Chadblog on Weisbrod
Ice too thin for Magic GM
Excuse the metaphor, but it looks like the hockey guy got iced.
GM John Weisbrod stepped down Monday as the GM of the Orlando Magic. According to the team, Weisbrod is leaving the team in order to pursue opportunities in the NHL.
This shouldn't come as a big surprise. It sure didn't take long for both Weisbrod and the Magic to realize that he belonged in hockey, not basketball.
Weisbrod's rise and fall lasted about as long as Hootie and the Blowfish's career. The "hockey guy" projected supreme confidence when he chucked Tracy McGrady just months after taking over the team. Weisbrod wanted to remake the Magic in his image -- a tough, no-nonsense, team-first type of squad. He believed that players should care more about the name on the front of the jersey than the one on the back. To him, McGrady was the antithesis of all the values he held dear. But he knew his career really hinged on that move.
"I said from the start this was the way I'd do it and I'd either be a hero or they'd run me out of town," Weisbrod told me in training camp.
After a solid start to the season for the Magic, the Magic stumbled badly. He made a disasterous trade for Doug Christie, giving up Cuttino Mobley. He fired head coach Johnny Davis and replaced him with rookie head coach Chris Jent. By the end of the season, a team that looked like a lock for the playoffs in March was back in the lottery.
Now, the future of the franchise has never been in more doubt.
Two solid first-round picks, Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson, plus the reemergence of Grant Hill are the only things giving Magic's fans much hope at this point. However, all three of those things could have happened with Tracy McGrady still on board.
Now Magic president Bob Vander Weide has his hands full this summer. The team says that for the time being, director of player personnel Dave Twardzik and director of player development Otis Smith will lead Magic basketball operations.
With Weisbrod's radical overhaul suddenly in doubt, will the Magic have to tear it back down again and start over from scratch?
There's a feeling among some in the organization that Steve Francis needs to go. He has a lot of talent, but there are GMs who wonder, as Weisbrod did after acquiring him, if he has any business playing the point.
The team also needs to get younger at center (Kelvin Cato and Tony Battie are dinosaurs who don't really fit their style of play) and add a big, athletic two guard who can play defense (obviously Doug Christie hasn't panned out). They can probably get the two guard they need via the draft. The big man? They may have to use Francis and either Cato or Battie as bait to land him.
Vander Weide also needs a new head coach. Weisbrod called interim head coach Chris Jent the "crown jewel" of the franchise. However, no one seems to want to give the crown jewel a big extension.
They've made a strong push for Flip Saunders in the past few days. Other candidates include Eric Musselman, Chris Ford, and P.J. Carlesimo. Of the four, Musselman seemed like the best fit with Weisbrod's personality, but now all bets are off.
The bottom line for Weisbrod's short tenure is whether the Magic are better off than they were when he took over the franchise. Right now, it's tough to argue that they are. McGrady looked dominant in the playoffs. Rookie Anderson Varejao (who Weisbrod just gave away to Cleveland) looks like one of the steals of the draft. Even Drew Gooden turned things around in Cleveland this year. Meanwhile, all three of the guys that Orlando got from Houston are on the outs. Mobley is already gone and Francis and Cato could be on their way out this summer.
It's starting to look as though Weisbrod essentially gave McGrady away. No one can survive that. Especially not the hockey guy.
posted: May 23, 2005 9:10:09 AM PDT
