Magic fans should never again doubt team-builder extraordinaire Jeff Weltman | Commentary

Running off at the typewriter …

OK, all of you formerly disgruntled and frustrated Orlando Magic fans, it’s time for you to go up to the blackboard and write 100 times:

I will never again doubt Jeff Weltman …

I will never again doubt Jeff Weltman …

I will never again doubt Jeff Weltman …

In fact, I will join you because most of us did, in fact, doubt Jeff Weltman, the Magic’s president of basketball operations, 3½ years ago when he blew up the roster, traded the team’s only All-Star in Nikola Vucevic and started a rebuild that we all figured would take way too long to be successful … if ever.

No matter where the Magic end up being seeded in the upcoming playoffs, there’s no question now that the rebuild has been a resounding success — and much sooner than anybody ever expected.

Admit it, you didn’t think it was going to happen this quickly. I didn’t think it was going to happen this quickly. And former Magic coach Steve Clifford certainly didn’t think it was going to happen this quickly.

Clifford announced last week that he will step down at the end of this season after an unsuccessful second stint as the coach of the Charlotte Hornets. But the only reason Cliff was coaching the Hornets in the first place is because he was against trading Vooch and was not on board with Weltman’s rebuild. If he had been, he might still be coaching the Magic right now.

Remember how shocked everyone was when Weltman announced that the Magic and the respected and well-liked Clifford were mutually parting ways?

“We appreciate the many sacrifices he [Clifford] has made as our head coach and understand the timeline of our new path does not align with his goals as a head coach in our league,” Weltman said at the time. “If Cliff is questioning whether the positioning of our team aligns with his own career positioning, then he’s probably not the right guy at this point. I appreciate the fact that Cliff would look himself in the mirror and have those conversations with himself because I don’t think a whole lot of people would do that.”

Personally, I sided with Clifford because I thought Weltman was making a monumental mistake by trading Vooch, but instead it turned into a monumental masterstroke. The Magic got two first-round draft picks from Chicago for Vooch and a young starting center in Wendell Carter Jr. Weltman promptly turned one of Chicago’s first-round draft picks in 2021 into rising star forward Franz Wagner in the same draft they used their own pick to take another rising young star guard in Jalen Suggs.

And by trading all of the proven veterans such as Vooch, Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier, it allowed the Magic to lose enough games so that they could win the draft lottery and select forward Paolo Banchero — an All-Star with superstar potential — the following season.

In other words, Weltman has done everything right. He identified the right players in the draft and he identified the right coach in Jamahl Mosley, who had been turned down in nine previous head-coaching interviews. The Magic have the right coach coaching the right players in the right way.

Here’s all you need to know about the team’s future: In the last quarter-century since 1999, there is only one team that has recorded 45 wins or more with their top three scorers 22 years old or younger.

That one team is the Orlando Magic.

I will never again doubt Jeff Weltman …

I will never again doubt Jeff Weltman …

I will never again doubt Jeff Weltman …

Short stuff: I’m sure Weltman will be the first to tell you that it takes a lot of luck to build a good team, which is why I was thinking about former Magic GM John Gabriel earlier this week when Chauncey Billups got voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Gabe seemingly did everything right back in 1998-99 when he was setting the stage for the Magic to pull off one of the NBA’s great free-agent coups. Gabe was named the NBA’s Executive of the Year after pulling off 55 transactions involving 51 players to put the Magic in position to sign elite free agents Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady in 2000. The plan, of course, was ruined by Hill being perpetually injured. And to make matters worse, two of the young players the Magic unloaded after the 1999 season —Ben Wallace and Billups this week — are now Basketball Hall of Famers. To paraphrase an old saying: “Even the best laid plans of mice, men and Magic sometimes go awry.” …

At age 90, Bob Uecker just started his 54th season of broadcasting Milwaukee Brewers games. My question: Does he deserve congratulations or condolences? … Which reminds me of a quote from the late, great college football analyst Beano Cook, who was famous for his dislike of baseball’s slow pace. Years ago, when former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn gave the 52 released Iran hostages lifetime passes to Major League Baseball, Beano cracked: “Haven’t they suffered enough?” … A personal note to all of my old friends out there: I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more. … It is being reported by the New York Post that Tiger Woods has been abstaining from sex in preparation for the Masters. And now you know why the flag at the Perkins in Augusta is flying at half-mast. … For the first time in college basketball history, the women’s national-title game attracted more viewers than the men’s national-title game. That’s why there should be no question whether Caitlin Clark is the women’s basketball GOAT — Groundbreakingest Of All Time. …

Last week, a North Carolina judge ruled that the ACC lawsuit against FSU can proceed while this week a Tallahassee judge ruled that FSU’s lawsuit against the ACC can proceed. I’m not saying these judges are a couple of pom-pom waving homers, but I’m thinking the Tallahassee judge should replace his gavel with a flaming spear. As for the North Carolina judge, does he make his rulings after considering the scales of justice or simply by reciting from his John Swofford-autographed copy of the ACC’s Grant of Rights? … Not that Arkansas doesn’t have some basketball tradition of its own, but who would have ever thought that the snobbish, blue-blooded Kentucky Wildcats would lose their basketball coach (John Calipari) to a school where the fans wear pig snouts and yell “Wooo Pig Sooie”? That’s like some fancy French chef losing a cooking competition to Aunt Minnie’s chicken and dumplings. … And speaking of chicken, Calipari’s departure from UK obviously has a lot to do with his friendship with billionaire Arkansas donor John H. Tyson, who is the longtime chairman of Tyson Foods and the grandson of John W. Tyson, who founded the chicken processing conglomerate. But when it comes to offering NIL deals, you know Tyson ain’t offering no chicken feed. …

Last word: From Bob Uecker on his playing career: “When I came up to bat with three men on and two outs in the ninth, I looked in the other team’s dugout and they were already in street clothes.”