Rashard Lewis Signs With The Magic

Rashard Lewis' new home will certainly be much closer to Disneyland than Seattle was. Yesterday Lewis informed the Orlando Magic that he would sign a max contract, worth somewhere in between $75 and $85 million, with them on July 11th and leave the Seattle Supersonics. Because of this signing it most certainly means that Darko Milicic would become an unrestricted free agent and will be finding work elsewhere. With the departure of Rashard Lewis and Ray Allen it appears that the rebuilding process has begun for the Seattle Supersonics. Many fans hope that Jeff Green and Kevin Durant make Seattle a perennial playoff team again and follow in the footsteps of " The Man Child" Shawn Kemp and Gary "The Glove" Payton who made Seattle a basketball powerhouse in the 90's. Not since the Magic acquired Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady in 2000 has their been such buzz surrounding a Magic offseason. The question is however to what end does a player like Rashard Lewis do to help a team like the Magic? I mean, he certainly in my eyes doesn't deserve a max contract because he's a one trick pony and has never played an entire season in his 7 full seasons as a starter. Rashard Lewis is 6'10" and only averaged 6 rebounds last year.......six rebounds. His RP48 (rebounds per 48 minutes) was less than Kyle Lowry, Mike Dunleavy, and Mark Madsen. A guy with his athleticism and height should at least be pulling down 8 boards a game. It's just a lack of effort on his part, and speaking of lack of effort, let's get into his "defense". The Sonics were to say the least, BAD on defense and get this, were even worse with Lewis on the floor in 05/06 season. During that year Seattle gave up 6.6 points per 100 possessions more when Lewis played, and consider this, his replacement was Vladimir Radmanovic. I'll give you some time to let that sink in. And oh wait, it gets worse! When Rashard Lewis was guarding, and we'll use that term loosely, his opponents were avergaing 18.6 ppg from the small forward spot, and a staggering 23.5 ppg at power forward. Even during this last season the Sonics still struggled on defense although Lewis did improve his defense, all be it slightly. So while Rashard Lewis will most certainly be an upgrade over Darko, this move still doesn't make the Magic contenders in the Eastern Conference.