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

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