Campers say star center is the Magic

By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

Several St. Cloud High basketball players at the Top Gun Shooting Camp at the Bulldog gym this week sent a clear message to the Orlando Magic management: Sign Dwight Howard.

They said that the charismatic young center is the one player the Magic can’t afford to lose.

“I think they should keep him. He’s the heart of Orlando,” junior Geovany Rivera said.

The Magic face a dilemma in that Howard can opt out of his contract following the 2011-12 NBA season and he would be free to sign with any team that can clear salary cap space for him.

That would be a nightmare scenario reminiscent of when Shaquille O’Neal, who recently retired, left Orlando following the 1996 season just as the Magic seemed on the verge of becoming a perennial league powerhouse.

Long-time Magic fans shudder at the thought of Howard going away without Orlando receiving compensation. Those fears were heightened last week when Howard said he would not sign a contract extension this summer.

One option is for the Magic to work out a trade for Howard before he can become a free agent. The problem there is, what is proper compensation for the best center in basketball who is entering his prime?

“The best option is to keep him and build around him,” Jamal Demetrius, who will be a junior at St. Cloud, said. “I think if you lose him, there’s nobody else who can replace him. He’s the face of the franchise.”

The Magic, however, are burdened by several huge player contracts and have little room to maneuver under the salary cap. Orlando already has one of the largest payrolls in professional sports. Further complicating the issue is a potential NBA work stoppage next season.

Junior Ian McKenzie thinks the Magic should cut their losses and try to get a couple of good players for Howard because McKenzie thinks the center will leave next year anyway.

“He’s not going to stay because of the non-winning factor that has gone on since he’s been here,” McKenzie said.

The Magic reached the 2009 NBA Finals with Howard, but they have backtracked since and Howard said last week that he will not stay unless he is surrounded by a winning cast.

McKenzie thinks a trade with L.A. would bring center Pau Gasol and another player. That might be enough to keep the Magic competitive, he said.

Senior Zack Hull said McKenzie has a good idea.

“They should try to get some value out of him,” Hull, a 6-6 Bulldog center, said. “I think they can bring someone in like (Utah’s) Al Jefferson, someone like that.”

One reason that McKenzie and Hull said they wouldn’t mind seeing Howard leave Orlando is that they are both are Celtics fans.

“I don’t see how he could go to Boston,” Hull said.

Junior Ronald Johnson is a Magic fan who thinks the team should take what it can get for Howard. He said a deal with the Lakers that might bring Lamar Odom and reserve Shannon Brown might work.

“Brown is a slasher, he can get to the basket,” Johnson said.

Most Magic fans at the Top Gun camp, though, think that the Magic must find a way to keep Howard.

“They’ve got to keep him because he’s the franchise,” Lady Bulldog player Alyssa Mediavilla, a senior, said. “He’s a superstar. We need him.”

Mediavilla fears a scenario for Howard like the one LeBron James enjoyed last year, when James chose to leave Cleveland and join Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh at Miami to form a “super team” that fell two games shy of winning the NBA title last week.

“It’s going to be the same thing as LeBron. He’ll go to a three-star team,” Mediavilla said.

St. Cloud High coach and founder of the Top Gun Camp, Tim McMullen, said that the Magic should try to keep Howard.

“They better hang on to him. What do you do without a big man?” McMullen said.

At the same time, like some sports fans, McMullen winces at the sight of basketball players jockeying for contracts in excess of $100 million that were unimaginable in the 1980s, when Los Angeles and Boston, teams loaded with superstars, launched the NBA toward unprecedented popularity.

“Except for this last championship game, I don’t think I watched hardly any at all,” McMullen said.

More than 100 children participated at the Top Gun camp, the first at the school’s new gym, McMullen said. He called the turnout the best of the camp’s 27-year history. St. Cloud Athletic Director and girls basketball coach Chad Ansbaugh also instructed at the camp.

“We had 20 more come in the door on the second day. We didn’t know where to put them all. We had to move the little guys upstairs,” McMullen said. “It’s good to see that the camp is still going strong after all these years. Every leading scorer in the county’s record books has been through here.”