{"id":98786,"date":"2025-06-14T19:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T19:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/98786\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T19:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T19:02:09","slug":"eastern-notes-carter-lowry-porzingis-cavaliers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/98786\/","title":{"rendered":"Eastern Notes: Carter, Lowry, Porzingis, Cavaliers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magic center Wendell Carter Jr.<\/a>\u00a0feels energized while watching this year\u2019s NBA Finals matchup, according to Jason Beede of the Orlando Sentinel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows that anything is possible,\u201d Carter said. \u201cIt\u2019s very possible. We\u2019ve just got to be even more locked in, be in better shape [and] take care of our bodies even more so that we can withstand 82 games and then go into the playoffs and not drop off at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Magic were injured early and often last season, with Paolo Banchero<\/a>, Franz Wagner<\/a> and Jalen Suggs<\/a> missing a combined 105 games. Still, all three players remain on a strong trajectory, each enjoying career-best averages in the time they did play. That leaves Orlando, a playoff team in spite of the injuries, feeling optimistic.<\/p>\n

Carter sees his Orlando team capable of playing in a similar style to the Thunder and Pacers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been nothing shy of amazing. With these two teams in the Finals, it\u2019s very good for the NBA,\u201d Carter said. \u201cVery healthy that two small-market teams [are] getting this type of exposure. Of course, I want us to be there one day playing for a championship, to bring a championship to Orlando [but] it\u2019s a good thing what\u2019s going on right now with both teams young, scrappy [to have] made it that far. It\u2019s a good sign, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have more from the Eastern Conference:<\/p>\n

39-year-old Sixers guard Kyle Lowry<\/a> is likely to be back for another season, Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes in a mailbag (Subscriber link<\/a>). Philadelphia values Lowry for his leadership and mentorship of young guards like Tyrese Maxey<\/a> and Jared McCain<\/a>. As Pompey writes, Blake Griffin<\/a> revealed that there\u2019s a possibility of Lowry joining Amazon\u2019s NBA coverage in some capacity, like as a player correspondent, but that isn\u2019t finalized and remains speculation at this point.
\nTrading Kristaps Porzingis<\/a> would be a mistake in the eyes of one anonymous front office executive, Heavy\u2019s Steve Bulpett writes<\/a>. \u201cBut unless they know something about Porzingis that we don\u2019t, I don\u2019t see how they can let him go,\u201d the source said. \u201cWhen Boston was right, he\u2019s a major factor and they win. Yeah, he wasn\u2019t a huge part of what they did in the playoffs last year.\u201d Porzingis was a major factor in two Celtics wins in the Finals last season but was limited to 7.7 points per game in the playoffs this year while dealing with an illness.
\nThe Cavaliers will face an uphill battle to retain both Ty Jerome<\/a> and Sam Merrill<\/a> due to their already large payroll. According to Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com on the Wine and Gold Talk podcast (YouTube link<\/a>), the Cavs\u2019 front office is canvassing the league to see if salary-shedding trades are on the table. Fedor says they have had a hard time finding any takers for Isaac Okoro<\/a>\u2018s contract that runs through 2026\/27 without Cleveland attaching an asset. The team has also explored moving Dean Wade<\/a>, per Fedor (hat tip to RealGM<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Magic center Wendell Carter Jr.\u00a0feels energized while watching this year\u2019s NBA Finals matchup, according to Jason Beede of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,3846,5759,3891,871,3844,6,862],"class_list":{"0":"post-98786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","13":"tag-dean-wade","14":"tag-isaac-okoro","15":"tag-kristaps-porzingis","16":"tag-kyle-lowry","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-wendell-carter"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114683271385847094","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}