Making suggestions or making decisions.
That’s the difference between being second-in-command with an NBA team and running the show. That opportunity is why Toronto Raptors general manager Jeff Weltman is moving his wife and two young daughters from a city they’d grown to love, working for a boss he implicitly trusted and for an ownership group he’d come to marvel at – this is a man who started his NBA career working for Donald Sterling and the Los Angeles Clippers, don’t forget – for Central Florida and the position of president of basketball operations with the Orlando Magic.
The Raptors will survive just fine, which is no comment on Weltman who had great chemistry with Ujiri, brought more than 20 years of NBA front-office experience with four organizations to Toronto and whose quiet bulldog ways were admired by Ujiri.
When the Raptors traded away franchise millstone Andrea Bargnani in the summer of 2013, it was Weltman, as Ujiri tells the story, who kept pushing for the Knicks to include more assets in the deal even though the Raptors were desperate to move the Italian big man. Toronto wound up with the No. 9 pick in the 2016 draft (Jakob Poeltl) and two second-round picks for a player they didn’t want in the first place.
For Ujiri, Weltman’s departure is a moment of great pride and of great loss. It was Weltman – then with the Denver Nuggets – who pushed for Ujiri to be hired as a scout for the rich sum of $35,000 a year. And as Ujiri became a rising star in the league it was Weltman he wanted by his side first chance, making it a priority to bring Weltman over from Milwaukee when Ujiri got the general manager position in Toronto in 2013.
Over five years, travelling around the world and sharing phone calls from all time zones at all hours, Weltman has been the rock that Ujiri could lean on, who understands his vision and values, a proven expert in liaising with medical staff and the analytics department, as well being able to draw on a lifetime of contacts and insight into the NBA that Weltman can tap into as the son of a former NBA executive.
“He’s got a great basketball mind but he’s an even better person,” said Ujiri. “With him and me it became more than basketball. He’s someone I’ve always considered a friend and a mentor. I can’t really describe the relationship. It hasn’t hit me yet that when I’m sitting in an airport in Belgrade or watching players somewhere he won’t be sitting right beside me or that when I’m mad about something he can’t be the first number I dial now. But I’m really proud he’s got this opportunity.”
The Magic will need all that Weltman can bring to the table. The only team with a worse record over the past five seasons than Orlando’s 132-278 (a .322 winning percentage) is the Philadelphia 76ers.
The difference is that the 76ers have an intriguing stable of young talent, loads of salary cap space and a seemingly endless supply of first- and second-round picks still owed to them. If Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons can stay healthy – not a small question, granted – there is legitimate optimism that the 76ers can emerge from the muck as a playoff team and perhaps even more in the near future.
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The Magic’s struggles have all come under outgoing general manager Rob Hennigan, whose fate may have been sealed when he traded Victor Oladipo, Ersan Ilyasova (dealt for the price of Tobias Harris in the year previous) and draft rights for Domantas Sabonis for Serge Ibaka only to spend $72 million to sign former Raptor Bismack Biyombo, this while already having big man Nikola Vucevic on the roster.
There was never a fit and Magic ended up trading Ibaka to Toronto mid-season for Terrence Ross and a first-round pick.
The Magic have little to show for their years of pain which is why Weltman earning a five-year contract was likely crucial in his decision to leave what he viewed as an ideal set of circumstances in Toronto.
Now Weltman has security but also the responsibility of trying to dig out from the bottom of the Eastern Conference with no obvious signs of a useful shovel — Orlando does have the No. 6 pick in the draft as well as picks No. 25, 33 and 35, along with $14 million in potential cap space, but more questions than answers on its roster.
And what of the Raptors?
It’s no slight to Weltman that Toronto will likely continue to function well in his absence, even though Ujiri will miss so much on a personal level. When Ujiri vacated his GM title a year ago to promote Weltman to general manager it was in part to make his right-hand man harder to poach, but the Raptors president remained the hands-on decision maker on player personnel matters.
And filling the GM role likely won’t require Toronto to look outside the organization. A former scout who broke into the NBA after working for free and sleeping on the floors of whichever scouts would take him in at various basketball events around the globe, Ujiri loves identifying young talents and giving them an opportunity.
While the Raptors are expecteded to bring in another basketball mind and with a broad set of contacts for a front office role, the GM title will likely go to an internal choice.
The Raptors front office is young and deep. Ujiri hired assistant general manager Bobby Webster from the NBA office in 2013 as CBA expert but has increasingly given him more scouting and player personnel decisions. Dan Tolzman, the Raptors director of player personnel has only bolstered his status as general manager of the D-League champion Raptors 905.
In the NBA, winning is always the ultimate goal and measure, but the growth of an organization is also indicated by how well it’s regarded by the rest of the league. The San Antonio Spurs are the gold standard with former assistant coaches and lower-ranking executives from the school of Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford routinely populating other teams.
The Raptors have a long way to go in that regard, but Weltman’s transition from making suggestions to being accountable for them, and that Toronto can absorb the loss of such a valuable executive proves that progress is being made.
