Former Orlando Magic assistant GM Scott Perry: Luck played a role
The Orlando Magic planned to build their team through the draft for the last five years. Luck never fell for them, a former assistant GM said.
The Orlando Magic believed they had a solid plan in place when they hired Rob Hennigan as general manager five years ago. They were going to build progressively through the draft, using high draft picks to grow a team from the ground up together. This would establish a longer-term program and sustained winning.
Hennigan quickly brought on former Oklahoma City Thunder and Detroit Pistons executive Scott Perry as one of his assistant general managers. Perry would provide experience in the front office, filling in some of the gaps the Hennigan lacked because of his inexperience.
Everything seemed set to work.
Orlando landed the second overall pick and drafted Victor Oladipo. The team followed that up with two more top-five picks, selecting Aaron Gordon (No. 4 in 2014) and Mario Hezonja (No. 5 in 2015).
This was the crux of the Magic’s plan to build the team. And they made slow but steady progress. But it was not enough.
It was apparent these were not franchise-changing players. Orlando, unlike Oklahoma City, did not get potential stars with their top-five picks. That dragged the plan down. The Magic’s rebuild was on thin ice and the pressure to win only increased.
Why this happened cannot only be explained by luck, but that certainly played a role. And Perry, appearing on the B.J. and Bucher show with B.J. Armstrong (Bismack Biyombo‘s agent) and Bleacher/Report’s Ric Bucher, said the team simply never had the chance to draft a superstar player.
That is not an excuse, but it threw a wrench in the team’s overall plans (occurs at the 15-minute mark of the video below).
"“Hindsight can always be 20/20,” Perry said. “We know this. Along the way what you hope for when we were drafting where we were drafting — and this is where luck comes into play a little bit if you will, and you guys mentioned about tanking, which I am not a big fan of, to be honest. You don’t ever want to voluntarily if you will bring losing into your locker room. Once that gets into your culture, it’s hard to get out.Luck becomes that in those drafts who is available at the very top that is going to become a franchise player? Like a LeBron James. Like a Kevin Durant, who we were fortunate enough to get when I was in Oklahoma City. Unfortunately, those guys were not available when we were a high Lottery-drafting team. We were never able to draft anyone. Even those guys it takes 2, 3, 4 years to make a mark and get into the Playoffs. It takes time."
Perry went on to say he was not there to relitigate the Magic’s decisions or cry over spilled milk. Perry throughout his years in the NBA has seen a lot of different situations develop.
And he said he would take what happened in Orlando as a learning experience into his next job — since they recorded this podcast, the Sacramento Kings hired Perry as the team’s Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations, where he is expected to manage the day-to-day functions of the general manager. Perry certainly seems in line to be the general manager someday soon with his experience and relative success around the league (outside of Orlando).
He has plenty of experience and he discusses some theories and challenges of team building throughout the podcast. It is worth the listen.
There were certainly some different paths for the team to take. The Magic never really adjusted off this original plan of building through the draft. Even when it seemed to let them down. In the end, the team decided to push its chips in and lost that bet.
Now the team will try to forge a new path and salvage what is left after Hennigan and Perry’s dismissal a few weeks ago.
Next: Orlando Magic try to pinpoint where things went wrong
And, as team CEO Alex Martins said during the press conference announcing Hennigan’s dismissal, the new GM will have to find a way to make his own luck.