Preseason preview: Dallas Mavericks at Orlando Magic

The final pre-season of the season will not be on TV, because it's 2014 and this makes total sense (no it doesn't). I assume the game is on ESPN 103.3 but the internet can't tell me at the moment.

We can't watch the game. Is there a reason we should care?

It's the last pre-season game. Since the Thursday night game against New Orleans was, by most accounts, a tire fire, tonight's game is apparently moderately important:

The #Mavs won't play their top players tonight against the #Pelicans. Their starting lineup will be out in full force Fri. in Orlando.

— Dwain Price (@DwainPrice) October 23, 2014

Starters will play! It's the last time to tinker and test stuff before the games start to mean something. That's fun.

Any game-related stuff to consider?

The Magic are a wildly athletic team. Seeing (or hearing...or reading) about how the starters match up against the raw athleticism of Orlando is important. The top teams in the West all have extremely athletic options. Dallas is no slouch in that department, but with a number of defensive liabilities in the top of the rotation, how Rick Carlisle gets the Mavericks to cope with young teams is pretty important.

Does Orlando have any players worth keeping an eye on this year?

With a roster as young and oddly constructed as the Magic, about half the roster comes to mind. I'm very curious about Elfrid Payton, the second of the highly touted Magic rookies. With Victor Oladipo hurt (and a lot of the Magic guards being bad), he has a chance to make an early impact.

You're not talking about Jameer Nelson coming home. Why not?

Honestly, Jameer coming back to Orlando deserves a lot more attention than I'm going to give it because we can't see the dadgum game. I promise you, this will be a thing we touch on more when the games count.