Darko's Magic act has begun!

D-Mil was asked to get his butt off the bench in the last two games and he responded with two of the most beautiful triple singles you ever will see!

On Friday night, in a 102-89 win against the SuperSonics, Darko got 22 minutes of court action and went three for four with a season-high eight points, a season-high five rebounds, an assist and a pair of blocks. On Sunday, the team result was a bit more disappointing, as Orlando lost by a score of 89-85, but Darko was no less impressive, scoring six points, grabbing three boards, making a lovely touch pass to Dwight Howard for an assist, and establishing new career highs in blocks, with four, and steals, with two, in his 19 minutes of play.

It sure hasn't taken him long to show Detroit how well he can play with a few minutes thrown his way. He is very likely not going to waste much time in growing into the superstar we all expected him to become.

We here at DarkoRules owe coach Brian Hill a big apology. We went so far as to insult the man's looks, which was way out of line. Brian, you are all right by us, and we want you to know that we'd happily buy a used car from you any day of the week!

Darko played 3 minutes and 43 seconds in his Orlando Magic debut on Tuesday night in Cleveland. The Magic lost by a score 105-92, but Darko did score two points on an absolutely beautiful left-handed reverse layup that was probably one of the 2000 prettiest plays of this NBA season.

"That's the fewest minutes he's going to see all season," was what head coach Brian Hill had to say about Darko's playing time following the game, according to The Detroit News.

So was Bri telling the truth? Last night, Orlando lost to the New Jersey Nets by a score of 96-93. Darko's line on the boxscore turned out to be yet another DNP. Bri guy lied.

It took Larry Brown maybe half a season to turn Darko Nation against him. It took Flip Saunders maybe a quarter of a season to turn Darko Nation against him. Brian Hill has been far more expedient, taking only two games to earn the ire of Darko Nation. Come on, Brian. Isn't it bad enough that you look like a smarmy used car salesman?

Here's hoping that Darko sees at least ten minutes on the court in his home debut against Seattle tomorrow night.

Well, tonight is the big night. Darko will make his debut for the Orlando Magic when he leads the team into action against LeBron James and the rest of the Cavaliers.

There is little doubt that the NBA career of LeBron has been far superior to that of our man Milicic to date, nor is there much of a question that the players drafted immediately after Darko have enjoyed more success than he has to date. However, Darko has STILL not played any meaningful minutes in this league. Let us re-do an exercise we first conducted at the beginning of the season (when we had the mistaken belief that Darko was about to get a chance) by looking at career minutes played by the top five draft picks of 2003. Darko (the number 2 pick) has played a grand total of 553 minutes. Here is how he stacks up against the other draftees from that year:

Lebron James (number 1 pick): 8706 minutes (15.74 times Darko's minutes)
Chris Bosh (number 4 pick): 7585 minutes (13.72 times Darko's minutes)
Carmelo Anthony (number 3 pick): 7554 minutes (13.66 times Darko's minutes)
Dwyane Wade (number 5 pick): 7088 minutes (12.82 times Darko's minutes)

This gross imbalance should begin to correct itself beginning tonight.

Another interesting metric by which we can compare these players is that of name recognition. Just for fun, the names of each of the five players were thrown into Google to see how many results each would return. A search for "darko milicic" returns about 250,000 results, which is probably up considerably in comparison to what it would have been before the big trade to the Magic. Here is how the other four draftees compare:

"lebron james": 2,130,000 results (8.52 times Darko's results)
"dwyane wade": 1,460,000 results (5.84 times Darko's results)
"carmelo anthony": 1,450,000 results (5.80 times Darko's results)
"chris bosh": 610,000 results (2.44 times Darko's results)

Darko's Google power will likely grow fairly rapidly with the increased minutes he will see in Orlando. An interesting side note is the fact that Chris Bosh is also a relative laggard behind the LeBron, Dwyane, and Carmelo in this category, despite having been an excellent player throughout his career and having been chosen to the Eastern All-Star team this year. It appears that Toronto is something of a backwater town when it comes to the NBA, so that may have something to do with it.

The good news is that Darko can, and very likely will, only go up from here in all respects. Take your seats, everyone! Darko's Magic act is about to begin!

KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!

As of last night, Darko is a member of the Orlando Magic! This is easily the biggest sporting news story that has occurred during the time in which the DarkoRules blog has existed. And here we all were thinking that Joe D was the smartest GM in basketball! Goodness!

What does this mean? Darko is finally going to be a full-fledged NBA rookie! There are going to be 31 games of Magic this season!

Darko's first game with the Magic is this coming Tuesday, February 21, as he faces off against his draft buddy LeBron James, so we have to wait out the All-Star break before we see Darko in an Orlando Magic uniform. Wondering how Darko will look in that outfit? We were as well, which is why we commissioned the DarkoRules artist to mock up an image of 31 in a Magic jersey. Looking sharp, Darko!

Hello everyone,

Goodness, it has been a while since DarkoRules was last in action. Fourteen games have gone by since the last update. There are a few noteworthy things to mention about this stretch:

- The two games out of the fourteen in which Darko received the largest amount of playing time were both wins against Minnesota, one on January 24 and one on February 1. Flip Saunders' dislike of his former team is clearly extremely strong, as it overpowers his almost steadfast preference of keeping Darko on the bench.
- The Pistons have lost four of their last nine games. Darko did not play at all in any of the lesses.
- Darko missed a shot against New Jersey in the Pistons' 85-71 win last night. This was the first missed field goal for Darko since December 17. Darko went almost two months without missing a field goal!

While these tidbits are interesting, they absolutly pale in comparison to what may be going down as early as today. There are strong rumblings that Darko will be traded to the Orlando Magic! This is huge! Stay tuned to DarkoRules. We will update you as soon as some substantive news come out!