Orlando Magic general manager Otis Smith said Thursday that he can still envision a scenario in which Darko Milicic returns to the team, despite claims from the power forward's jilted agent that he'd never play with the Magic again.

When the Magic and Seattle forward Rashard Lewis agreed to a five-year, $75 million pact on Tuesday, Milicic's camp felt he had no future left with the Magic. Orlando then withdrew a $6.8 million qualifying offer to Milicic so that it had enough salary cap space to sign Lewis.

The Magic had hopes -- and still do -- of working out a sign-and-trade agreement with Seattle that would create enough cap room to keep Milicic in the fold in Orlando.

"I've said from the start that I'd like to keep Darko here and I've never wavered from that feeling," Smith said Thursday. "It may not have appeared that way at times with the process that we've used, but I didn't feel like I had to disclose my process to everybody. It's just unfortunate that it came to the name-calling that it did."