Magic's Matching... No... Gortat's Coming... Or...

We’ve taken a good, hard MediaWatchDog look at where this came from. … and we find it to be the ‘Channel 6 In Orlando Said It’’ variety. Point-by-point, here's what we're seeing:

1. Friday on a Magic chat forum, a brand new poster opens an account and says the Magic are signing Bass. Claims he has inside info. It precedes the signing getting out from the media, so when they get confirmation within an hour or less, he's acclaimed as a genuine insider. Discussion and praise ensues.
2. Saturday he comes back again, cites his earlier prediction as his bona fides of being a genuine insider, and says he knows for a fact Gortat will be matched and that it will be announced Monday (today). Sources? None. Can't say. Discussion and praise ensues.
3. Sunday he comes back again and trumpets that he just heard on the Channel 6 News in Orlando that the Magic will match on Monday, thereby validating his prediction. Oddly, no one else in Orlando heard the story, but no biggie for most. Discussion and praise ensues.
4. Someone goes from there to the realGM boards and shares the news on the GENERAL NBA board. The same thing happens on the realGM Orlando board. The report is (and this is an important distinction): "someone on a Magic chat forum saw a ch 6 news item saying Gortat would be matched on Monday." Discussion and praise ensues.
5. People now see three or more separate forum discussions going and jump to a conclusion: a bunch of people in Orlando saw this item on the news and are talking about it. It must certainly be a fact, they think. But the reality is this: one guy (not coincidentally, the one who had a vested interest) SAID he saw it. A bunch of people reacted and passed the tale along. Or maybe he is the one passing the tale along from one forum to another.
6. Has anything been announced by the Magic? No.
7. Is it on ESPN crawl? No.
8. Is it on ESPN news? No.
9. Is it on ESPN.com? No. I'd ask Marc Stein, but he'd kill me for asking something so dumb, I think.
10. Is it on the Orlando Sentinel website? No.
11. Is it on the Channel 6 Orlando site? No. You can even pull up their list of sports stories of the day, and there's nothing pertaining to Gortat.

It's also interesting that at one point in the conversation, the tale got expanded to say the breaking TV news report also said Barnes and Ratliff were going to be signed. Really!?!?

The boys on DB.com Boards did some forum-by-forum digging, and they essentially came back with the same observations I did.

Now let me add one other crucial point: We can't PROVE nothing might happen. We don’t believe it will, and we’re pretty confident the Mavs believe they’re getting Gortat. We also see in Orlando where GM Otis Smith – while playing coy about his plans – is talking about the Magic’s search for a new backup center. But Orlando has two options. The deadline is Wednesday. Anything can happen.

To review a few facts on the idea in general:
1. If Gortat gets matched, they can't turn around and trade him to another suitor anytime soon. They must keep him until at least Dec 15, well after the season starts and after all the teams have set their rosters. Then they can only trade him to a team he approves, and it can't be Dallas. (Those limits last for a year.)
2. In a trade, base year issues won't be in play, because Orlando has a trade exception. It would work just like a regular trade.
3. The rationale floated by Magic fans is: "Orlando would be averse to paying that much salary to Gortat, but if they trade him that's not an issue." Not exactly true. The problem is, they'd still end up getting back at least $5M-ish and maybe more like $6M in trade-matching salary in such a trade, all of it taxable.
4. The other team will have to be a team that (a) wants Gortat, (b) is willing to pay him $34M over 5 years, and (c) will ALSO give up $5M in players that Orlando wants. Is there such a team with players that Orlando would gladly take, in that price range, that would also want MG? I can envision Houston having a degree of interest depending on Yao's long-term prognosis; but which $5-6M of players makes sense for both teams to move from HOU to ORL in such a deal?

FROM A PURELY LOGICAL STANDPOINT: Except in sign-and-trade situations, teams don't tend to sign a player they don't intend to keep. Too much can go wrong between the signing and the trade to make that backfire badly. And I don't see any way that the Magic can justify almost $6M per year to a player who will be buried behind Howard. In addition, what's the market for Gortat at $34M? I see one possible team (Houston) that might be interested if the price wasn't too high, and that one is nothing better than a longshot. For those reasons, I think they'll pass.

(EDIT): As I wrote this over the weekend, I was still inclined to think that in a few days, Gortat would be a Mav. It seems now, Orlando has other thoughts. ...

Next, we’ll get to work on Ryan Hollins and Erick Dampier and the gossip that has them in “internet limbo.’’ …