The Magic fired GM Rob Hennigan on Thursday, "ending his five-year tenure," after the team failed to reach the playoffs for a fifth consecutive year, according to Josh Robbins of the ORLANDO SENTINEL. The rebuilding plan that "Hennigan shepherded -- a plan that CEO Alex Martins and the DeVos family implicitly endorsed when Hennigan -- has lost all traction, with no light at the end of the tunnel, leaving the franchise no clear pathway back to relevance." Martins said, "We’re just not at a place where we need to be. We’re culturally not focused on winning in the way that we need to be and we also have not made the right decisions from a roster standpoint to be able to compete for a playoff spot." Sources said that Magic officials "had interest" in former NBAer Grant Hill to work as President of Basketball Operations. However, ESPN reported that Hill "has no interest in the job." Joining the Magic would require Hill to "divest his small ownership stake" in the Hawks. Candidates for the GM job "likely will include" Pistons Associate GM Pat Garrity and Warriors VP/Basketball Operations & Assistant GM Travis Schlenk. Martins said that he "has not assembled a comprehensive list of candidates yet" and that the team "'potentially' could hire an outside firm to help identify candidates." The team’s highest-level decision-makers, the DeVos family and Martins, "concluded they could not sell to their fan base another season of Hennigan as their general manager." Major questions "still remain." As CEO, Martins "played the integral role in hiring Hennigan." He "endorsed Hennigan’s overall strategy and also supervised Hennigan." Robbins: "What will Martins’ role be going forward in basketball decisions?" The Magic "also fired" Assistant GM Scott Perry (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 4/14).
WHO'S CALLING THE SHOTS? In Orlando, George Diaz writes Martins is "here for the long term," despite questions about his "basketball intuition." The onus on Martins is to "get it right with the new GM." Martins said of hiring Hennigan, "I bear the ultimate responsibility" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 4/14). THE RINGER's Kevin O'Connor wrote Hennigan's decisions "weren’t made without approval or pressure from ownership to win now." Before the Magic can make any "'discernible improvement,' ownership needs to figure out what the team’s priorities really should be." Some teams try to "contend and win championships, while others want to win now so they can jog on the treadmill of playoff mediocrity" (THERINGER.com, 4/13).
LAND O'LAKES: The SENTINEL's Robbins noted the Magic named their new NBA D-League affiliate the Lakeland Magic. Proposed nicknames that also "received multiple entries" in a name-the-team contest were "Alchemy, Dragons, Illusion, Lakers, Swans and Voodoo." Some fans on social media "panned the new nickname, citing a lack of creativity" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 4/13).
