Orlando Magic turning focus to the now with reported Scott Skiles hiring
The Orlando Magic’s targeting of Scott Skiles signals a major shift in the rebuild. The focus is no longer on the future, it is about the 2016 Playoffs.
The Orlando Magic have not officially hired Scott Skiles yet. The writing appears to be on the wall though.
Regardless of whether those reports are true or not, the Magic’s apparent interest in Skiles, a coach reviled for his mediocrity in results and his lack of offensive imagination, says a lot about where they are in their rebuild and, perhaps, just how far the disappointing 2015 season put them behind schedule.
With so much dancing and waiting for Tom Thibodeau to come free and with so much talk during the early days after Dwight Howard was traded about building to be a champions, the Magic clearly had ambition.
This undertaking is unlike anything the Magic have ever done. These three years are just one shy of the team record for longest Playoff drought. That first four-year drought came in the team’s first four years. That is how total and complete the rebuild is and has become.
Orlando seems intent at this point at fulfilling their vision that this is a Playoff team in the watered-down Eastern Conference with few tweaks to the current roster.
And so, with a big decision about their head coach, the Magic, as Derek James of Hardwood Paroxysm puts it, are prepared to settle.
"While Skiles is a fine short term fix it seems odd that they set their sights so low. Names like Alvin Gentry, Mike Malone, Kevin Ollie, Brooks, and Thibadeau have never seemed to be seriously attached to the Magic as they have others despite having an enticing job opening. Their coaching search has been far less interesting with Skiles being a retread candidate and the consensus being that he won’t be the long-term solution on the bench. Other teams appear to have at least tried and failed to land a top-tier coach. The Magic just seem to be taking what they can get when they don’t need to."
The Magic do not have a ton of good options at head coach.
They seemed to make it pretty clear from the beginning they were looking for a coach with a proven NBA track record. They did not want to take a risk on a guy who was inexperienced in the lead chair after Jacque Vaughn or a guy without experience in the NBA.
That knocked out college coaches. It knocked out assistants who have not been through the coaching carousel.
It seemed to giftwrap the job to Scott Skiles, a coach who has been out of the league for nearly three seasons. Skiles’ name was attached to the Magic job almost immediately.
The focus was put on Thibodeau it seemed — the home run — and Skiles — the bloop single.
So why not take a small risk to get the guy that can lead the team to a title? Skiles is definitively not that guy.
Skiles is an accomplished coach. In his three stops as a NBA coach, he has taken his team to the Playoffs. He instills a tough-minded defensive identity. And then eventually burns out his team.
It is like clockwork.
Thibodeau obviously has some other things going on that have prevented a number of teams from trying to go after him. The Bulls are holding him hostage.
Ettore Messina, rumored in some circles to have been on the Thunder’s short list, is an accomplished international coach with a few years of NBA assistant coaching under his belt.
Mike Malone, who was cut from the Magic’s original coaching search three years ago, was seemingly not in the running despite his short stint with the Kings.
Accomplished assistants like Alvin Gentry were not interviewed (the Pelicans reportedly asked for permission to talk to him while the Warriors waited for the end to the Clippers/Rockets series).
A young college coach like Fred Hoiberg was apparently contacted (although another reporter told me he did not believe the Magic had done so, disputing the initial report), but likely never seriously considered.
The Magic really came down to two choices. And they no longer could wait. So why was the choice Skiles? How does Skiles get the Magic to that ultimate end goal everyone in management has talked about since Howard left — winning a championship?
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The only way he does is if he is viewed as a stepping stone to a championship. The best option in a bad coaching market and the surest thing for a team desperately in need of respectability. But Skiles has never in his long experience as a NBA head coach, delivered anything more than respectability. His teams have never competed for championships and he has rarely been out of the first round.
Maybe Skiles has never had the talent to do more than that. Then again, maybe he just has not had the ability to push his team over that hump. Time and again, his teams tire of his style.
What this decision says though is the Magic’s immediate goals have changed.
Building to that ultimate goal is still the priority. But it is not the immediate priority. The Magic feel they have enough to move forward and begin focusing on the present.
How much will they sacrifice their future to make sure the team is ready to compete for the Playoffs in 2016? That is a question for the rest of the summer. The organization cannot lose focus on that ultimate goal.
Fan impatience and the disappointment of 2015 appears to have pushed the team more to focus on this immediate payoff. Something to reward the fans and show tangible results.
A coach like Malone or Messina or Hoiberg or Billy Donovan or James Borrego comes with a ton of risk. They have unproven track records in the NBA. They have not done what the Magic want seen done — and done quickly.
Skiles has.
He may not be the final solution at head coach like some of those other coaches could (emphasis on could because it is really unknown). But he can deliver something tangible.
If this is the Magic’s first move of the offseason — the most important one they make — it is a clear sign any notion of tanking is over. Wins are the expectation. Not just wins to grow, but wins to make the Playoffs and complete the rebuild and begin moving forward.
Where that goes from there, remains murky. To focus on the present means losing focus on what is in the distance.