NBA Insider with Ken Berger

Just had a nice chat with Magic GM Otis Smith before Orlando’s game against the Nets tonight, while Grant Hill was testing his sprained right knee in warm-ups and looking pretty spry doing it.

Let’s get right to it: Despite the fact that Hill’s big, fat, juicy, $16.9 million expiring contract would seem awfully appetizing to teams trying to rebuild and make cap room, Smith said he hasn’t received a single call from another team about Hill. The Feb. 22 trade deadline is only 12 days away.

“I fully expect him to be here,” Smith said. “One, there’s nothing out there that would excite me to make me want to do anything. Secondly, absolutely no one has called on his behalf. I like what he brings to our young team, so it’d be really hard for me to part with him.”

The Magic carried a 4-11 record into tonight’s game since former Knicks Trevor Ariza went down with a knee injury Jan. 10 at Golden State. Orlando was 22-14 after beating Golden State that night. At 26-25 heading into tonight’s game, Smith’s team was in danger of completing a freefall to the .500 mark.

Orlando will get Hill, Ariza, and Keyon Dooling back after the All-Star break. But if he wants to make any changes before the trade deadline, Smith has some interesting pieces to offer. Keith Bogans might draw interest from a team looking for a wing defender, and Pat Garrity has a $3.5 million expiring contract.

One situation that won’t be resolved until after the season is that of power forward Darko Milicic, who has started to blossom after being banished to the bench by Larry Brown in Detroit. The Magic could’ve signed Milicic to a $40 million extension last summer, but opted to wait. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent this summer.

“We fully expect to have him back on our team,” Smith said. “… I think you get drafted based on your potential and you get extensions based on a body of work. I just haven’t seen enough to be sure what to do with him.”

Another interesting tidbit I picked up from hanging around the Magic before the game: Dwight Howard will have some help in trying to take Nate Robinson’s slam dunk title away next weekend at the All-Star Game in Las Vegas. And it’ll come from someone almost as short as Robinson: Magic point guard Jameer Nelson.

No one is giving up the goods on what sort of dunk Howard is working on, but it’ll involve Nelson in some way. Howard said recently that a lot of people suggested he try to win the competition by breaking the backboard. The only downside I can see to that is, it would cause me to miss deadline.