{"id":258875,"date":"2026-05-05T05:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258875\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T05:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:57:11","slug":"jeff-weltman-discuses-orlando-magic-head-coaching-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258875\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Weltman discuses Orlando Magic head coaching search"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Magic<\/a> president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman<\/a> has an ideal candidate in mind to replace Jamahl Mosley<\/a> as Orlando<\/a>\u2018s next head coach, he certainly didn\u2019t show his cards Monday.<\/p>\n

Mosley was fired Monday morning after the Magic\u2019s season ended Sunday at Detroit<\/a> in Game 7 of their first-round NBA playoff series. Orlando led the series 3-1 before it ultimately lost three consecutive games to the top-seeded Pistons<\/a>, who advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Cleveland Cavaliers.<\/p>\n

Hours after announcing his decision to dismiss Mosley following a five-year stint that included three straight first-round playoff exits amid ever-increasing expectations, Weltman answered questions about what he\u2019s looking for as he leads the search for the team\u2019s next coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we look for a particular trait or a quality,\u201d the Magic executive said inside the AdventHealth Training Center on Monday. \u201cCoaches come in a lot of different shapes and sizes. Someone that kind of looks at our team in the way that we feel can help move us forward. Obviously someone who understands where we are on our timeline, that we\u2019ve kind of tried to get past the growth stages of the rebuild. \u2026 I don\u2019t have a box to say that we want the next coach to come out of this sort of box.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weltman can\u2019t say precisely what the search will look like. It\u2019s something more akin to a feeling and how it fits into his process, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not really sure,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s more like, we want to talk, have really in-depth conversations with people about how they view our team, maybe see some things that we haven\u2019t seen and kind of go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weltman, who\u2019s been known to keep information close to the vest throughout his nine years in Orlando, wouldn\u2019t even go so far as to say whether or not prior experience as an NBA head coach is something he expects in a potential candidate.<\/p>\n

Mosley was a longtime assistant coach before the Magic hired him as a first-time head coach in July 2021. He came to Orlando after spending seven seasons (2014-21) as an assistant coach with the Mavericks and four seasons (2010-14) as an assistant coach with the Cavaliers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to kind of come to it with any preconceived non-negotiables,\u201d Weltman said when asked about previous head coaching experience. \u201cThere are some really talented young guys out there that haven\u2019t gotten a chance yet \u2013 as Mose was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are also some guys that have proven that they can do the job,\u201d he added. \u201cWhat\u2019s the best fit for our team right now? I don\u2019t think you can really know more than speculate until we really like \u2026 get in and talk to them and exchange ideas and their thoughts on our team. That\u2019ll hopefully lead us where we need to go; the more preconditions you put on that, maybe you kind of give yourself a worse chance of getting to the right place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weltman also didn\u2019t share a timeline for how long the search might take.<\/p>\n

When he hired Mosley in July 2021, the choice came 36 days after the franchise agreed to mutually part ways with Steve Clifford. Weltman\u2019s first coaching change with Orlando was his firing of Frank Vogel in 2018 and hiring of Clifford, which took 48 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to meet immediately and start to figure out what that grouping could look like,\u201d Weltman said about the timing. \u201cAnd then decide how we want to conduct those initial meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cA great number of candidates have already reached out to us,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Orlando isn\u2019t the only NBA franchise in need of a new coach. Job openings around the league include the Chicago Bulls and the New Orleans Pelicans, but that number could increase based on postseason results.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the Bucks have already filled their opening after the departure of Doc Rivers, a former Magic coach, with the hiring of Taylor Jenkins.<\/p>\n

Weltman has confidence Orlando is an appealing job \u2013 largely thanks to its young roster that includes Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Desmond Bane and Jalen Suggs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat always factors into this stuff,\u201d Weltman said of the other openings. \u201cOne of the things that you have to do is assess; is your job attractive? And I do think our job is attractive. I think that people look at us as a young, growing, forward-moving team with talent, chemistry, fit and a defensive backbone. So, I hope that that\u2019s the case. I think that that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you can\u2019t try to jump it just because another team might hire somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n

While players inside the locker room are frustrated that their last three seasons have ended with first-round losses, it doesn\u2019t appear likely they\u2019ll have a say in who Weltman hires.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would never put players in that position,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s our job to listen to what they feel about the team and where we need to get better and the elements that we need to improve in. And then it\u2019s our job to go hire a coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the frustrations, Weltman believes the players\u2019 desire to win will be a driving force in the search.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis team is incredibly hungry, competitive and dying to please our fans, and prove to everybody how good the team is,\u201d Weltman said. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the reasons that we are an attractive job and I think that we are going to be speaking with some really interesting candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players are going to embrace our new coach and give them everything they\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Magic president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman has an ideal candidate in mind to replace Jamahl Mosley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,2295,139,141,1239,140,109,76046,110],"class_list":["post-258875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nba","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-magic","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}