ORLANDO, Fla. — Before the Orlando Magic tipped off the NBA season on Wednesday night with a 125-121 victory against the Miami Heat, President of Basketball Operations Jeff Weltman sat down with Spectrum Sports 360’s Brandon Green to talk about what Weltman hopes will be the Magic’s path to an NBA championship.
Question: You put a together great roster this year on paper. But how do you get everybody to come in and gel and become one team?
Weltman: “I think that’s a great question, and I’m glad you said on paper, because we haven’t done anything yet. And the answer to that starts with the people in the room. You know, we always bet on the person first, and ultimately, this is on the players and the coaches to kind of, you know, get us through day by day to where we want to be at the end of the season. And you bet on having the right people in the room to start. So that’s why we’re excited about the team.”
Q: When you look at last year and everything that this team went through — the injuries, the losing, the win streaks, ups, the downs — what did you learn from last year?
JW: “Well, you know, I’ve been through a lot of that over my years, and what I try to learn is what we’re learning from it as a team, and what position that’s putting us in for the following season. So, I do think that we went through a lot, you know. We went through a lot, and even through the injuries, learning while guys were hurt, like their timelines. And so, when you have to constantly play with the ground moving beneath your feet, guys in and out of the lineup. of not knowing what to expect going forward. That’s what the NBA is about. It’s about problem solving. It’s about leaning on your teammates. Hopefully, if you have the right guys in the room, they lift each other up. And I think that our guys came a long way in understanding that stuff this year. Now, hopefully, we don’t face as much of that this year. It’s the NBA, and you always expect adversity. But if you know, our obviously No. 1 goal and our wish list is to be healthy this season and allow us to show ourselves who we are.”
Q: When you look at the landscape of the NBA, we’ve had a new champion for the last six years. So how difficult is it to build a champion and to sustain that level of championship?
JW: “Yeah, I think you just answered the question, you know, the way you asked it, it’s, it’s, it’s, there are a lot of challenges that teams face now that they weren’t 10 years ago. From the salary cap to the nature of what injuries have done to our league, and people are trying to figure out what’s behind all that stuff. There just seems to be, like, a lot more flux every year. With that, the thing that we’re excited about is that, you know, like, largely, our core is very young. You know, we’re talking about early 20s, couple guys just, just hitting their primes, and, you know, they’re going to be here for years, and that’s what we’re excited about. And now they get, they get a long runway to kind of stack these seasons up, and hopefully, you know, achieve our ultimate goal, which is to win a championship.”
Q: How does Paolo (Banchero) take that next step to become one of the best players in the league, recognized as one of the best players in the league?
JW: “I mean, it all starts with who you are as a person and, like, that’s what we always bet on — the person. Paolo is all about winning. He’s all about, like, the work, the competitiveness. His numbers don’t mean it to him. He wants to win. And so, the way that Paolo takes the next step, the way that he shows the league who he is, is that he helps us elevate to being a winning team, you know? And he knows that. That’s the beauty of Paolo, is a lot of guys don’t figure that out ’til later in their career. And he’s known that from Day 1.”
Q: The Magic haven’t had multiple All-Stars since 2008-09. Can that happen this season?
JW: You know, whenever you start talking about All-Star, you get into votes and opinions, and to me, things that are a little bit out of your control. I believe that we’re capable of having multiple All-Stars this year, and like, why? Just say two, maybe even more, you know. But that being said, those things are determined by other people, not the people in our (Magic) room. The only things I worry about are the things that we can control. You know, let’s have a good practice tomorrow. Let’s have a good training camp. Let’s stay healthy, and let’s ramp this thing up so that when we get to the spring, we’re peaking at the right time, and we’re firing on all cylinders heading into the playoffs.”
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