What has Rob done to receive a pass?

[Orlando Prodigy]

Serious question, and this is coming from one of the BIGGEST Rob supporters for years. Until recently. But what has he really done to receive a pass by most of us? To the average fan his seat is on fire right now, but to some of you he can still do no wrong. Besides Afflalo for Fournier, I can't really think of anything that makes me think he's not a terrible general manager.

[Nemesis21]

Serious question, and this is coming from one of the BIGGEST Rob supporters for years. Until recently. But what has he really done to receive a pass by most of us? To the average fan his seat is on fire right now, but to some of you he can still do no wrong. Besides Afflalo for Fournier, I can't really think of anything that makes me think he's not a terrible general manager.

Let's see, he saw the talent in a young and very little used Center on the 76ers roster, and took him back in the Dwight Howard trade. Most everyone(not saying on RealGM) thought and wanted us to take Bynum back. Smart move by Rob to go with Vooch. He flipped Afflalo for Fournier. He flipped Redick(who we might have lost in FA) for Harris. He did the best he could do in the draft, at the positions we were drafting at. He didn't max out Oladipo.

Only negative I see, is not getting enough in return when sending Harris to Detroit. But Skiles fingerprints were all over that trade, can fault Rob 100% on that.

[Statlanta]

Improved win total every single year since held office.
Highest pick was in a draft where the best prospect went #15
Rumored to have NOT got his coach in the Scott Skiles hiring
Arguably won the Dwight Howard trade(with pieces still on the team)

I'm an optimist.

[Nightman]

The biggest thing that gave him recognition as a good GM is that he saw talent in guys like Harris, Fournier, Vucevic and Harkless when they were unknowns. His drafting has been relatively solid as well. Oladipo and KOQ were good picks. Gordon and Payton both seem to be solid picks although the jury is still out. Hezonja hasn't been good but Porzingis was clearly his first target, and there's still time for Hezonja.

But one of his biggest downfalls has been never finding a player that could lead the team. Also, while players like Payton, Oladipo and Vucevic are fine in a vacuum, it's hard to build a winning team with a backcourt that can't shoot and frontcourt that can't defend.

I think it's clear his job is on the line because he's stopped planning for the future and started trying to appease the owners with a playoff run by bringing in veterans on expiring contracts. Under different circumstances I think he could've built a really solid team, but barring a turnaround from the current team (which doesn't seem particularly likely), I think Hennigan's tenure is done.

[the_hobo]

He wasn't Otis.

But his immunity period is now over.

[Nemesis21]

He wasn't Otis.

But his immunity period is now over.

[Last Guardian]

I was a fan for a while. I liked his long term vision and I thought that was best for the franchise, and still do. Unfortunately, he abandoned the long term vision for a win now mantra. And I understand the fanbase is growing impatient, but the way to win now is not through mediocre-bad veterans. We were better off staying course because now we are still a bad team and have less young talent then we did a season ago.

I don't think he gets a pass anymore after two bad trades in a row, but I think if he can revert back to his long term vision a bit and trade Ibaka for youth/draft pick(s) and maybe even Vucevic as well...then he will have recovered a bit.

[BadMofoPimp]

Serious question, and this is coming from one of the BIGGEST Rob supporters for years. Until recently. But what has he really done to receive a pass by most of us? To the average fan his seat is on fire right now, but to some of you he can still do no wrong. Besides Afflalo for Fournier, I can't really think of anything that makes me think he's not a terrible general manager.

Since the praise he has gotten for some years in which seemed like "God" status amongst some posters almost at the level of Deiner, I had figured Henny must have played Paddle Ball with some of them.

[drsd]

Improved win total every single year since held office.
Highest pick was in a draft where the best prospect went #15
Rumored to have NOT got his coach in the Scott Skiles hiring
Arguably won the Dwight Howard trade(with pieces still on the team)

I'm an optimist.

"I'm an optimist."


Post of the year!



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[drsd]

The biggest thing that gave him recognition as a good GM is that he saw talent in guys like Harris, Fournier, Vucevic and Harkless when they were unknowns

I totally agree that GM Hennigan is a great "trade" GM. And of course he has been unlucky with lottery balls.

But thems the breaks. If Orlando does not make the playoffs this year, I project GM Hennigan to get his pink slip.



..

[sportsrock37]

I'm one on the "Don't fire Hennigan right now" bandwagon. I am fine with every trade he's made so far, because he has always maintained cap flexibility. If something isn't working he can easily go a different way because we do have assets. I was very against maxing out Oladipo and was 100% for trading Tobias Harris when he got traded. I wish the value was a little better on the Tobias trade, but he freed up time for AG and basically hit reset on signing Harris.

If we continue to suck this year he should be fired at the end of the season, but there is literally no point in firing him before the trade deadline. Nothing good could possibly come out of that. He will/should/deserves to get the year and then we can re-evaluate him then.

Regardless of who is GMing the team next year, they will be in a lot better spot then when Henny took over and can go in multiple different directions to get this team competing again. It's an easy reset for whoever is running the team next season and beyond.

[Orlando Prodigy]

Were his trades really that great though?

I understand trading Tobias freed up minutes for Gordon but we got FLEECED in that trade. Even if he was trading to make Skiles happy, he took an awful deal. There was a report that came out afterwards that teams were confused as to why Orlando resorted to that deal. It's true.

The jury is still out on the Oladipo trade. We shall see what happens.

His free agency signings prior to this year have been bad.

We all want him to be great and we all called him Rob the God but more than likely he will be unemployed unless he figures this thing out.

[Deadcellz]

Like others have said his trades other than Harris were great, he picked pretty well in the draft, turned expiring players into assets.

But I really like his management of our cap, how he has handled contracts have been stellar, just look at his past moves and see how he juggled trades in a way to generate more assets(exceptions), he did this is an added bonus in case there was a need to use them.

He's a guy who despite being one of the youngest GM's in the league has displayed characteristics of an educated and experienced one.

We had sweet **** all on this team as far as talent when Dwight was leaving. horrible contracts as well. Has he built a championship team so far, no he hasn't, but hes done a damn fine job in my eyes.

Our team is a work in progress, its 11 games into the season and what i see both positives and negatives(career high Ibaka night followed by a low scoring one). But it doesn't look broke to be, just a work in progress.

It's hard when you see other teams leap frogging and the center of attention in the nba media, but nothing but praise one night after a good performance to trading away our players for a odds and ends is kind of ridiculous. It's as if people ignore other factors just to have a witch hunt. Horrible mentality.

I can understand to a degree conversations about the job security of our front office and players if we were at all star break and looking down the barrel of yet another lottery pick. I mean it feels like every time we lose a game there is someone saying blow it up, we lost on the last game of a back to back and its as if people were just waiting for the time to crack open their trade proposals and petitions to get rob fired. Calm down.

[MagicFan32]

i don't think he's really receiving a pass, but you also have to factor in ownership to this summer's utter disaster.

ultimately he's going to get fired but the same problems will remain because the owners, and the CEO are the same

[Xatticus]

The biggest thing that gave him recognition as a good GM is that he saw talent in guys like Harris, Fournier, Vucevic and Harkless when they were unknowns. His drafting has been relatively solid as well. Oladipo and KOQ were good picks. Gordon and Payton both seem to be solid picks although the jury is still out. Hezonja hasn't been good but Porzingis was clearly his first target, and there's still time for Hezonja.

But one of his biggest downfalls has been never finding a player that could lead the team. Also, while players like Payton, Oladipo and Vucevic are fine in a vacuum, it's hard to build a winning team with a backcourt that can't shoot and frontcourt that can't defend.

I think it's clear his job is on the line because he's stopped planning for the future and started trying to appease the owners with a playoff run by bringing in veterans on expiring contracts. Under different circumstances I think he could've built a really solid team, but barring a turnaround from the current team (which doesn't seem particularly likely), I think Hennigan's tenure is done.

Good summary. Though I think it's a bit inaccurate to label those guys unknowns simply because they weren't on the radars of most fans. They were all first round picks, and Hennigan worked in a couple successful organizations before he came to Orlando that were likely scouting for players that would be available towards the tail end of the first round.

I personally think this is among Hennigan's flaws. He has followed a timeline that hasn't afforded us the opportunity to commit to the development of elite talents. We have instead forced a path forward that is built on lesser talents. I know many around here have an affinity for these players, but they are precisely the reason why our ceiling is so uninspiring right now. You can only win so many games with Vucevic and Fournier leading the way.

Hennigan did a good job of stockpiling assets early on, which we really needed in the wake of Otis Smith's tenure. But it seems to me that he latched onto a few moderately talented assets. We let a lot of talent go for nothing in return. Some of these marginalized assets are now flourishing elsewhere.

[Orlwillbeback]

I liked him at first because I thought he made some nice trades for guys like Vuc and Tobias. And I was a huge Oladipo fan so I liked that pick.

However his plan was flawed right from the beginning because he chose to tank and be the worst team in the NBA at the wrong time, for the 2013 draft when there was no clear cut star available. That undermines the point of ranking IMO because the only way to justify all that losing in my mind is to get a surefire star in the draft. And he didn't. If you tank and decide to take a long term approach, ultimately your team's players need to be good enough to, you know, make you a good team.

Hennigan could never get good enough players.

[NEM]

**** storm coming in 3, 2, 1...

[PennytoShaq]

I truly think more ire needs to be directed at the guys above Rob. They clearly forced his hand on hiring Skiles and also on accelerating the rebuild. I believe that if it was up to him, he would have probably tanked longer. That being said, last year's draft was pretty weak, and the best rookie so far by far was not even drafted this year. It just shows how hard it is to land a star in a draft. And even when you do, you are still years away from success. Minnesota has a ton of young talent but probably won't even make playoffs this year.

[Tayswagzzz]

I truly think more ire needs to be directed at the guys above Rob. They clearly forced his hand on hiring Skiles and also on accelerating the rebuild. I believe that if it was up to him, he would have probably tanked longer. That being said, last year's draft was pretty weak, and the best rookie so far by far was not even drafted this year. It just shows how hard it is to land a star in a draft. And even when you do, you are still years away from success. Minnesota has a ton of young talent but probably won't even make playoffs this year.

Minnesota is in the perfect position to be good when Cleveland and Golden State start to decline...they're set.

[OrlMagic05]

Drafting has been his biggest weakness. He has always gone with the Athletic player with no jumper. I was one that always wanted Lavine instead of Payton and it looks like I was right.