Magic CEO steps down, but not until he pitches Dwight Howard

We’re not exactly sure why Orlando Magic CEO Bob Vander Weide announced his sudden retirement on Tuesday.

Was it because he had been the guy overseeing Orlando’s interests in the NBA labor negotiations, which ended up not changing the Dwight Howard situation at all? Was it because he is married to the daughter of Magic owner Rich DeVos and there is trouble there? Was it just time after being with the team for 20 years?

Who knows? What we do know is that before he basically drunk dialed Dwight Howard, according to the Big House Sports Network (via Ball Don’t Lie).

Vander Weide confirmed that he made a 1 a.m. phone call in recent days to Magic superstar Dwight Howard, and Howard thought Vander Weide may have been intoxicated. On that call, Vander Weide told Howard how much the Magic wanted to keep him in Orlando. “I was playing paddle with friends and had a couple of glasses of wine,” Vander Weide told BHSN. “Maybe Dwight thought it was inappropriate to talk business after a couple of glasses of wine... Maybe I should have waited until the morning.”

Paddle? I’m going to assume paddle tennis. But what people do in the privacy of their own home is up to them, so I will ask no more questions.

I doubt this has much impact on Howard coming or going from the Magic, a situation that seems to be moving slowly as the Magic are trying to figure out how to keep him by brining in another superstar. A real one, not Gilbert Arenas and Hedo Turkoglu.