Back to Training Camp Main

By Matthew Gardner | October 6, 2006

The team had Thursday night off to help recover from five practices in the first three days of camp, but it was back to work first thing Friday morning.

While there were a lot of aches and pains near the end of Thursday's practice, 15 players were on the court at the start of Friday's practice.

The only players still out are Tony Battie and rookie J.J. Redick. Battie has been out the past few days while resting his sore knee, while Redick is nursing a small tear in the soft tissue on the bottom of his left foot. In order to allow the injury to heal, it is unlikely that Redick will play in Saturday's team scrimmage and might also miss Tuesday's preseason opener at Charlotte.

Howard-Nelson Collide: Late in practice as the team was scrimmaging, heads collided as Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson ran into each other. Both players sustained cuts to their foreheads - especially Nelson, who left behind a pool of blood on the court before walking back to the lockerroom to have the cut examined. Nelson needed nine stitches to close his wound, while Howard got six stitches.

Keep It Movin': As the team went on its great run to finish last season, one of the things that could be seen as dramatically improved was the team's ball movement. And it looks like that unselfish play will carry over to this season. Many times in scrimmages over the last few days the ball movement has been so good that the end result is a high percentage shot.

Switching It Up: As the team scrimmaged on Friday, Coach Hill switched up the teams a bit. The black team consisted of Dwight Howard, Grant Hill, Carlos Arroyo, Trevor Ariza and Pat Garrity. The white unit was made up of Jameer Nelson, Keyon Dooling, Darko Milcic, Bo Outlaw and Hedo Turkoglu, while Keith Bogans, Travis Diener, James Augustine, Jackie Manuel and Kasib Powell were on the orange squad.

Manuel & Powell: While they may be a long shot to make the team, both Jackie Manuel and Kasib Powell have had a tremendous week at camp. They are both tireless workers with great basketball IQs - something you would come to expect from players that were coached by Roy Williams and Bob Knight. Manuel has shot well throughout the week and demonstrating his great leaping ability at times. Powell has been a quick learner and has matched up well with players like Hedo Turkoglu, Trevor Ariza and Pat Garrity.

Fran Update: A non-Training Camp update, but one we can still classify as Magic news. Fran Vazquez, the Magic's first round Draft choice in 2005, helped lead Winterthur FC Barcelona to an 87-81 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday. Vazquez tied for the team-high with 15 points on 7-of- 11 shooting in 23 minutes of action.

Though he has decided to remain in Europe, the Magic hold the NBA rights to Vazquez indefinitely. Vazquez recently said he felt he wasn't ready for the NBA, but that he might look into coming to the U.S. to play in another year or two.

The 76ers loss to Barcelona marks the first time an NBA team has lost an exhibition game while playing overseas. Chris Webber led the Sixers with 18 points. Former Magic player Mario Kasun, who is playing for Barcelona this year, scored four points with seven boards in 13 minutes of action.

---

Matthew Gardner is a writer for OrlandoMagic.com.