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Evidence is needed to make the claim, though, that Martins was a problem, or that ownership were 'calling the shots on all fronts'. You can have an opinion, but without any evidence I have to assume it's just blind conjecture. The team has been solid from a financial standpoint, which is Martins' job, despite a long rebuild. So... he's been doing very well at his job. Why would we have moved on from Martins, considering that? Blaming him because he's been a common denominator is absurd. So has Stuff. Is it Stuff's fault? My opinion is that the largest part of this team's troubles during the rebuild can be laid at Hennigan's feet, but even that is a largest part where there is plenty of blame to go around. It's a cluster of bad situations, really. From the start, Hennigan didn't hire the right coach for a rebuild. The evidence would be Vaughn's obvious lack of direction and player expectations while he was here. We saw this in interviews. Oladipo talked about the culture in Orlando, how it was aimless and just a bunch of talented guys with no leadership. When they brought in leadership (Skiles), it so clashed with the laissez faire management style that Skiles lost it. Now I do think Martins miscalculated here, and he can take some of the blame. It seems fairly clear the organization liked Skiles for his tough-guy leadership style, and pushed that hiring through, with Hennigan at best being 'okay' with it. But Skiles and Hennigan were never going to be able to co-exist, and that hiring is partly on Martins. But it should be noted that Orlando improved by 10 games that year; and when Hennigan was once again able to hire 'his guy' in Vogel, the team fell apart even worse than before. It became clear during the Hennigan/Vogel year (right away, with the Oladipo trade, and the Biyombo signing) that Hennigan was terrible when the pressure was on to actually improve. I don't think this pressure was impatience from management. Orlando had the talent to start getting better, obviously, considering there were at least three future All-Star guys on the team when they started putting the pressure on for improvement. Harris got better almost the moment he left Orlando's terrible culture, and Oladipo exploded the moment he was given another real opportunity. It wasn't that they needed more time, but rather they needed to be on a team with direction. Direction as a basketball team wasn't and has never been Martins' job. That was Hennigan's job, and it was clear by the end he was terrible at it. Blaming the culture of the team at that point on Martins would be insane, even during Martins' most hands-on period, as the only mistake he can solidly be blamed for would be when he tried unsuccessfully to improve the terrible culture by injecting Skiles. It wasn't the right move, but it's hard to make the argument that letting Hennigan continue to have his way would have gone better, considering how the team fell apart under Vogel, the guy who basically embodied Hennigan's laid back/no expectations/no consequences style. At this point, Martins was clearly happy to step back and let Jeff Weltman take over setting the tone, which was absolutely the right call. It's fairly clear the culture of the team has improved the last two-and-a-half seasons, despite the players being mostly the same. Two playoff-level teams after a year of evaluation shows that, among other things. But you see how that blame goes a lot of places during the bad years that are still haunting us. Hennigan was the catalyst, sure. But Vaughn was too lax, Skiles gave up, and Vogel was not a leader at all. All of those guys had the opportunity to fix the rebuild, from a coaching standpoint. Skiles probably could have, if he'd been willing to put up with fighting Hennigan for the culture of the team. Bad luck had a lot of impact. What if we'd gotten the 3rd pick in '14, or the 4th pick in '15? Or a top three in '17 or '18? Would we be considerably better? Hard to know, but it's a good bet. I don't see how poor luck can be thrown on Martins or ownership. Martins can have some blame for the Skiles hiring (though, again, it's hard to say this really hurt the team), but it seems the move to a Pres. of Ops management style is the sensible option to remedy that failing, considering that Martins was still doing a good job at the business side of things. If I hire an IT guy to build a web-site, then ask him to help me write my novel, should I fire him from his IT position if he can't write? Lastly, sure, in the end the state of the franchise rests on ownership, because they're signing the checks. But i would point this out: of the 7 teams that have expanded the league in the last 35 years, we are one of 3 with a championship appearance, one of only two with multiple championship appearances, and the only team from a smaller market to get to the big series. We are one of only 4 smaller market teams with multiple championship appearances since the merger (the others being Cleveland, San Antonio, Portland, and Utah). Orlando hasn't changed ownership. We aren't San Antonio. We've been much more consistent than Cleveland, who basically owes all their multiple championship appearances to one guy. We're on par, from an organizational success standpoint, with Portland and Utah since entering the league. Historically, we're probably the fourth or fifth-best smaller-market team in league history, and a single championship would likely move us to second-place on that list, considering Cleveland's history without Lebron and and how long it's been since Portland won anything. We are in a better situation for the foreseeable future than any of those teams except Utah. That is the state of the franchise, and the ownership should be commended for that.

There is more then this virus going on behind the scenes folks; mark my words......