# Donovan Back to Florida?



## TucsonClip (Sep 2, 2002)

http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/6883162



> *Billy Donovan is having second thoughts. *
> 
> According to two sources close to the situation, the former Florida coach, who accepted the Orlando Magic job on Friday, is attempting to return to Gainesville.
> 
> ...


Yikes... Billy D could be a hated man soon.


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## rebelsun (Nov 25, 2003)

Ouch.


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

Scumbag move to be sure. And I really like him as a college coach but he should have just turned down the job with Orlando from the beginning. Damn, Orlando is a crappy organization (DeVos needs to think about selling for the good of the fans).

Although I have to laugh at Otis Smith, first Fran Vazquez and now this. And people think Isiah is a bad GM. Puhlease.


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## JT3000 (Nov 3, 2004)

HKF said:


> Scumbag move to be sure. And I really like him as a college coach but he should have just turned down the job with Orlando from the beginning. Damn, Orlando is a crappy organization (DeVos needs to think about selling for the good of the fans).
> 
> Although I have to laugh at Otis Smith, first Fran Vazquez and now this. And people think Isiah is a bad GM. Puhlease.


Last time I checked, Isiah still sucked. You got anything else to add?


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

Otis Smith is ****. This franchise has gone down the drain. I rank it as the WORST franchise in the league, yes, it's behind the Clippers. A part of me hopes the team leaves town, fires the entire management, and is bought out.

How does Smith still have his job? The guy wastes a lotto pick and now can't even wrap up a coach who he's already signed? Of course Donovan is going to have second thoughts, anyone who has switched jobs knows this. Where the **** is the management support?


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

Just noticed HKF feels the same way. I'm not to surprised.


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## hobojoe (Jun 20, 2003)

lw32 said:


> Otis Smith is ****. This franchise has gone down the drain. I rank it as the WORST franchise in the league, yes, it's behind the Clippers. A part of me hopes the team leaves town, fires the entire management, and is bought out.
> 
> How does Smith still have his job? The guy wastes a lotto pick and now can't even wrap up a coach who he's already signed? Of course Donovan is going to have second thoughts, anyone who has switched jobs knows this. Where the **** is the management support?


This is pretty embarrassing to say the least. Where do we go from here...I hope Stan Van Gundy.


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## MickyEyez (Aug 25, 2006)

> Van Gundy told the Sentinel on Monday morning that he couldn't comment on the situation. However, a source told the Sentinel that Billy Donovan and Van Gundy were the only two people interviewed for the job. So, once the Donovan situation started to unravel, it was clear that Van Gundy would rise to become the top choice....
> 
> "It's over," said a source close to the situation said early Monday morning.
> 
> ...


Link

Stan Van Gundy it is... i'm not too pumped about this.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

I was once a disgruntled Magic fan. I'm still disgruntled. I'm not sure about being a Magic fan though.

I don't care if Donovan is classless. He shouldn't have been given the space to change his mind. I also don't care if he would have been an average NBA coach. That isn't the point here. The point is, whoever is making decisions for this organization doesn't know what he's doing. Did we learn nothing from Fran? You have to hound these fools before they have the time to change their minds. Show them some ****ing love, harrass them if need be. Don't sign them then let them get cold feet. Something is going wrong here. The process is out of whack.

Our franchise is the laughing stock of the NBA. Not only did we overpay Donovan, we couldn't even ****ing keep him. This was the shortest stint an NBA coach has ever had. Great. Not the type of history we need to be making.

Can't tie up players, can't tie up coaches. Otis Smith needs to go. Now.

While this might turn out best for the Magic, it's a ****ing joke. I'd rather us have some pride and stick with Donovan for two years than have him run out on us!

I can't believe this happened. Again.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

hobojoe said:


> This is pretty embarrassing to say the least. Where do we go from here...I hope Stan Van Gundy.


Pretty embarrassing? I'm ****ing pissed. This is the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen happen to a franchise. It's worse than Fran. I can understand getting cold feet moving continents, changing cultures. Moving 200 miles? Getting paid $26 million over 5 years?

Heads need to roll over this. I'm starting the campaign, fire Otis ****ing Smith. Hockey man Weisbrod was a superior GM.


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

Donovan's contract is void right?


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## MickyEyez (Aug 25, 2006)

HB said:


> Donovan's contract is void right?


it was voided this morning by otis smith... the article i posted above explains just about everything....


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

The worst thing about this was I wanted Stan Van Gundy from the start. He actually paid his dues as an assistant before becoming an NBA head coach and he came from the college ranks (where he coached Wisconsin). Otis Smith just has no clue what he's doing and it's been apparent for some time now. 

If they don't re-sign Darko, yeesh, I don't know what to think. Darko's agent just gained even more leverage.


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## X-Factor (Aug 24, 2004)

So I hope Donovan really likes college ball. I doubt after this incident he gets much interest from the NBA ranks.


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## Enigma (Jul 16, 2002)

Fran Vasquez was completely a Dave Twardzik move. At the time, him and Otis Smith were co-GMs. But who was the director of interntational scouting? It was Twardzik. Who was the first person to fly over to Spain to beg for Vasquez to return? It was Twardzik. Yeah, you could argue that Otis had to sign off, but it's easy to tell who was really responsible for taking Fran.


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## MacDanny 6 (Jun 7, 2002)

neither the fran vasquez or billy donovan moves were Otis Smith's fault. Both individuals just flip flopped even though they had commitments to the team, what the hell does any of that have to do with Otis Smith being a good or bad gm?


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

MacDanny 6 said:


> neither the fran vasquez or billy donovan moves were Otis Smith's fault. Both individuals just flip flopped even though they had commitments to the team, what the hell does any of that have to do with Otis Smith being a good or bad gm?



That is what I was thinking. I think it is an overreaction to the situation. It sucks, no doubt, but not sure you can really throw the fault at anyone. Had Donovan come to Orlando and been full into things it would have been a coup by Otis Smith. Nobody expected it to happen.

Not Otis' fault that Donovan changed his mind. And sure, Otis could have forced him to stay because he was contractually obligated but would anyone want that? Probably not.

The organization has definitely made some mistakes but not sure you can really hold this one against them. Too bad. I was looking forward to seeing what he could do.


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## Smithian (Apr 3, 2006)

As an Arkansas Razorback fan who went through the same thing with Dana Altman, I know what it feels like. We ended up coming out even better by hiring John Pelphrey.

Orlando doesn't have much of a challenge to get better than Donovan


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## hobojoe (Jun 20, 2003)

JNice said:


> That is what I was thinking. I think it is an overreaction to the situation. It sucks, no doubt, but not sure you can really throw the fault at anyone. Had Donovan come to Orlando and been full into things it would have been a coup by Otis Smith. Nobody expected it to happen.
> 
> Not Otis' fault that Donovan changed his mind. And sure, Otis could have forced him to stay because he was contractually obligated but would anyone want that? Probably not.
> 
> The organization has definitely made some mistakes but not sure you can really hold this one against them. Too bad. I was looking forward to seeing what he could do.


That's pretty much how I feel. It's ridiculous and obviously it's an embarrassment to the franchise, and I'm sure this is a blow towards the campaign for a new arena, but it's really not worth cutting heads over. I'm more upset that we missed out on Adelman and Iavaroni than I am about this whole fiasco. At this point we just pick up Stan Van Gundy and move on, start focusing on the team, the actual players who play the game. Get a system in place and start working with the players that the Magic have, and focus on the upcoming draft and free agency. What's done is done, I personally am glad Donovan is taking the heat for this move and doing what he truly wants rather than being somewhere he doesn't want to be.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

If yall don't think it comes down to Otis Smith you're dead wrong. Basketball is a business. Just like in any other business, **** falls on to who's on top.

If they're both flip-floppers how come we can't ****ing identify this? That is Otis' fault. Any way you want to spin it, this comes down to Otis. It is too coincidental for this to be solely the case of two flip floppers who we've signed. We can't finish a deal. We can't identify solid players/coaches who will keep their worsd. Who makes these decisions? Otis. He is the evaluator, the decision maker.

What committment did Fran have to this team? Last time I checked, he signed no contract. It was poor evaluation on our part. If we can't bring in some psychologists and have him pschoanalyzed that comes down to poor management. He has no responsibility to sign with us because he was drafted by us. Fran probably made the right move in staying overseas, I wouldn't advise anyone to sign with this team under the current management.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

MacDanny 6 said:


> neither the fran vasquez or billy donovan moves were Otis Smith's fault. Both individuals just flip flopped even though they had commitments to the team, what the hell does any of that have to do with Otis Smith being a good or bad gm?


Come on. Take off the goggles. Otis, if that's you, get out of town.

If Otis and his staff can't identify flip floppers what business does he have running a basketball team? If he can't round up his lotto picks and coach who has already signed, he's not doing a good job at following up on his deals. These are all fundamental steps in running a business. Otis has no clue.

Otis Smith is a **** GM because he can't seem to identify people who want to be with the franchise. To me, that's worse than not being able to identify talent. He wasted a lotto pick on Fran (Enigma, Otis had every opportunity to negate Dave's choice. He could have easily argued against it, he was 50% of the decision process. You don't go into partnership and then let your partner make the big decisions. And if you do, you shouldn't be the GM now.). He signed Donovan to a huge, unworthy contract and then preceeded to not follow up and thus let Billy get cold feet. He tries to fix problems when things are already going downhill.

But I shouldn't have to explain to you why Otis is a terrible GM. If you can't identify this, we probably don't follow the same team or sport.


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## Enigma (Jul 16, 2002)

lw32 said:


> (Enigma, Otis had every opportunity to negate Dave's choice. He could have easily argued against it, he was 50% of the decision process. You don't go into partnership and then let your partner make the big decisions. And if you do, you shouldn't be the GM now.).


Dave Twardzik was 50% of the decision making process as well. Guess what, there can be disagreements and decisions can go one way or another and one of the equal parties gets screwed no matter what they feel.

And like I said before, it was clear who's pick it was as it was Twardzik who was the director of international scouting and was Twardzik who was the first to go over to Spain to get on his hands and knees to beg.

There's no way you'll convince me, nor the majority of Magic fans, that this was all on Otis and that Twardzik doesn't matter.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

Enigma said:


> Dave Twardzik was 50% of the decision making process as well. Guess what, there can be disagreements and decisions can go one way or another and one of the equal parties gets screwed no matter what they feel.
> 
> And like I said before, it was clear who's pick it was as it was Twardzik who was the director of international scouting and was Twardzik who was the first to go over to Spain to get on his hands and knees to beg.
> 
> There's no way you'll convince me, nor the majority of Magic fans, that this was all on Otis and that Twardzik doesn't matter.


Who stated the Fran decision was all on Otis? I said it was a split decision. Otis had to sign off on the selection too. If he didn't bother and left the decision all on Twardzik, was he really acting as a co-GM? It was the biggest decision of our summer, it should have been a 50/50 decision. It's not as if Twardzik acted alone.


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## Enigma (Jul 16, 2002)

lw32 said:


> Who stated the Fran decision was all on Otis? I said it was a split decision. Otis had to sign off on the selection too. If he didn't bother and left the decision all on Twardzik, was he really acting as a co-GM? It was the biggest decision of our summer, it should have been a 50/50 decision. It's not as if Twardzik acted alone.



Like I said before, just because you have two equal parties running things, that does not mean both parties acted in accordance. I know I can't prove Otis disagreed with picking Fran, but you can't prove Otis agreed with picking Fran either. Therefore, I will place blame squarely on the shoulders of the guy, who by all indications, led the movement of drafting Fran.


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