The Orlando Magic have gone two weeks since their season ended, and they dismissed coach Jamahl Mosley -- he has since taken the New Orleans Pelicans' open job.
The first big question this offseason -- and perhaps the biggest question with how vital coaching can be to elevating teams -- is still left unanswered.
As is always the case, the Magic are operating quietly. There is no word of candidates the team has interviewed already, or even who the team has really looked at -- other than persistent rumors the team is interested in former Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan.
The only piece of information related to the Magic's coaching search came from Jeff Weltman in the immediate aftermath of the firing -- he said two weeks ago that interested candidates had already begun to reach out. Then the latest came from Marc Stein on The Stein Line.
Stein reports the league continues to peg Donovan as the favorite to land the job and that the team has a heavy preference on hiring a coach with experience. That leaves essentially only Billy Donovan and Tom Thibodeau on the list of coaches the Magic will pursue -- along with former Golden State Warriors assistant and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts.
Appropriately, the news shifted the prediction markets. They flipped to make Donovan the favorite again, roughly around the time that Stein's report went live.
The Magic still must cast a wide net. They should be looking at assistant coaches like San Antonio Spurs assistant Sean Sweeney, Minnesota Timberwolves assistant Micah Nori, Cleveland Cavaliers assistant Johnnie Bryant or Boston Celtics assistant Sam Cassell, even if they have a hurdle to overcome.
Orlando needs to make it clear that the team is looking for a coach to lead it to the next level and, ultimately, a championship. That might be a difficult hill to climb for a coach without experience.
But the Magic cannot be beholden to this desire for experience. All the coaches the Magic are looking at have flaws -- otherwise they would not be on the market or have more deep playoff experience behind them.
The Magic must give the assistants their due.
What assistant coaches must prove
The top name among the assistant coaches who are vying for the Orlando Magic's job is San Antonio Spurs assistant Sean Sweeney.
There is nothing concrete beyond speculation linking him to the job. But he will be the example we use to show what assistant coaches must prove to get over this preference hurdle.
Sweeney has been an assistant for 13 years with several teams. When people talk about him, they talk about his time working with a younger Giannis Antetokounmpo from 2015-18 and with Luka Doncic, essentially replacing Jamahl Mosley, from 2022-25. This season is his first year with the Spurs.
Still, Victor Wembanyama has credited Sean Sweeney for the team's defensive success as Sweeney has deployed more ball pressure and traps to take advantage of the security blanket that is Wembanyama. Players say he is an intense defensive mind and coach that gets after players on the bench.
His Dallas teams were never stellar defensively, but he did lead the group that was the last to defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder in a playoff series in 2024. That Mavericks team ranked only 18th in the league in defensive rating. And they had Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving as offensive engines.
Sweeney is widely regarded as a strong defensive coach and player development coach. His attraction is similar to why the Magic chased and signed Jamahl Mosley five years ago.
It is always hard to know what to ascribe to assistant coaches. They are ultimately working to benefit and support the head coach, no matter what their responsibilities inside the team are.
That is one of the things that assistant coaches must answer in their interviews. That is as big a hurdle as anything to overcome. They do not have a track record to lean back on or a body of work to show.
It is all a pitch on belief. This is how I would run things or what I envision for this team. It is a bit of a hope and a dream.
That is one of the reasons younger teams with less stakes tend to go for assistant coaches without coaching experience.
Track record cannot be everything
Coaches like Billy Donovan or Tom Thibodeau do not have to prove that. They can point to their work with their respective teams as head coach as examples of how they operate and the kind of teams they want to build.
Everyone knows what a Thibodeau team looks like. They are tough-minded on defense and he demands a lot out of his group. He has a long track record of success in the Playoffs, making the Playoffs in 10 of his 13 years as a head coach and out of the first round in six of those 10 seasons.
Everyone knows what a Donovan team looks like. They are disciplined and tough, playing solid defense despite talent deficiencies that he has dealt with in his time with the Chicago Bulls.
But they also have failures and weaknesses to account for. That strength that they have a track record is also their weakness. Everyone knows their limitations as a coach. The question is whether they can overcome them.
That is what they must convince the team in their interview.
There is a lot of information for Jeff Weltman and his staff to sort through. The team needs to know what it is looking for, but remain open ideas and thoughts they had not considered.
That is why the Magic cannot be beholden to wanting a coach with experience. They need to find the best coach that can take them further in the Playoffs.
It is understandable that the team would want to lean on experience. It is safe. And it must be considered.
But it is one of many factors as the Magic are surely nearing the second interview stage of their coaching search. It cannot be the only one.
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