Orlando Magic Rumors: Orlando Magic to hire former Sacramento Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro
The Orlando Magic are adding more experience to their front office, reportedly hiring former Sacramento Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro.
Orlando Magic CEO Alex Martins promised the team was prepared to invest in its basketball operations like never before. And it seems like the marquee hires to lead the Magic out of this rebuild continue to come.
Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical reports the Magic will hire former Sacramento Kings general manager Pete D’Alessandro as the team’s assistant general manager. D’Alessandro is essentially the third or fourth highest member of the Magic’s impressive front office.
Sources: Orlando's hiring Denver executive Pete D'Alessandro as an assistant GM. Moves D'Alessandro back to basketball side from business.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 10, 2017
The Magic have quickly assembled a talented and stacked front office full of some of the most respected executives in the league.
Jeff Weltman has 20-plus years in the league and worked as an assistant general manager with the Denver Nuggets, Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors. He was the general manager with the Raptors, helping Masai Ujiri build the team into an Eastern Conference contender.
Weltman alone would have been a strong hire for a team trying to dig itself out of a frustrating five-year rebuild. But the Magic went out and grabbed Bucks general manager John Hammond, an executive with 30-plus years in the league including as assistant general manager for the 2004 champion Detroit Pistons.
Both of those hires would certainly be enough. D’Alessandro is another experienced executive added to the fold. And the team still employs former interim general manager Matt Lloyd. That is a lot of basketball experience and expertise in the room.
D’Alessandro is probably a little more controversial of a hire. His tenure as general manager of the Kings was not a mixed bag like Hammond’s tenure with the Bucks (although the Bucks are trending up). The Kings struggled a lot during D’Alessandro’s tenure.
D’Alessandro was the general manager for the Kings from 2013-15. While there, he let Isaiah Thomas walk in free agency. He was also the general manager when the team fired Mike Malone as head coach and transitioned to George Karl. He received some blame for leaking negative stories about the Kings organization.
It is hard to say exactly how much of the Kings’ mismanagement in his tenure was because of his decisions or directives from controversial owner Vivek Ranadive. This was undoubtedly a low period for a hurting Kings franchise.
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D’Alessandro went back to work for the Nuggets in a non-basketball capacity last season.
His ties to Weltman come from his first stint with the Nuggets where he was the vice president of basketball operations under Ujiri. While all three executives were in Denver, the Nuggets won a franchise-record 57 games in 2012.
D’Alessandro is known for his cap expertise. This is possibly a role he would fill. The Magic fired their cap expert from the Rob Hennigan era.
D’Alessandro will have a voice in the room as the Magic make decisions, but he is not the one making decisions. That will still fall to Jeff Weltman.
But it is also clear the Magic are putting together a strong group of executives to lead their basketball operations. The team is bringing in executives with high-level experience with multiple teams to run the basketball operations. It is very different from the last regime for sure. No executive with the team had previous experience as a lead decision maker.
The Magic now have three.
Next: John Hammond: Orlando Magic will take best player available
Orlando has gone all in with this executive group. Only time will tell if this collective can help improve the team.