I'm nominating Otis Smith for the worst basketball GM of the past 20 years award. He’s the frontrunner in a category that includes outstanding performances from David Kahn, Kevin McHale, Billy Knight and Isiah Thomas. But those guys all took over talentless teams that continued to bask in mediocrity. Smith took over a talent-rich Magic team with a budding superstar in Dwight Howard, a 20 year old "does everything" guy in Trevor Ariza, the 2004 College Player of the year in Jameer Nelson, solid role players in Tony Battie and Hedo Turkoglu and turned the team into a ticking time bomb.
His first move as the Magic's GM was signing Rashard Lewis to one of the worst contracts in NBA history.1 Since then he has continued to dig Orlando into a deeper hole every year despite having the most dominating big man since Hakeem Olajuwon.
His best move as Orlando’s GM was not over paying Hedo Turkoglu in the summer of 2009--which he quickly made up for by sending all of the Magic’s trade assets to Phoenix for the over-paid Turk in 2010.
While most GM’s would have been clearing cap space to try to team Howard up with another elite player like Chris Paul, Deron Williams or Eric Gordon, Smith has collected bad contracts instead. Leaving the Magic $12 Million over the cap, with an unhappy superstar and no tradable players to offer in a deal.
With Howard, the Magic are a 50 win team with no realistic chance of winning an NBA Championship. Without him, they’re a perennial lottery team, barely under the salary cap, hoping to one day land a player in the draft close to the talent level of Dwight Howard just so they can start over again. I don’t think people understand just how much stink Howard covers up for Orlando.
Which is what makes the way Otis Smith is handling this trade/opt out situation his worst in a series of terrible decisions.
Instead of attacking from every possible angle to try and keep Howard, Smith seems more concerned with covering his own ass. Not only is he trying to make Dwight out to be the bad guy for not wanting to play with the bunch of scrubs he put around him but he’s attempting to blame Dwight for all the teams short comings.
Jameer Nelson, who is supposed to be the Magic’s second best player, has been struggling this year averaging career lows in both points and shooting percentage. "He has to play better, of course," Smith said last week. "But through all of this, he is the one taking the pounding (from the fans and media). He has to work through the mental aspect of him taking a pounding."
Then, for God knows what reason, he fired a couple shots at Dwight saying,
"No, the center didn't come out and directly say it's on Jameer, but basically he has." (BANG!)
"A real good team has to overcome a lot of things," he said. "A good team has to overcome a good player not being on par, a good team has to overcome a guy getting to the foul line a bunch of times and missing a lot of foul shots." (BANG!)
"So I imagine if we clear up those things, we'll be a much better basketball team."
For the most part, Smith has avoided speaking publicly about the possibility of trading Howard, saying only that he believes they have a good chance to keep him because Orlando can pay him more than any other team. The only way Howard can get a max deal is by re-signing with the Magic, doing a sign and trade, "Or he could still walk...with a $30 million dollar haircut," as Smith put it.
I think that is the complete wrong way to handle this situation. It’s well known that the new CBA gives teams the home court advantage of being able to pay players more per year plus add an extra year on their contract. Everyone also knows about the no State taxes in Florida benefit. So not only is there absolutely no reason to bring that up, but by continuing to do so, he's painting Dwight into a corner where if he does decide to stay it’s going to look like he did it for the money and Howard has never been that guy. It's the Dan Gilbert plan-which worked out well for Cleveland.
From what I can tell, the thing Dwight cares about more than anything else is that he really likes being liked. He would hate to be hated and if he leaves the Magic a lot of fans will be extremely angry. They’ll do stupid stuff like burn his jerseys and rip down his posters. They’ll blast him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and I think that stuff would eat away at him far more then never winning a ring. He doesn't want to be the villain. That’s why he’s been so back and forth with his trade request. I truly believe his biggest fear in leaving Orlando is the fans turning on him the way they did on LeBron James last year.
Superman can't be the bad guy. And that’s the card the Magic need to play.
Instead of trying strong arm the most important person in central Florida outside of Mickey Mouse, why not kiss his ass a little?
Make public statements that Dwight is irreplaceable as a player and as a person. That Orlando can't even fathom what it would be like to lose him. Hold press conferences saying how much he means to not only the franchise, but the city as well. Tell the stories of the children whose lives Dwight has touched and how devastated they would be if he left.
Sell him on the fact that right now he's one of the good guys in sports. Just like LeBron was before he left Cleveland and Kevin Durant continues to be after resigning with Oklahoma City.
It’s time for Smith to step up or step off. Start playing chess instead of checkers. Manipulate the 24/7 sports talk media to work in his favor. They're gonna talk about Dwight whether you throw them a bone or not. Why not use things like his beef with Shaq to your advantage? Throw out there that Shaq left the Magic for a bigger market and if Howard leaves he’ll be copying him just like he did with all the Superman stuff-especially if he goes to LA. Change the conversation. Get people saying things like, 'Dwight has an opportunity to do what Shaq never could, bring a championship to the city of Orlando'.
Give him the opportunity to be a hero. You never know, Superman may just respond heroically.
1. Smith traded Lewis in December 0f 2010 for a soon to be amnestied Gilbert Arenas-a move that took an extra $40 million directly out of the owners pocket-if that's not cause for termination I don't know what is. Had he rode out Lewis's contract the Magic could have bought out the final year, used the amnesty clause on Turk and had cap room to bring in another big name player. He's really turned sabotaging the Magic into a form of art.
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