Tania Ganguli once again had the morning practice report.

Jameer Nelson’s right shoulder is even stronger than his left shoulder now. The point guard said he put so much emphasis on the right shoulder to help it heal, that he’s now got to play catchup with the other one.

See the full report here.

Josh Robbins has the afternoon practice report here. You can also listen to audio from Head Coach Stan Van Gundy there. Van Gundy is giving the team an off-day Friday

Friday’s rest day should help Mickael Pietrus, who turned his right ankle during Thursday morning’s practice. He didn’t participate in the afternoon’s drills, but the injury isn’t considered serious. He didn’t appear to be limping, and he wasn’t in a walking boot. Van Gundy hopes Pietrus will be able to practice on Saturday.

Sounds like Pietrus will be fine. Let’s hope so.

And for all you Gator fans out there, Ganguli reported that former LSU player Brandon Bass is taking his Tigers by a field goal.

Brian Schmitz had a good article about Matt Barnes and his journey through the NBA, ABA and even the D-League before finally landing in Orlando.

When you’ve been a second-round pick, released three times and traded twice with your 10th NBA team, well, you learn to lean on faith.

“I’ve had a roller-coaster ride. It’s a blessing to be in the NBA,” Barnes said after Wednesday’s practice. “People have said, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that.’ I have to believe in my talent.”

The Magic did, signing the perennial free agent to a two-year contract with a player option in July.

See the full story here.

Ken Berger has a story about who is going to step up as Orlando’s leader. You can find that here.

Alex Kennedy has an interesting article about Orlando and how the Magic players believe that is their time to win a championship.

“From day one, when I looked around and saw the pictures of the championship trophy on each locker, I knew I was in a different place,” said power forward Brandon Bass, who signed with the team this summer. “This is my kind of team. I chose to come here because I’m all about winning. This organization is all about winning. This is a championship caliber team.”

It’s a good read. See Kennedy’s full story here.

ESPN has their NBA preview out and there are several different sections.

See John Hollinger’s report from Magic training camp here.

You can find ESPN’s full Orlando Magic season preview here.

And here, you can see ESPN.com Eastern Conference predictions. They predict that Orlando will finish with a record of 56-26 behind both Cleveland and Boston.

Later, I’ll have a post at the top of a page linking you to the media coverage of each player.

And don’t forget to check out my college football here.

(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger. Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)