Via Jerry Greene, here's one way for Magic fans to participate in the team's 20th anniversary celebration: the FanTastic Bobble-head. Click here to vote for one of five Magic players to be made into a bobblehead this season. The choices are, in the order listed on the website,

• Dwight Howard,
• Shaquille O'Neal,
• Nick Anderson,
• Tracy McGrady,
• and Darrell Armstrong.

So, whom will you choose? Here's my thought process:

1. Eliminate any player whose likeness the team could use in the future. That means you, Dwight Howard. Sorry, but you're under contract with the team until 2012. We'll have plenty more opportunities to see your noggin immortalized on a resin figure.
2. Eliminate any player who left the team on bad terms. That step eliminates Shaquille O'Neal and Tracy McGrady. Shaq called Orlando a "small pond" when he ditched it in 1996; T-Mac admitted he mailed-in the 2004 season when he realized the team stunk. Then he demanded a trade. If the fans choose either of these guys, it's because they want to detonate something.

To me, Darrell Armstrong and Nick Anderson are the only sensible choices. And since Darrell played during the height of the bobblehead's popularity, it's possible he already has one; let me know in the comments if you know for sure.

Nick Anderson, four botched free throws notwithstanding, will get my vote. He deserves yours too.

And while we're on the subject of voting, don't forget to support Jameer Nelson in Hoops Addict's Floor Burn Tournament, which strives to recognize the league's best hustle players. David Lee is cleaning his clock right now, 82% to 18%. Support Jameer!

As promised, a few assorted bullets on stories not involving Carlos Arroyo:

• Hoops Addict is conducting its first annual Floor Burn Tournament, which seeks to credit the players who do the so-called "dirty work" for their teams without getting much acclaim. Round One is up now. I nominated Jameer Nelson, who must defeat Knicks forward David Lee to advance. Show your support for Jameer, who does not get enough credit for the little things he does.
• Dwight Howard did not fare well for Team USA in a tune-up game against Team Russia. Dime (via BDL) gives us the awful truth:

  On Dwight's first touch he threw up an ugly hook shot off an awkward post move that hit all glass, and in general seemed hesitant to beast his way to the basket despite being guarded by guys who looked like Keith Bogans standing next to him. He finished with five points and made just one field goal.

Dwight will have a chance to redeem himself tomorrow morning at 8 AM, as Team USA will take on Team Australia -- and its center, Andrew Bogut, selected first overall in 2005, a year after Dwight -- in its final exhibition match.

• For more Olympic coverage, I recommend these sites:
  • At the Hive, SB Nation's New Orleans Hornets blog;
  • Green Bandwagon, SB Nation's Boston Celtics blog;
  • 20 Second Timeout;
  • and Upside and Motor.

Great work, fellas.

• Last Friday, the Clippers withdrew their qualifying offer to Nick Fazekas, a hardworking power forward whom they signed after Dallas cut him to make room for Jason Kidd. Fazekas is now an unrestricted free agent. I'm not the only Magic fan who wants the team to consider signing him, as this thread on Denton's board shows. But fans of other teams are taking note, too, as Hoopinion wants the Hawks to take a look at him as well.

No shortage of opinions on Carlos Arroyo's move overseas, which surprises me, because I didn't think anyone else cared. Still, he'll make roughly $5 million U.S., and can opt out after each season. Not a bad deal for him, I suppose. To the links:

• The ubiquitous Matt Moore had so many thoughts on the signing that he couldn't confine them to one place: here's his take at Ridiculous Upside, and at FanHouse. From the FanHouse post:

  Arroyo started last season in contention for the starting spot for the Magic, then went to a backup role behind Jameer Nelson, before eventually not appearing hardly at all except to make sure Jameer Nelson didn't hurt himself by playing too much. When you lose your job to a guy who was heavily responsible for the Magic's self-destruct versus the Pistons and who the Magic had not interest in retaining, yeah, a change of scenery might be nice.

• Rob Mahoney, who is not Matt Moore, chimes in at Hardwood Paroxysm.
• FreeDarko briefly notes Arroyo's departure in its first-ever daily links post:

  So many teams need a point guard, and Carlitos can't even get more than 2.5 mil? Dude has become, like the Puerto Rican Steve Francis in terms of a fall from grace.

• The Heat, rumored to be one of Arroyo's suitors, will have to look elsewhere for a backup point guard. The Peninsula is Mightier doesn't have a problem with that.

Stay tuned for bullets regarding the day's other Magic stories.

Carlos Arroyo, arguably the best point guard left on the free-agent market, is taking his game overseas. Brian Schmitz has heard rumblings that Arroyo signed with Maccabi Tel Aviv. He cites a report from Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper. I can't find the particular report on the paper's website, though, but Schmitz is a credible enough source.

The Magic had no plans to bring Arroyo back, as he fell out of favor with Stan Van Gundy at the end of last season. Still, the team could have done worse than re-sign Arroyo as a backup. The Magic's finances are dwindling, as is the league's free-agent pool. If they're going to bolster their point guard rotation, they might just have to make a trade.

UPDATE: Arroyo's name now appears on the team's official roster. He joins some fairly familiar names, as Maccabi Tel Aviv also employs Marcus Fizer, the fourth overall selection in 2000; Lior Eliyahu, a former Magic draft pick whose rights were traded to Houston; Esteban Batista, a former Atlanta Hawk; and D'or Fisher, who played for the Magic's summer-league team last month.

A reminder: if you missed Team USA play Team Russia in a pre-Olympics exhibition this morning at 3 AM, ESPN2 will re-broadcast the game at 7 PM. I don't want to spoil the outcome, but I will say it was, by far, Dwight Howard's weakest effort as a member of Team USA. In fact, Chris Sheridan believes Howard may lose some of his minutes to Chris Bosh. Ouch.

As you may have noticed, Getty removed the pictures which depicted the new uniforms for the Magic, Timberwolves, and Kings from its website. Apologies if you didn't manage to catch them in time.

Onto the news...

• Beyond the Arc, a Grizzlies-centered blog, refutes a recent internet report from an NBA website which stated the Grizzlies and Magic were discussing a trade involving Memphis shipping Javaris Crittenton to Orlando for the rights to Fran Vazquez. Those discussions never took place, according to the Grizzlies' owner, Michael Heisley. If they had, I'd worry for Mr. Heisley's sanity. (HT: Ball Don't Lie)
• In a fairly meaningless Olympic tune-up, Team USA defeated Team Turkey (which played without Hedo Turkoglu or Mehmet Okur), 114-82. Dwight Howard had 14 points (7-of-8 FG) and a game-high 8 boards. Here's the boxscore.
• Orlando Magic Blog examined the players the Magic have lost this summer and raises a good question: who's going to absorb their minutes? Jameer Nelson, Mickael Pietrus, and Anthony Johnson better eat their Wheaties this year, that's for darn sure. Courtney Lee, too.
• After some intensive number-cruncing, The Arbitrarian has created the Model-Estimated Value (MEV), a statistic which seeks to accurately account for each player's value based on his box-score statistics. It's like John Hollinger's PER and Dave Barri's Wins Produced insofar as it sums-up a player's production in a single number. Anyway, this metric rates Dwight Howard as the sixth-most productive player in the league last season, trailing LeBron James, Chris Paul, Amare Stoudemire, Kobe Bryant, and Allen Iverson.

Otherwise, it's quiet on the Magic front. We're still waiting for them to acquire a third point guard and to unveil their new uniforms.

Christmas comes early for the Magic and their fans, it seems. Earlier, fans got a sneak peak of the team's new jersey. Now, they learn their team will take part in a key nationally televised game this season.

NewOrleans.com obtained a copy of the Hornets' schedule and reported the team will play the Orlando Magic on Christmas Day. The matchup is simply to die for, as we discussed briefly (second bullet) after the Magic's loss to the Hornets last April Fool's Day.

The Magic hardly played on national television last season. The good news is their signature victory, the one which ended with this incredible buzzer-beating three from Hedo Turkoglu to down the Celtics, appeared there; the bad news is this embarrassing loss to Detroit also took place in front of a national audience. But seeing your team lose is better than not seeing it at all. Most Magic fans in Orlando can't see half the Magic's games due to the ongoing stalemate between FSN Florida and Bright House Networks.

This matchup will increase the Magic's presence on the national stage and possibly generate some hype about their future. Fantastic news for the team, its fans, and NBA fans worldwide.

With a tip of the cap to At The Hive.

If you want to get an idea of what the Magic's new uniforms look like, check out Courtney Lee's mug shot from the NBA rookie photoshoot yesterday. Dave McMenamin of NBA.com was on-hand yesterday, and I linked to his liveblog in this FanShot. In case you missed it, here's what he said about the Magic's uniforms:

The Magic, Timberwolves and Kings rookies are all donning the new jerseys that their teams will be wearing for the first time next season. Now this is just my personal opinion, but I rank Orlando as the best, then Sacramento, then Minnesota. The Magic's jerseys have a Penny/Shaq/3-D Scott feel, with a modern Dwight Howard/Spiderman touch. I'm digging them.

Henry Abbott was there, too, and had these details on how players from teams debuting new uniforms had to avoid being spotted:

So the players from those teams have been asked to be sneaky. They are wearing the new uniforms. But when they are not being photographed, they are wearing shooting shirts over the top so the secret [sic].

I know you are just dying to know what the new unis looks like, but I'm not telling.

As you can see from Lee's mug shot (here's the link again), the new uniforms do have pinstripes, but they are spaced very far apart. Additionally, the road uniforms are blue, meaning the soonest we could see the Magic in black alternate uniforms is 2010, or two years after their new look debuts.

So, based on the few inches of fabric you can see in Lee's mug shot, what do you think of the Magic's new uniforms?

With a tip of the cap to Jake, one of the co-writers of Bullets Forever, SB Nation's Washington Wizards blog.