Magic News & Notes: Now The Real Fun Starts

The Magic obliterated the Hawks last night to finish the pre-season unbeaten.. See my recap here.

Brian Schmitz thinks that an 8-0 record during the exhibition season was great but now the real fun will begin.

The practice games might not mean a thing when the games start to count, beginning Wednesday when the Philadelphia 76ers roll into town.

But considering the Magic spent the time blending five new players into an already potent mix, gave starters nights off … and still couldn’t lose, well, talk of 60-plus wins might be casual conversation.

If the way the Magic toyed with the full-strength Hawks shined light through the keyhole to the upcoming season, expectations will be incalculable.

Read the full story here.

Dwight Howard is excited for the regular season to begin.

Hey world!!! Finally, preseason is over and now the games start counting for real. We’re so ready for that. We were the only team in the NBA to go undefeated in the preseason, but they don’t give out any championships for that. It’s nice, but we want bigger things than that.

It’s just the preseason, but I already see how teams are going to play me this season. Against Indy the other night, they kept running two and three guys at me and fouling me every time that I got deep position. They aren’t going to let me dunk the ball.

Read his blog here.

The officials are back! And just in time for the start of the regular season.

The NBA and its referees union reached agreement on a two-year contract, ending a lockout of more than a month and saving the league from using replacements when the season starts on Tuesday.

The officials ratified the deal that was reached earlier this week in a vote on Friday. No details of the vote were provided, nor were terms of the agreement.

“We are pleased to reach this agreement,” NBA commissioner David Stern said in a statement. “The negotiations extended further than either side had hoped, but when our regular season tips off on Tuesday we’ll have the best referees in the world officiating our games.”

You can read that story here.

Contrary to prior reports, the NBA says they have simply re-written the traveling rule and it has not been changed.

Stu Jackson, the league’s executive vice president of basketball operations, said recent media reports that the rule had been changed to allow an extra step after the dribble were not true.

“We have not changed the traveling rule, nor how we enforce the rule,” Jackson said Friday during the league’s annual preseason conference call. “What we did change was some antiquated language in our existing rule as it related to steps.”

You can read more about the traveling rule here.

Josh Robbins writes that Orlando’s defense is still a concern for Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy.

Chris Colston of the USA Today previews the Magic here.

The Florida Tuskers remained unbeaten with a 34-7 win over the California Redwoods.

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