Magic sign third string point guard
From Brian Schmitz in the Sept. 11th edition of the Orlando Sentinel:
The Orlando Magic added depth to their point-guard position, signing veteran Mike Wilks to a one-year, $1.04 million contract, the Sentinel has learned.
Wilks, 5 feet 10 and 180 pounds, is expected to be the third point guard behind starter Jameer Nelson and Anthony Johnson.
Wilks was a free agent after playing 19 games last season with the Oklahoma City Thunder (nee Seattle Supersonics), Washington Wizards and Denver Nuggets.
The 29-year-old Wilks has played with eight teams in his career.
Wilks and Johnson will replace Keyon Dooling and Carlos Arroyo, who played behind Nelson last season.
The Orlando Magic added depth to their point-guard position, signing veteran Mike Wilks to a one-year, $1.04 million contract, the Sentinel has learned.
Wilks, 5 feet 10 and 180 pounds, is expected to be the third point guard behind starter Jameer Nelson and Anthony Johnson.
Wilks was a free agent after playing 19 games last season with the Oklahoma City Thunder (nee Seattle Supersonics), Washington Wizards and Denver Nuggets.
The 29-year-old Wilks has played with eight teams in his career.
Wilks and Johnson will replace Keyon Dooling and Carlos Arroyo, who played behind Nelson last season.
posted by Mike from Illinois @ 8:31 PM
6 Comments:
At 8:45 PM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Personally, I prefer the Dooling-Arroyo combo at backup PG to the Johnson-Wilks combo, but I think Nelson is going to have a really good season, so the backups figure not to see as much action as Dooling and Arroyo last season.
I think Johnson will be adequate enough to spell Nelson for 10 or so minutes a game, while Wilks probably will be glued to the bench and be an extra body for practice.
Let's hope the injury bug will stay away from Jameer this season.
At 10:26 AM,
Anonymous said…
I'm still hoping to see a trade for one of the Memphis point guards. They need a shooter since they traded Mike Miller. I suspect they are holding out for a 1st round pick in addition to a player since that was also what stopped the Zach Randolph for Darko trade.
At 1:19 PM,
Anonymous said…
i still think it was a good move to move carlos, but dooling was also a good move to make, because even though he was solid, he had no chemistry with the team and did not make the plays that we needed.
At 6:07 PM,
Big Figure said…
C'mon mike,we've posted tons of threads and comments/posts about the dooling-arroyo combo. Basically saying carlos cant defend and keyon doesnt run the team very well. AJ is just as big as keyon and ran the teams he's played for better than carlos and keyon couldve done combined. I mean he's had some double figure assist games,why would you give that up for the bums we had? And wilkes is just insurance,as long as he can defend ill take him over carlos as the third string PG anyday. He's cheap and happy to be on a team which will make him hungry which carlos wasnt anymore at his age. I'm happy with the make-up of the team,for so long we had guys that couldnt help us on the end of the bench.
At 1:58 AM,
Mike from Illinois said…
I'm not down on Anthony Johnson at all, Big Figure. I said in my first comment on this thread that I think he will be adequate as Nelson's backup.
Wilks is the unknown commodity here, as he's played with eight different teams while not seeing much action with any of those teams.
I'm just hoping that Nelson can stay healthy; if he misses any games Johnson would be the starter with Wilks the backup (I'm sure lots of opposing teams would be looking forward to that). It would be a plus if Wilks can defend some, which we don't know right now.
Maybe Turk would be willing to play the point if it ever came down to that in case Nelson gets hurt.
I do agree that the Magic have a better makeup of the team for this season compared to last season, as we'll have guys like Courtney Lee and Tony Battie along with Johnson coming off the bench, which we didn't have last year, as well as Bogans, Redick, and Foyle.
At 11:01 AM,
Big Figure said…
Yea in the case of an injury,i think the memphis deal would get revised. Right now another PG isnt a priority,but in the case of an injury i think otis would make a deal for another player with potential to back up AJ. You make good points though about wilks.
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