Rob Hennigan ready for a comeback
The success or failure of the Orlando Magic this season will lie on general manager Rob Hennigan. The young general manager has to show progress this year.
Did Rob Hennigan go anywhere? Has he really done anything wrong?
The focus and lens on the 2016 season is turned squarely on the Magic’s young general manager. There is no denying it now. He is under pressure to deliver some tangible, measurable progress on the Magic’s rebuild.
It has been a weird road for him.
His first task was to trade Dwight Howard. Then it was to get his draft picks right, wherever they might fall. He had to clear cap room and collect young assets.
Most would say he won the Howard trade — Howard is no longer in Los Angeles, Andrew Bynum is no longer in Philadelphia and Andre Iguodala is no longer in Golden State Denver. He has largely gotten his picks rights — Victor Oladipo is quite possibly the best player in his draft class and the jury is still out on Aaron Gordon. And he has collected a ton of quality, promising young players — Nikola Vucevic is a potential all star and Tobias Harris is one of the best young scorers in the league.
So why have things not come together? Why is there this added pressure to deliver wins if things seem to have gone right?
The Magic remain one of the hardest teams to peg. Even with a consistent coach in Scott Skiles now under the helm, every NBA observer seems to wonder whether this group can get it together. And if they cannot, what that means for Rob Hennigan.
The group over at Hardwood Paroxysm recently named their comeback and bounceback stories for the 2016 season. If the Magic can make the Playoffs, as Miles Wray believes, Rob Hennigan could validate all the trust the Magic have put in him:
"To Hennigan’s credit, he has talked about building a team via “incremental gains”ever since that distant day he traded away Dwight Howard. I would not be the first to point out that Orlando’s gains have been really, really, super-duper incremental: 20 wins, then 23, then 25. So, uh, sure, heading in the right direction. This is the challenge with a rebuilding project: go too fast and you are sealing your sixth-seed destiny; go too slow and your rebuilding team has only ever been a plain ol’ bad one.So, hear this bold prediction! Orlando makes the playoffs this season!Here’s what I’ve loved about the Magic — and I’m surprised that this admirable quality hasn’t earned them a playoff spot already — is that Hennigan has won every trade he’s been in. The four-way Howard trade has laid waste to the other three franchises involved (the Lakers, Nuggets, and 76ers, who were left in such bad shape that they turned to Sam Hinkie), while the Magic still have Nikola Vucevic and are still owed a first-round pick from the deal. In exchange for a half-season of J.J. Redick, Hennigan received position-bending scoring monster Tobias Harris. It seemed like folly to exchange Arron Afflalo for Evan Fournier, but now the Nuggets don’t have Afflalo and Fournier is a cost-controlled rotation player. You can’t make this many good decisions and not start to feel the value stacking up and up. Right?"
Objectively, Hennigan has done everything by the book. He has won every trade and drafted well. Maybe his initial coaching hire was not the strongest one — it is hard to find a coach willing to suffer through losing and keeping the confidence of young players’ up for two seasons — and the team certainly took a step back last season.
There is the promise that the team will do better with a coach with a little bit more of a pedigree in the NBA. He may not be the coach to win a championship, but Scott Skiles is certainly a coach to get accountability from a young roster. If Skiles cannot get the team to turn the corner, the whole project is probably a failure.
That is the crossroads Hennigan and his rebuilding plan appear to be at. It is put up or shut up time.
If the Magic can reward him with some wins in the next year, then Hennigan is certainly going to get heaped with deserved praise.