Orlando Magic co-founder Pat Williams dies at 84

Pat Williams was a leader for the Orlando Magic from the beginning. (AP Photo/Peter Cosgrove, File)

Pat Williams, the basketball executive who helped bring the NBA’s Orlando Magic to Florida, died Wednesday, his team announced in a statement. He was 84 years old.

His cause of death was reportedly complications from viral pneumonia.

The story of the Magic began with Williams, then the general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, meeting Orlando businessman Jim Hewitt. Williams later became co-leader of the effort to bring an NBA expansion team to Orlando, which succeeded in 1987, with the team playing its first season in 1989.

While the team has yet to win a title, it has reached the playoffs in 17 of its 35 seasons and won the Eastern Conference twice, in 1995 and 2009.

Williams got his start in sports via baseball, first as a minor league catcher then as an executive in the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins organizations. He moved to basketball with the Sixers in 1968.

That basketball career ended up lasting more than four decades, spent mostly with the Magic as general manager and senior vice president. That tenure saw the drafting of Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard, as well as trades for the likes of Penny Hardaway and the signing of Tracy McGrady.

Williams received the John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 from the Naismith Hall of Fame and was a member of the inaugural class of the Magic’s Hall of Fame.

Williams retired in 2019. Per the Magic, he is survived by his wife Ruth and their 19 children, 14 of whom are adopted from foreign countries.