The man largely responsible for Dwight Howard’s presence in an Orlando Magic uniform was in New Hampshire over the weekend, doing what he does the best and loves the most: scouting college players at a hockey game.
“Basketball is not hockey to me,’’ John Weisbrod was saying. “I’m still a hockey guy at heart.”
This “hockey guy” – he played at Harvard and coached in the minors – nonetheless found himself running the Magic in the critical spring and summer of 2004. Elevated to the position of general manager in March 2004, Weisbrod, who had no basketball background whatsoever, but a boatload of athletic experience as a hockey player and executive, signed off on four big decisions in the space of two weeks in June and July.
Five years later, they almost all look like no-brainers. But after that frenzied two-week stretch yielded Howard, Jameer Nelson, Hedo Turkoglu and hastened the departure of Tracy McGrady, Weisbrod was vilified by fans (had there been a blogosphere the size of today’s, it would have been exponentially worse), received bags of hate mail (some of which he still retains) and for a while had to move into an area hotel under an assumed name because of death threats. The FBI installed surveillance cameras at his house.
