ORLANDO, Fla---
When you make the playoffs for the first time in seven years there’s a lot of credit to go around. The players and Steve Clifford are obvious, but don’t forget about the front office. For so many years that’s where Orlando’s problems began.
“This is just the very tip of the iceberg,” Magic General Manager John Hammond says. “We aren’t where we need to be, but hopefully this is a step in the right direction.”
Hammond and President of Basketball Operations Jeff Weltman came to Orlando after the 2016-2017 season. They had a history of working together and a history of success. Hammond won a NBA title as the Vice President of Basketball operations in Detroit. He also worked with Weltman in Milwaukee from 2008-2013 where he famously drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo. Weltman went on to become Toronto’s GM and helped that franchise make the eastern conference finals in 2016.
They’d turned around franchises before. The key to Orlando in Hammond’s mind was patience.
“[Jeff] would say to me I think this team is good enough, I think this team is capable of winning,” Hammond remembers. “We looked at a lot of different scenarios maybe we could make a more significant change here, a more significant change there and his patience paid off in that regard that we finished the season the way we did.”
The moves Hammond and Weltman made were careful and calculated. The moves they didn’t make just as important as the ones they did. They hired their head coach in Steve Clifford. A move that’s proven to be a home run. They moved forward with DJ Augustin as the starting point guard while trading away Elfrid Payton and acquiring former number one overall pick Markelle Fultz. They drafted Jonathan Isaac and Mo Bamba. This year it all came together.
“You look at the start of the season and there’s a small group of teams that you know are going to make the playoffs even potentially be competing for a championship. There’s another small group of teams at the bottom that just don’t have a realistic chance,” Hammond says. “There’s a large group in the middle and I think that group is a team like ourselves.”
One of the biggest reasons Orlando was able to rise to the top of that group in Hammond’s eyes is health.
“The greatest asset we have is player availability and our team has been healthy this year that’s been such an important factor for us,” Hammond says.
The numbers back it up. Last season Orlando only had three players play 75 or more games. DJ Augustin, Bismack Biyombo, and Mario Hezonja. This year they had six: Augustin, Evan Fournier, Terrence Ross, Nikola Vucevic, Aaaron Gordon, and Jonathan Isaac. That’s their starting five and sixth man.
Hammond credits High Performance Director David Tenney and the performance staff for the improvement. Health kept them on the floor which ultimately led to career years for the core of the roster.
“You look at this team and you start with Vooch,” Hammond says. “Wow, look at what Vooch did he became an All-Star for us, had an All-Star season for us.”
Hammond points out that you can tell success stories up and down the roster and he’s right. Vucevic had career highs in points (20.8) rebounds (12) and assists (3.8). Terrence Ross averaged a career high 15.1 ppg and made a career high 217 three pointers. Jonathan Isaac became a reliable scoring threat the second half of the season. Aaron Gordon was their best two-way player. DJ Augustin proved the doubters wrong and essentially just won them a playoff game. Evan Fournier has been Steve Clifford’s go to option when they needed to create a last second shot. The list goes on and on.
“Our team kind of fit this year a little bit,” Hammond says. “When you’re putting a roster together at the end of the day you just don’t know how that’s going to go.”
The pieces fit now, but what about the future? Vucevic and Ross are about to become unrestricted free agents. Fultz and Bamba are dealing with injuries, but will eventually need to play.
“That’s our job to kind of evaluate that,” Hammond says. “I think both [Vucevic and Ross] are very happy here obviously they both had great years here and obviously we’d like to have both of those guys back.”
An All-Star center like Vucevic and a three point shooting sixth man option like Ross could draw some big attention on the free agent market. Ultimately the decision lies in their hands, but Hammond says ownership is committed to winning.
“The DeVos family is committed to winning. They are committed to this organization,” Hammond says. “Free agency that’s a whole other piece of the puzzle that we deal with moving forward.”
Regardless what Hammond and the front office does in the future, the present looks good for the first time in a long time.
“It’s great, you know the old saying if you’re going to play you might as well play to win. Our guys have done that,” Hammond says. “I observe guys like Nikola Vucevic and Evan Fournier and DJ Augustin… kind of our three more veteran guys and you could see how evident it is how badly they wanted this.”
