{"id":343,"date":"2012-07-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/bob-vander-weide-i-wasnt-intoxicated\/"},"modified":"2012-07-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-14T00:00:00","slug":"bob-vander-weide-i-wasnt-intoxicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/bob-vander-weide-i-wasnt-intoxicated\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Vander Weide: I wasn\u2019t intoxicated"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Retiring\u00a0Orlando Magic<\/a>\u00a0chairman and chief executive officer Bob Vander Weide says he wasn\u2019t intoxicated when he spoke to Orlando\u2019s\u00a0Dwight Howard<\/a>\u00a0during a late-night phone call earlier this week and that it hasn\u2019t affected their professional relationship in any way.<\/p>\n

Vander Weide said Wednesday at a news conference that his decision to step down had nothing to do with the phone call and that efforts to keep the All-Star center continue.<\/p>\n

However, general manager Otis Smith said the Magic won\u2019t placate Howard\u2019s every request, should he decide to test free agency next summer. Howard can opt out of his current contract a year early and become a free agent in July.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day our objective is to win a title and protect this franchise,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to do whatever we have to do in order to do that. Our objective is to keep (Howard) in a uniform, however, if that\u2019s not the case then we\u2019ll move in another direction. But our objective right now is to keep him in uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vander Weide sought to clear up reports that he may have been intoxicated when he spoke to Howard.<\/p>\n

He said he had two to three glasses of wine over a three-hour period after a social event and that he wanted to return text and phone messages Howard had left for him. He denied being drunk when he spoke to Howard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be clear on this, that phone conversation has not changed my relationship with Dwight,\u201d Vander Weide said. \u201cWe like each other; we even love each other as people. He\u2019s always reached out to me. That phone call has not changed his feeling about this organization. And third, and maybe not as important, that phone conversation has nothing to do with us being here today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vander Weide, who has worked with the Magic since coming on in 1992 as vice president of basketball operations, had been its CEO and chairman since 2010 after previously serving as team president.<\/p>\n

He said he has been moving toward giving up the chairman and CEO reins for more than a year and that the recent NBA labor negotiations are what delayed Wednesday\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

Vander Weide went on to say that from his assessment in recent conversations between he and Howard that he thinks that \u201cmentally Dwight is in a good place\u201d as he contemplates his future.<\/p>\n

Asked if the process to court Dwight to stay has been a tough one for team officials, Vander Weide seemed to at least allude to the 1996 departure of\u00a0Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/a>\u00a0to the Lakers when he said previous ones have been.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be real clear historically, having done this with several of your own free agents, it\u2019s a taxing process,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve learned from each one and we are doing everything we can to make sure Dwight knows this is home for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vander Weide, 53, will stay on in a consulting role, but will hand off the chairman duties to his brother-in-law, Dan DeVos. Team president Alex Martins is taking over as CEO and will be running day-to-day matters.<\/p>\n

DeVos will also take Vander Weide\u2019s position as the Magic\u2019s lead representative on the NBA Board of Governors.<\/p>\n

With trade scenarios already swirling, Smith made it clear that while the desire to re-sign Howard is, of course, the Magic\u2019s top free-agency priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur objective is to win an NBA title and who does that is NBA basketball teams,\u201d Smith said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to continue to do. We\u2019re going to put the best team on the floor to give the Orlando Magic a chance to win an NBA title. That doesn\u2019t necessarily mean we\u2019re going to listen to everything Dwight has to say and placate to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith said they also would not do it to the detriment of the Magic\u2019s organization goal of winning an NBA title.<\/p>\n

click this to see original content.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Retiring\u00a0Orlando Magic\u00a0chairman and chief executive officer Bob Vander Weide says he wasn\u2019t intoxicated when he spoke to Orlando\u2019s\u00a0Dwight Howard\u00a0during a late-night phone call earlier this week and that it hasn\u2019t affected their professional relationship in any way. Vander Weide said Wednesday at a news conference that his decision to step down had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":630,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,28],"tags":[250,251,252],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-sports","tag-bob-vander-weide","tag-i-wasnt","tag-intoxicated"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/630"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}