Magic’s Martins acknowledges Weltman is the anti-Hennigan
What we witnessed on Wednesday was an organization acknowledging a terrible mistake by putting the pedal to the metal, squealing its tires, peeling out and speeding down the road in the complete opposite direction.
The Magic introduced Jeff Weltman, their new president of basketball operations, and about the only thing team CEO Alex Martins didn’t do was come right out and declare Weltman as the “anti-Rob Hennigan.”
But, in essence, Weltman is just that. He’s the mature, motherly woman you seek out after the hot, young babe leaves you broke and busted. He’s the wily, seasoned veteran whom the Magic hired earlier this week after five sorry years of sitting stagnant while Hennigan — a 30-year-old kid — wobbled along on training wheels try-
ing to learn how to run a basketball team.
In Weltman and his hand-picked general manager — Milwaukee Bucks architect John Hammond — the Magic have hired two men with a combined 63 years of front-office experience. Both Weltman (age 52) and Hammond (63) have been in the NBA for nearly as long as Hennigan has been alive.
“If it had worked out well five years ago we wouldn’t be sitting here today,” Martins admitted. “Obviously, it didn’t work out. Yes, I learned from that experience. Yes, we did take a different approach. One of our primary goals was to look for experience and minimizing our risk through experience.
“The difference is we now have incredible firepower at the top of our basketball operation. We have two individuals who have spent their life in the game and worked every position in a basketball operation.”
Translation: The training wheels are off and Martins is handing the keys to the franchise over to someone who is actually old enough to drive.
This is all well and good, but it’s certainly no reason to throw a parade down Orange Avenue. Weltman and Hammond joining the Magic aren’t exactly like Shaq and Penny joining the Magic. NBA games, after all, are won by young, athletic stars out on the floor; not by two middle-aged guys in the front office. If Weltman were bringing talented free agent point guard Kyle Lowry with him from Toronto then, yes, Magic fans would have good reason to celebrate.
Hopefully, the hiring of Weltman and Hammond will improve the roster in two, three or four years, but today the Magic are the same team they were yesterday — a team that has compiled an abysmal five-year record of 132-278. Weltman and Hammond have inherited an empty gas tank with a million miles to go before the Magic become contenders.
They may be good at what they do, but they aren’t miracle workers. They cannot turn Elfrid Payton into Steph Curry or Aaron Gordon into Draymond Green. Magic fans might not want to hear this, but rebuilding the rebuild might take as much time as the rebuild itself. Don’t ask me how, but Hennigan left a roster worse than the one he inherited.
That said, Weltman will have more resources, more money and more staffing in the front office than Hennigan or any other Magic basketball boss has ever had. Martins wouldn’t say how much more the Magic are spending to upgrade the front office, but says the amount is “significant.”
“We’re investing in our basketball operations at a level this organization has never had before,” Martins said.
The question is can Weltman use these resources wisely, draft prudently and rebuild quickly? Even though his late father Harry was an NBA and ABA GM and he has 28 years experience with five different franchises, Weltman has never actually been in charge of running his own team.
But, unlike Hennigan, Weltman at least comes across as the type of leader who can create synergy, trust and confidence within an organization. Hennigan always seemed like he thought he was the smartest guy in the room; Weltman knows he’s not.
When asked on Wednesday about the current roster, Weltman deferred to head coach Frank Vogel sitting in the front row of the press conference: “Coach Vogel knows the team and I don’t. I need to do a lot of listening right now.”
When asked why he hired Hammond, his former boss, as his GM, Weltman said: “Because he’s better than me.”
I like what he says, but let’s see what he does.
Winning the press conference is meaningless. And he knows it. “We’re doing a lot of talking today,” Jeff Weltman says, “but it’s up to us to walk out of here and prove it.”
As he speaks, you can almost smell the burned rubber as the Magic attempt to speed away from the most inglorious era in the history of the franchise.