UNDER CONTRACT: G Arron Afflalo, F Al Harrington, F Hedo Turkoglu, F Glen Davis, G Jameer Nelson, G J.J. Redick, F Moe Harkless, C Nikola Vucevic, C Gustavo Ayon, G-F Quentin Richardson, G Christian Eyenga, F Josh McRoberts, F Justin Harper, G Ish Smith, G E’Twaun Moore
DRAFT PICKS: F Andrew Nicholson, C Kyle O’Quinn
FREE AGENTS: None
MOVES: After holding firm in his desire to get fair – not equal – value in trading Dwight Howard, new GM Rob Hennigan deserves some criticism. He turned down an offer from Brooklyn that included Brook Lopez, MarShon Brooks and four first-round draft picks before accepting a package that didn’t return enough young players or picks. In a four-team blockbuster, Hennigan sent Howard, Chris Duhon and Earl Clark to the Los Angeles Lakers and Jason Richardson to Philadelphia, getting back Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington, a 2013 second-round pick and 2014 first-round pick from Denver; rookie Moe Harkless, Nikola Vucevic and a 2015 first-rounder from Philadelphia; and Christian Eyenga, Josh McRoberts, a 2015 second-rounder, a 2017 first-rounder and a record $17.8 million trade exception from the Lakers. Hennigan’s take was nowhere near equal value, which is fine. But it also is nowhere near a complete detonation, which his earlier moves indicated was the direction he was going. He began the offseason with a sign-and-trade of Ryan Anderson – one of the few pieces he had worth building around – to New Orleans for promising but unproven center Gustavo Ayon and a $4.3 million trade exception that was used in the Howard deal. After spending the moratorium period unsuccessfully trying to trade Howard, the GM shifted gears to a coaching search and tabbed Spurs assistant Jacque Vaughn, who has no experience as a head coach – which looks like another total rebuilding move. If you ordered every team by its coaching strength, right now the Magic would rank ahead of only Charlotte (Mike Dunlap). And Hennigan also re-signed Jameer Nelson, who opted out of his contract because he didn’t want to be a trade chip. Nelson was re-signed for three years and a whopping $25.2 million, way too much for a team trying to rebuild. In moves that did resemble rebuilding, the Magic re-signed young point man Ish Smith and gave a two-year deal to E’Twaun Moore, who became a chattel in Houston’s fruitless wheeling and dealing for Howard. Vaughn also was outfitted with a young staff including James Borrego, Wes Unseld Jr. and Brett Gunning as assistants. You knew this wasn’t going to be a fun offseason for the Magic; Hennigan’s decisions ensured it would be a bad one.
TO-DO LIST: The roster includes seven veterans who have been to the conference finals or deeper since 2009. It also includes three rookies and four second-year players, all but one of them frontcourt players. Hennigan and Vaughn have to decide how much frontcourt vets like Harrington, Big Baby Davis, Hedo Turkoglu and Quentin Richardson are going to play. Here’s the dilemma: If the vets play, Harkless, Andrew Nicholson and Kyle O’Quinn do not. If the vets don’t play, their locker-room grumbling will test Vaughn’s authority and could set a bad tone for the kids. Another issue is that the roster currently has 17 players, which means at least two players will be gone by Opening Night. Hennigan did well to get under the luxury tax and put his mid-level exception in play. But with the number of bad contracts the Magic have, it is unlikely he will be able to do anything truly significant until next summer. One quick fix could be to negotiate a buyout with Turkoglu, who has no role in the team’s future.
PROJECTION: When July became August and Howard was still on the roster, Hennigan was over a barrel because he knew he could not go to training camp with him. Right now, the best thing that can be said about the trade is that he got it done. But the Magic have a woefully mismatched roster. Unless there is a universal commitment to playing all the kids, Orlando appears destined for the 50-loss netherworld of not bad enough to get a really high draft pick and not good enough to make the playoffs.
(RELATED: What grade did the Magic get?)
For offseason analysis of every team, click here.
How to be the Magic:
1. Push and threaten Howard into signing an extension at the trade deadline instead of just trading him already.
2. Decide at the end of the season that you do need to trade him after all and that you don’t have the balls to let him get to free agency and make a conscious choice to leave millions on the table, even though he just had the first major injury of his career and guaranteed money will be that much more important to him.
3. But don’t trade him by draft night.
4. Then decide after draft night that what you want most for Dwight are lottery picks. Which you now can’t use to start your rebuild for 12 months. And which any team acquiring Dwight will no longer have, even if they had one this year. Whoops. I mean, Houston can still give you the proceeds of draft picks, if you like 6’9 forwards you didn’t choose yourself.
Houston are almost starting to look brilliant here (IF they get him). Everyone who can arrange a max cap slot when Dwight hits FA has basically given up, except Dallas. I reckon the extra millions Houston would be allowed to offer Dwight will be more tempting than playing alongside an aging Dirk Nowitzki in 2014…
You forgot change your GM and coach during the ordeal. This team should be quarantined.
Thanks for reading
Oh yeah, right. After refusing to sack your GM after he made a number of terrible moves, you finally sack him so late that by the time you hire a 30 year old replacement in his first GM job, it’s two days before draft day and the poor guy can’t be reasonably expected to get on top of the situation in time to trade Dwight at the optimum time. And you also sacked a very good coach to placate a guy you were about to decide to trade at all costs. NOW you’re Orlando.
I think we were too hard on Otis, in retrospect. He was clearly hamstrung by an ownership which has no idea what it is doing.