The Scott Skiles Hire: The Undermining of The “Process”

In hiring Scott Skiles the Magic hired a mediocre coach, but even worse, they seemingly have abandoned the process that this entire rebuild was supposedly founded on.

Scott Skiles, that name brings back memories doesn’t it?

Remember the good old days when the Magic were first breaking into the league and Central Florida adorned the Magic with the same love that the newly formed Orlando City SC receives?

Alex Martins does, and he wants you to remember too.

Martins has been with the Magic since those good old days. Martins worked public relations with the Magic back when Scott Skiles was a player for the Magic and they knew each other well.

Why does any of this matter?

Alex Martins and his past relationship with Scott Skiles may have derailed the process Orlando Magic general manager Rob Hennigan envisioned when he was interviewed and carried out after he was hired.

Next: The process of hiring Scott Skiles

The Process of Hiring Scott Skiles

Back in February, nearly simultaneous with the firing of the underachieving Jacque Vaughn there were whispers around the league the Magic would be interested in hiring Scott Skiles.

There are a few things out of the ordinary there.

One is we have all seen Rob Hennigan does not leak anything to the media. Two, Rob Hennigan believes in his process. The idea ANYBODY, let alone a coach with a mediocre résumé in Skiles, would be a front-runner the moment the Magic fired Jacque Vaughn conflicts with Hennigan’s ideas on “process.”

The dots were too easy to connect. The media had information to connect them and the rumor persisted until it truly became fact.

This connection was the precursor to the seeming end of Rob Hennigan’s process.

As time went on, reports leaked left and right the Magic were getting closer to hiring Scott Skiles. Last Saturday it was reported Skiles was the “front-runner” to become Orlando’s next head coach (he obviously did become the next head coach). Interestingly enough in that article something interesting was written:

"Skiles, 51, has been the preferred choice of Orlando ownership, which has been fond of him since his playing days with the Magic in the 1990s."

That message should have sent off alarms for Magic fans. The “process” that had guided Orlando during this rebuild was in jeopardy.

Ever since Bob Vander Weide was fired, Alex Martins has become a more prevalent voice in Orlando’s front office. In fact, back in 2011 Stan Van Gundy had some words regarding Alex Martins. Alex Martins became the head of the Magic organizationally, the direct link to the DeVos family.

So did Martins push for this Skiles hire strictly because of their friendship? I do not believe that is the case.

Next: What does nostalgia buy you?

What Does Nostalgia Buy You?

Martins, a former PR man, thought this would make for a great story. Martins believes he can sell the casual Magic fan on the Skiles’ hire because he was a former player. Heck, even the official Web site for the Orlando Magic immediately put together video packages and other things for Skiles, posted after he was hired.

What accompanied all of that nostalgia? A banner to renew your season tickets now.

The sense from Magic fans on social media and Twitter is they are not too keen on the idea of hiring Skiles. Multiple media outlets suggested this hire was Martins and ownership’s doing and fans had caught on to that fact. It certainly did not hurt Skiles at the end.

FanSided

These ideas lead to some interesting comments from both Martins and Skiles during Skiles’ introductory presser as the team looked to dissuade the notion he was hired solely on nostalgia. Skiles came out early saying: “Alex made it clear this was Rob’s call and Rob made it very clear that this was Rob’s call.”

Martins continued in discussing the process of bringing in Skiles. Martins said he told Hennigan: “We’re not going to talk about Scott. You’re going to go meet Scott and you’re going to ultimately come to your own conclusions about Scott and then we’ll compare notes. I truly wanted this to be an objective decision about his coaching ability.

“I truly wanted this to be an objective decision about his (Skiles’) coaching ability and I didn’t want my personal past with Scott and my experience with him having been a player here to enter into it,” Martins continued. “We truly had to find the right coach for this team. Now, at the end of the day, he’s a former player, he’s one of the handful of most beloved players in the history of this franchise and it’s icing on the cake for our fans that he can come back and be on our bench. But that wasn’t the reason why Scott was hired. He was hired because he’s a great coach with NBA experience and he fits all of the attributes we were trying to build this team around.”

With some basic knowledge of public relations it was clear the Magic were worried about the message that was spreading.

Martins and company may have hijacked Rob Hennigan’s process, even if it was just in making the initial suggestion and pushing Skiles into the candidate pool.

This is where the Magic tipped their hand, if they wanted to make these rumors go away, you would not give them any credibility by addressing them.

Not only did the Magic address them, they immediately addressed and repeatedly made the point Martins’ hiring Skiles was not true. This strong denial only feeds the conspiracy theory that Orlando’s hire was a machination of Martins’ rather than the “process” of Rob Hennigan.

Next: The difference in the process the second time around

The Difference in the Process the Second Time Around

In addition to the effort put forth at the press conference here is an illuminating Tweet from NBA scribe Zach Lowe:

The first thing that you notice when you compare this to Rob Hennigan’s last coaching hire is that there were fewer candidates interviewed.

When Orlando ultimately hired Jacque Vaughn there were at least six candidates and two rounds of interviews, some of which were leaked to media outlets during and after the process.

This brings up the question, did the Magic have any intention of hiring anyone else? Were there search parameters so narrow that they could not find anyone else to look into aside from Skiles, Mike Woodson, Mark Jackson and Fred Hoiberg?

Woodson is known as a mediocre coach. Jackson, while having some success as coach, is widely believed to be a very poor coach. And Hoiberg completely goes against the idea the Magic were looking for a guy with extensive NBA experience.

Based on this list the Magic may have chosen correctly, but that bar was set extremely low.

So if we compare the process from Hennigan’s last coaching hire to this one we notice that there were fewer candidates overall, less viable candidates and fewer rounds of interviews. This does not appear to be the same process that was applied to finding Orlando’s last coach.

Next: The best of mediocre choices

The Best of Mediocre Choices

Looking past the circumstances of his hiring, what do the Magic get out of hiring Scott Skiles? What does Skiles bring to the table as a head coach?

The answer is mediocrity and a lack of long-term viability. Here are some facts about Scott Skiles

• Skiles has a career record of 443-433 as coach.
• Skiles has a record of 18-24 in the playoffs, making it in seven of his 13 seasons in the lead chair.
• Skiles has never reached the conference finals, winning just two Playoff series
• Skiles has never won his division.
• Skiles has accrued a winning record in only 5 of 12 seasons that he started as head coach.
• Skiles teams have finished in the bottom 10 of offenses seven times in his full seasons as coach.
• Skiles has been known to burn out his players at each stop.

Here are the pros Scott Skiles

• Of Skiles’ eight full seasons as coach, his team had a top 10 defensive rating in six of them.
• The lowest defensive rating a Skiles coached team has ever sported during a full season was 16th.
• Skiles holds every player accountable.

The Magic will win more games next season, I have no doubt about that. I fully believe Orlando’s defense will improve significantly.

However, I believe no matter who was coach the Magic were bound to improve. The majority of Orlando’s playing time goes to players who will improve through offseason work and natural maturing. Defense would mesh better under just about any coach who does not ask the Magic to play the pick and roll defense in a way that leaves Vucevic on an island.

Any experienced coach knows how to create an identity for a team, something Vaughn struggled to do.

Here is the issue with Skiles, the Magic hired him knowing full well they plan on moving on from him in a couple of years. His ceiling is completely set, it would seem.

While there are many people out there who claim coaches are hired to be fired, that could not be any further from the truth. Teams do not hire a coach with the intention of firing him a few years later. They hire a coach hoping he will be their Phil Jackson or their Gregg Popovich.

Is that unrealistic? Absolutely, but when you hire a new coach everything is supposed to be roses, and you believe that this is the one.

The Magic hired Skiles knowing good and well that with his track record this team is going to divorce with him sooner or later. The Magic hired Skiles knowing good and well his track record (13 seasons in as a head coach) that he does not have long-term viability.

Rob Hennigan has preached sustainability since day one on the job. The Scott Skiles hiring clearly contradicts Rob’s philosophy. It is a move to resolve a short-term problem in a nostalgic way rather than a long-term solution to bring the team a championship.

In the end, it appears that the Magic higher ups have decided that having a story to sell to nostalgic fans was more important than letting Rob Hennigan see his “process” through.

Only time will tell whether the team will be satisfied with this stepping stone or whether they will let the story dictate his tenure in Orlando.

Next: Scott Skiles' relationship with Tobias Harris murky, but promising