Lewis shines in move to Florida, and Magic

ORLANDO — Admit it, you saw the numbers of Rashard Lewis' new contract with the Orlando Magic and you said to yourself, the NBA must be crazy.

$118 million? For him?

Sure, the one-time All-Star forward is a solid player, but in each of his nine seasons with the Sonics he'd always played Robin to somebody else's Batman. He had a career year last season, averaging 22.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists, and he has averaged at least 20 points each of the past three seasons — but $118 million?

Lewis didn't expect that much. He was hoping for a five-year contract in the $90 million range. But agent Tony Dutt, Sonics general manager Sam Presti and Magic GM Otis Smith worked a sign-and-trade deal that gave Seattle a trade exception, Orlando salary-cap space and Lewis an extra year, which significantly increased the value of the deal.

"The NBA must be crazy," Lewis said to himself. But then he said: "God is good."

Lewis, who meets his former team for the first time at 4 p.m. today in Orlando, looks at ease in his new surroundings, despite all of the changes in his life in the past six months.

He has a new coach, Stan Van Gundy, and a new number. In Seattle he wore No. 7, but here he's No. 9.

In Seattle, they called him Sweet Lew, but here he's Max. As in, maximum contract. The A-Rod burden of living up to his enormous contract weighed heavily on Lewis early on.

"I thought in the preseason that he was feeling the pressure and I asked him, and he admitted that he was wanting to prove to be people that he was worth it and that it was a good thing," Van Gundy said. "He did feel that pressure, and I don't think he needs to."

Since the start of the regular season, Lewis has been on a torrid pace. He has scored fewer than 18 points in just one game and is averaging 20.6 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3 assists.

Still, there was so much to learn and many adjustments to make.

For starters, he had to get used to playing with a dominant center for the first time. Lewis is a career .386 percent three-point shooter, but for most of his career, he was Seattle's primary low-post weapon because 7-footers Olden Polynice, Jerome James, Predrag Drobnjak, Calvin Booth and Robert Swift were offensively inept.

In Orlando, however, the low post belongs to Dwight Howard and the small-forward position belongs to Hedo Turkoglu, which forced Lewis to make adjustments.

"I'm a power forward," he said, laughing. "Who knew?"

In Seattle, the 6-10, 230-pound Lewis never embraced playing power forward, one of the reasons the Sonics could never get the Lewis-Vladimir Radmanovic tandem to work in the Western Conference, which has an abundance of quality power forwards.

But in the weaker Eastern Conference, the Lewis-Turkoglu-Howard frontcourt has led Orlando to a 5-2 start atop the Southeast Division. The Magic mania in Central Florida can be seen on roadside billboards and inside Amway Arena, where the Magic sold out its first three games.

Players talk about winning a title this season, which seems a tad premature for a team that posted a losing record (40-42) last year and was swept 4-0 in the first round of the playoffs by Detroit.

"Management made a commitment to winning," said guard Jameer Nelson, "and bringing in Rashard is proof of that commitment."

In July, Orange County and Orlando leaders made a major commitment to the Magic when they approved funding on a public-private-financed $480 million arena, which is set to open in 2010, as part of a downtown revitalization project that includes a performing-arts center.

Across the continent, Lewis keeps tabs on the uncertainty surrounding the Sonics through friends on the team.

He said he wished he could have stayed with the club that took him 32nd overall in the second round of the 1998 draft, but he knew his days in Seattle were over when new management traded Ray Allen to Boston. A few days later, a Presti-led contingent visited Lewis in Houston, but the Sonics never made an offer.

Lewis said today's game will be different from any other.

He said Kevin Durant reminds him of himself, but Lewis won't go up against the talented rookie and will defend Chris Wilcox or Nick Collison for most of the game.

"So how are they doing?" he asked.

When told of the fourth-quarter struggles that have led to Seattle's 0-7 start, Lewis said: "They're young. They're rebuilding. We're young too, but they're really young."

He then asks when the Sonics' plane was landing, hoping to meet Damien Wilkins or Wilcox for dinner.

"What am I saying? I can't do that, I got baby duties," he said.

That's another change for the 28-year-old Lewis. His longtime girlfriend gave birth to the couple's daughter, Gianna, three months ago. They live in Winter Park, just north of Orlando.

"I love it here," he said. "It's like this is a new family for me."

Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com