the preseason, you know, and I thought I was going to play. It didn’t happen,” Redick said.

“I’m certainly not going to sit there and hear the same stuff and think I’m going to get the same results. I’m going to put some of this on myself to get better, but there’s got to be an opportunity for me to get on the court.”

Should Orlando refuse to part ways and/or fail to find a viable suitor via trade, playing time may very well open up in 2008-2009. The contracts of guards Carlos Arroyo, Keyon Dooling, and Mo Evans have all expired, leaving uncertainty as to who will be back next season.

As for Redick, he’ll talk with Smith this week and the meeting might determine if he stays or not. “The thing I want to discuss is my future here and kind of what their plan is. As I said all along, I want to play here . . . but I want to play,” Redick said. “I can’t predict the future. I honestly think when training camp starts, I’ll be here — that’s my gut feeling — but I don’t know.”

Smith that Redick “could easily go from the third guy to the first guy because other guys opt out as free agents. I do think he’s a pretty good guard. He’s a backup 2 [shooting guard].”

Posted By: Dustin Chapman

It’s a great feeling for the Magic, being in the second round of the playoffs for the first time since Shaq was there. So many years without a second round entry, and everyone was beginning to wonder when it would happen. Finally this year, with the addition’s of Stan Van Gundy to implement a new scheme, and Rashard Lewis to open up driving lanes for the team are we going into the second round of the playoffs. The first round was great, and made for alot of entertaining basketball, especially with how we disposed of the Raptors in the first round.

Now however, we have a mountain to climb, in the shape of the Detroit Pistons. This was the same team to have swept us in last year’s playoffs. They play well together, play good defense, and have alot of talented players. I expect this to be a hard series for us. Let’s break down some of the matchups we will be seeing.

First at the point we are going to be having mostly a duo of Nelson/Dooling against Billups and Stuckey. This is going to be a rough matchup for us, as we have the hardest time’s guarding point guards with Nelson in. He is the worst defensive starting point guard in the league, and probably worse off defensively than 3/4’s of the backup point guards in the league. Dooling is good defensively, but he is just outmatched by the size and strength of Billups who can bully his way around the court against smaller guards. Then having the quick and agile Stuckey coming in off the bench is really a switch up, and it throws our guys off completely. The point guard position is an area I expect us to get dominated in for the entire series, I’m not expecting to much out of us there.

At the 2, the matchup is Evans/Bogans vs Hamilton/Afflalo. Another area we are outclassed in. Pretty much the whole backcourt of our’s is outclassed by the Pistons backcourt. Bogans and Evans are helpful, don’t get me wrong, but they are collectively or seperatly not as good as Hamilton by himself. When you add in rookie Afflalo they really have us there.

At the swingman position, it comes to Prince and Hermann against Turkoglu/Lewis/Bogans and it’s an area I think we win. Prince is good defensively, but even when their playing is down, I think both Turkoglu and Lewis provide better scoring than Prince. I don’t think they are able to continuely stop one or the other. The big thing I want to see here though, is more of Turk getting into the lane and to the basket, so he can get his playmaking going. When he is hitting it heavy on the playmaking we do good, so we need him there. I think we win at the 3.

I think the 4 spot is a wash, with Rasheed Wallace and Lewis. Rasheed can post up, Lewis can move around and make it difficult for Rasheed to guard him. Having Wallace move around is key, and I like the matchup offensively. Unfortunately, defensively Lewis can get dominated by Rasheed in the post. We can’t move Howard onto him, because then Howard gets caught up in guarding the pick and roll or pick and pop, and Rasheed gets loose. His ability to hit from outside as well as inside really is special.

Finally we have the big’s, Dwight and Gortat vs Maxiell and Mcdyess. Sure both Maxiell and Mcdyess are better than the untested and unproven Gortat, who didn’t even start getting playing time until the playoffs. Dwight Howard is more powerful, more impactful, a better rebounder, and enough to cancel out both Maxiell and Mcdyess and let me pronounce this to be Orlando’s matchup to win.

Overall, I’m really excited for the rest of this series. Game 1, to me, was not a giant example of how this game is going to go. I think Van Gundy will make the right adjustments and we will be ready to go tonight. A few things we need to be ready to go though:

1. More touch’s inside for Dwight. He has got to throw his weight and size around, and get inside. For us to get him the ball, he has to be posted up alot when they are ready to pass. At the same time, we have to get the ball to Dwight when he is posted up. There was a couple time’s where he had the mismatch with Prince or Hamilton somehow on him, and yet we still failed to get the ball to him in that situation. Those are easy points, and we need to be more aware of when Howard is posted up and who he has on him when posted up.

2. Turk to step up and start driving more, so that he can start setting up his playmaking. His ablity to get to the rim off the dribble will really open things up, and he needs to start getting there. Dwight and him need to hit that high screen and roll more with each other, because that is what opens our three point shooting. Our three point shooting is vital, and it is often set up off of Turkoglu’s playmaking ability.

3. Speaking of three point shooting, we have to get open and hit those shots. When we are open, we can’t afford to miss shot’s we have been hitting all season long. We need to get open more, which like above, can be helped by Turkoglu getting more going towards the basket. It can also be helped by Dwight being a beast downlow and forcing double teams. Getting him going is the central part of our three point shooting, which leads our team.

One thing I would really love to see tonight though, is a lineup on the floor for the last 5 minutes of the 2nd quarter of Turkoglu,Evans,Bogans,Lewis and Dwight Howard. The four wing players can all shoot, it forces Turkoglu to use his playmaking, and it also gives us a bigger body to try to use on Billups while keeping a bigger body on Hamilton. They both are above average defensively, so it keeps up the strong defense on the perimeter and gives us two smart defensive players along with Dwight downlow. It’s just something I think would be worth trying for a bit, and if it doesn’t work, you have a whole second half to erase what happened.

Overall, I think this is a series we can win if we can get the three important things going. Unfortunately I don’t see us doing it consistently enough to win this series, and we go down in 6 this round, 5 if we are really unlucky.