The Magic’s New Pair of J’s
The last time Weltman and Hammond worked together, Jeff was suggesting John and he go on a scouting trip to Greece to evaluate a relatively unknown prospect, Giannis Antetekounmpo. Jeff Weltman, assistant to John Hammond at the time, had found someone the Bucks could potentially find value in with their 15th pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, someone now viewed as a savior the franchise can theoretically build around for the next decade. Did Jeff and John know Giannis had the potential to become a top-10 player in the NBA? “No,” Hammond said. “When we first saw him, Jeff and I, we thought that he was a player who had a great feel for the game, with great size and length. He was playing point guard at that time for his team. You could see he could handle it, he was a good decision-maker, and he knew how to play. But I wish I could say we knew he was going to be an All-Star at 22 years old. I wish we had known he was going to be this, but I don’t proclaim to be that smart.”
Jeff and John realized a lengthy player with great size who could already make quick decisions with at least one ball skill (in Giannis’ case, play-making) had the most potential to become a valuable asset. This asset-valuing mentality should bode well for Jeff and John when scouting players like Jonathan Isaac and Josh Jackson, two players in the draft who look the most NBA-ready to hold up defensively at multiple positions. Yeah, Jeff and John look like a pair of J’s the Magic wouldn’t mind rocking for a long, long time.
In Orlando, Jeff Weltman has found his first crack as President-in-chief, the big man in charge with final decision-making power. With experience through the roof, including the aformentioned time spent already working with Hammond, Weltman looks to turn around what has simply been an abysmal product on the court for Orlando over the past half-decade. Jeff spent the past four years as Masia Ujiri’s right hand man, meaning Jeff is personally responsible for reviving the Raptors out of Andrea Bargnani’s and Rudy Gay’s cap-eating contracts back in 2013, allowing Toronto to rebuild on the fly, developing a dynamic roster that would be competing for a championship today if LeBron wasn’t playing, as Demar Derozan noted, “If we had LeBron on our team too, we would’ve won.”
Before Toronto, Jeff spent a half-decade under the Magic’s new General Manager, John Hammond, building a roster now viewed as the preliminary stage to the playoff Bucks you see before you. A year in Detroit before that, five years in Denver before THAT, and thirteen years with the Clippers BEFORE THAT, Jeff has worked in the NBA longer than I’ve been alive. His father was even an ABA GM back before the ’76 merger; Weltman is an NBA lifer. Be excited, Magic fans, our guy Jeff found Giannis, helped build Carmelo’s best playoff Nuggets team, and has worked with some of the most productive organizations in recent league history.
John Hammond is no scrub either, by the way. In fact, it’s almost a surprise that Hammond left Milwaukee for a “demotion” in Orlando, unless the rumors of an in-house promotion were true. After years of building our the vision for the 2000’s Pistons in Detroit alongside Joe Dumar, a legendary sports management story in its own right, Hammond has lead the Bucks back from NBA purgatory, sporting one of the league’s five best young players and a handful of fun prospects. Here’s a list of notable guys scooped up by John Hammond in the draft over the past nine years:
2016 1st 10th Thon Maker
2016 2nd 36th Malcom Brogdon
2015 1st 17th Rashad Vaughn
2015 2nd 46th Norman Powell
2014 1st 2nd Jabari Parker
2013 1st 15th Giannis Antetokounmpo
2012 1st 14th John Henson
2012 2nd 42nd Doron Lemb
2011 2nd 40th Jon Leuer
2010 1st 15th Larry Sanders
2009 1st 10th Brandon Jennings
2009 2nd 41st Jodie Meeks
2008 2nd 37th Luc Mbah a Moute
…I mean, just, wow. These 14 prospects prove John’s niche for evaluating young players, and then some. Please note that Jeff was in Milwaukee for the drafting of all the prospects listed from Giannis down before leaving for a bigger role in Toronto. Only celebrity hires and a few polarizing names like Travis Schlenk hot off of Golden State’s success or Sam Hinkie hot of the process’ relative draft success could generate this level of excitement in Orlando. Fans can get their first good night’s sleep in weeks; Jeff and John are the clean new pair of J’s the Magic so badly needed.
