Candace Moves On To Round 2, Rashard Lewis' Agent Keeps His Balls, Dooling Coming Back

First of all, congrats to Candace for clobbering the living hell out of Aziza in the Magic Online Cheerleading Competition and moving on to round two. At one point it was actually 10-0 Candace, which is a rout and a half. She looks like she has a strong chance to take the crown after that showing, but we sill have a lot of cheerleaders left in round 1 before we can label her the favorite.

Next order of business involves Peter Vecsey's nose growing. Yesterday, Vecsey reported that there was a chance that Rashard Lewis' agent did not fill out his paperwork on time/correctly and this would result in Lewis not being able to opt out of his contract and possibly join the Magic this summer. Many websites took this story and ran with it, and before you knew it there was a firestorm around it. The first thing I noticed in Vecsey's report was the consistent use of the word "MAY" and "MIGHT" and "COULD HAVE", which are signals that Vecsey was pulling the story directly out of his behind.

When a writer hinges a story on rumors and outsider info, he is practically playing Jenga with his reputation.

Well...at the end of yesterday, the Sonics and Lewis' agent Tony Dutt came out and said this to Vecsey's game of Jenga:

This is because the Sonics and Dutt came out and said that Vecsey was full of crap and Rashard had successfully opted out. This means hope at least is still temporarily alive that the Magic can somehow add him to their team this offseason.

Next bit of news: Keyon Dooling will be with the Magic next year! K-Doo, as I like to call him because he cuts through the paint like a jetski, decided not to opt out and test free agent waters after succumbing to Stan Van Gundy's masculine, musky scent. This is spectacular news although it is not really generating much buzz. Dooling stepped up well last season, especially when Jameer Nelson was struggling (which was approximately 93% of the time) and gave our bench a spark which was all but absent last season.

And lastly, underscoring this news are the reports that Brian Hill seems poised to give the finger to Magic management's offer of an office job and rejoin the Nets as an assistant. Not really much of a surprise here, so I didn't even add it to the title of this blog. If there is someone out there that is surprised that Brian Hill didn't gladly accept Orlando's offer for an office job after humiliating him for the second time, please slap them for me (my arms only reach so far).