Joe Dumars, unlike most of the New Orleans Pelicans fan base, wasn’t fazed when the ping pong balls didn’t fall in his team’s favor on that May evening in Chicago.
Dumars, hired in April as the Pelicans’ executive vice president of basketball operations, had just inherited a team that finished with the fourth worst record in the NBA. That dismal 21-61 season gave the Pels a 12.5 % chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick and winning the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes.
Instead, the NBA draft lottery fell the other way and the Pelicans ended up sliding to the No. 7 pick.
“Even when we went from 4 to 7, I wasn’t one of the people that was really disappointed in that back room,” Dumars said. “I was ok with it. I know this draft and we’re going to get a good player at 7.”
There are two reasons for Dumars’ optimism.
First, he likes this year’s class.
Second, and most importantly, he really likes the guy who is going to help him find the right players.
Troy Weaver was the first person Dumars hired.
Weaver is the Pelicans’ senior vice president of basketball operations and will be responsible for helping locate the missing pieces to help the Pelicans turn things around.
Before coming to New Orleans, Weaver spent time as an assistant general manager of the Oklahoma City Thunder and general manager of the Detroit Pistons. This past season, he served as a senior advisor for the Washington Wizards.
“Troy has a unique skillset,” Dumars said. “His ability to identify talent in this league is elite. He has a long track record of being able to identify players at an elite level.”
Weaver gets his first test in New Orleans on Wednesday when the NBA draft begins. The Pelicans own the No.7 pick and the No. 23 pick (acquired in a trade on Tuesday) in this year’s draft.
This is familiar territory for Weaver.
Seventeen years ago, Weaver was hired as assistant GM with the Seattle SuperSonics as they were relocating to Oklahoma City. His team then, just like this year’s Pelicans, had a Top 10 selection (No. 4) and a pick in the 20’s (No. 24). The SuperSonics had gone 20-62 the season before, one less win than the Pelicans had this season.
It was Weaver who made a strong push for the SuperSonics/Thunder to roll the dice and take a chance on a certain player whose draft profile wasn't overly impressive. Especially for a No. 4 pick.
“Because of his defensive ability, he is unlikely to be a bust, although he probably won't develop into a bona fide superstar,” read one 2008 draft profile.
The player was Russell Westbrook, who went on to become an MVP in what has turned into a Hall of Fame career.
“In terms of evaluation, Troy’s ability to see players for what they can be and not for who they are right now is a major strength,” said Washington Wizards general manager Will Dawkins.
Dawkins worked with Weaver this season in D.C. The two of them also arrived in OKC together back in 2008 under Sam Presti, arguably the best executive in the NBA.
“The way Sam Presti leads, he allows everybody to have a voice,” Dawkins said. “He allows people to listen and then makes the best informed decision. Troy had a loud voice in (drafting Westbrook) and he consistently spoke up for the guys who he thought weren’t necessarily the best players now, but would be the best players moving forward. With Troy in Oklahoma City, we were able to build something pretty special based off the talent. It wasn’t just about identifying the players. It was also grooming them once they got there and Troy played a big part in that."
In addition to Westbrook, they drafted Serge Ibaka with the 24th pick that year. Westbrook and Ibaka became two key pieces for a Thunder team that reached the NBA Finals four years later.
Weaver wasn’t available for an interview for this story, but the draft philosophy he talked about when the Pistons hired him as GM in 2020 likely still holds true today.
“I just feel like my philosophy is we don’t draft players, we draft people,” Weaver said five years ago. “We want to make sure we get the person right. ... If you get the person right, the basketball will take care of itself. Drafting high, getting the person right is more important to me. You draft in the 20's, you might want to take a swing on some talent or maybe a position.”
Weaver’s time in Detroit didn't go well. The Pistons went just 54-192 in his three seasons running the show. But he drafted some of the key pieces that helped the Pistons turn things around this season to finish sixth in the Eastern Conference after winning a combined 31 games the previous two seasons.
“When we showed up, the cupboard wasn’t bare,” first-year Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff told the Detroit Press in an interview. “There was a ton of talent in that locker room.”
Credit Weaver for that.
Now, can he bring that type of talent to the Pelicans’ locker room?
Dawkins believes he can.
“First and foremost, Troy is as consistent as a person and as a evaluator as anyone I’ve been around,” Dawkins said. “He has a great combination of hard work and humility. Believe it or not, that’s hard to find. He does the work and is really in it with you. He’s a true Day One type grinder. As a leader, he’s inclusive, he’s flexible and he’s confident.”
That confidence comes from Weaver’s path to being an NBA executive. He isn’t a Hall of Famer like Dumars, the man he’s now working with for the first time. Heck, Weaver never stepped foot on an NBA court as a player. His basketball playing days ended after one season playing at a community college. After that, he helped start and coach an AAU team in the 1990’s. His success at finding talent there led him to landing college assistant coaching jobs at Pittsburgh, New Mexico and Syracuse. It was Weaver who first noticed Carmelo Anthony before he became one of the top recruits in the country. Nailing that evaluation early gave Weaver a head start in the recruiting process and he ended up getting Anthony to sign with Syracuse. Anthony led Syracuse to a national title as a freshman.
“Troy's years of experience at the youth level and the college level and the pro level are hard to match compared to a lot of evaluators out there right now,” Dawkins said. “He can see the game as an evaluator, but through a coaching lens. He’s spent so much time coaching and being around players. All of that combined is what makes him Troy Weaver.”