There are cases where success is signed for a particular player. For example, when a player of LeBron James’ caliber lands on a team, it is likely to become a winning team, but in the NBA Development League the story is completely different. Following the rapidly changing rosters, as befits a development league, success begins first and foremost behind the scenes with the man pulling the strings. At the Lakeland Magic who won the G-League championship this week, this man is called Anthony Parker.
Parker, who is known as one of the greatest players Maccabi Tel Aviv knew, becomes a name off the field at the age of 45, just like Sharas who does in the Euroleague. In his fourth season as general manager of the Orlando Magic development team, Parker won the coveted championship as the Lakeland Magic defeated the Delaware Blue Coates 78-97 (Philadelphia 76ers) in the final between Thursday and Friday.
How do you see Parker’s fingerprint? Well, it’s hard to argue with the results, which started long before the championship. Since being named the club’s GM in the summer of 2017, the Magic have qualified for the playoffs each season with a positive balance. Throughout these four seasons, the team has won 60% of its games (63:94 balance), while in the five seasons before Parker’s arrival (when the team was named Ari Behawks), the club did not qualify for the playoffs once and held a 158: 92 balance (37% success rate).
The team coach Stan Heath Complimented in the past: “I admired the AP as a player. Even then he had a brilliant basketball mind and today he knows how to look at the game differently. He talks strategy, thinks differently and teaches us to be winners.” After nearly four years of “process,” as they like to say in Philadelphia, Parker completed the task and returned to doing what he did best in Europe at the turn of the century – forever.
The perfect combination between Parker and G-League is not accidental, for the simple reason that the GM can identify with the players and vice versa. “I was there,” he said Parker. “This is what gives me the right to make the offer and lead. I made a career like any of those who play in the G-League. The door to the NBA did not open for me and everything went hard for me, as for those G-League players. My journey is one that can be identified with. “From this place, I can teach them to dream big, to be more thoughtful and smart athletes, and thus more competitive.”
Although the Magic finished first at their home last season, the playoffs did not take place as a result of the Corona virus. This season the Development League knew it had to reinvent itself in order for the games to take place anyway, so inspired by the NBA last summer – it gathered the teams into a bubble. Before the Magic set out on a journey, Parker was a guest on the group’s official podcast, revealing what his secret to success was.
“I really like working here,” he said. “We’re all here in Orlando always looking for the best people to join the team, and from those good people – we take the best players. Once you unite the right players, the atmosphere around is the right atmosphere.”
“If you follow our players from recent seasons on Instagram, you will find that they spend time together and keep in touch,” Parker continued. “The coaches also meet with them and that’s actually the story of the club. Alongside the training camps, we always made sure to have team meetings and go bowling for example, that’s what produces the special culture. We love team players who love the game and want to improve. That’s the essence of the whole development league.”
If you ask the Yellows legend what his overarching goal is, as the Orlando media have already done, he will tell you that his big dream is to be general manager in the NBA as well. Among all the general managers in the league, there is one who is very reminiscent of Parker when it comes to the two’s way to the top, and he is the GM of the New Orleans Pelicans’ Trejan Langdon.
If that name sounds familiar to you, you’ll have to go back more than a decade. Langdon was one of the leading guards of CSKA the glorious Moscow, and he was an integral part of the huge team of Ettore Masira who won twice in the Euroleague. In both 2006 and 2008, by the way, Langdon and the Russians defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv in the final.
Beyond the fact that the two have won the Euroleague several times and also picked up the Final Four MVP title, there are a few other similarities between Parker and Langdon: both were selected twice for the Euroleague season five, both played in Cleveland and Italy during their careers, and after retirement – both tried their luck at -NBA in 2012. Ex CSKA was appointed scout in San Antonio, and ex Maccabi Tel Aviv got the role of scout in Orlando (still in office today).
About a year before Parker joined the G-League, Langdon was preceded by about eight as the general manager in Brooklyn and the general manager of the development team. In 2018/19 he was named League League Manager of the Year and then made the leap to the New Orleans GM. Will Parker continue to follow Langdon’s path? time will tell.
