Orlando Magic Rumors: Orlando Magic exploring expanding or building new practice facility

The Amway Center was state-of-the-art for practice facilities when it was built. Now the Orlando Magic are trying to keep up and are pondering change.

A few months ago, the Orlando Magic hosted the media outside the Amway Center practice facility to announce a new partnership. Or, better, a renewed and more public partnership.

AdventHealth, formerly Florida Hospital, has always been a partner for the Magic. In the last few years, their logo began adorning the practice facility attached to the Amway Center and their sponsorship became much more prominent.

Now that partnership was more official.

Through some pomp and circumstance — a banner reveal and confetti — the practice facility officially received a name. It would be the AdventHealth Practice Facility. The practice court already got a dress up — first for Florida Hospital and then with the AdventHealth logo after the name change in January.

It is a sponsorship deal but it might as well have been a rechristening.

Improving the team’s practice facility has been part of the transformation president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman has undertaken with the franchise. He helped reconfigure and change much of the interior of the Amway Center behind the scenes.

And that may not be enough.

The league has also invested more in their facilities and providing the best place for their players — and staff — to work and train. Quickly, the Amway Center is not the state-of-the-art facility it used to be.

That might be why the Magic are exploring a potential change.

Josh Robbins of The Athletic discussed the changes in facilities league-wide with Orlando Magic COO Alex Martins. He confirmed the team is studying what other teams are doing and exploring how they can improve and upgrade their facilities.

Whether that eventually means the team moves to a new facility or makes changes to the interior of the Amway Center practice facility is still to be determined. The Magic are certainly doing their homework. They cannot lose pace with the rest of the league.

President of basketball operations Jeff Weltman has already done some work to improve the team’s facilities internally. One of the first jobs for Becky Bonner was to help redesign the Magic’s practice facility, among the many duties and places she has had a hand in since joining the team. The Magic also upgraded their film room — using the press conference room for much of last season to view game tape.

These changes are pretty vital. As Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN recently described, one of the issues facing the Phoenix Suns is the fact their management is separated from the team facilities by four floors.

The Amway Center was designed with this in mind. The Magic’s coaches and management offices all overlook the practice court. Everyone can have a direct line to the floor at all times and going to practice is a simple trip downstairs (or sitting in the seats overlooking the practice court).

It is unclear what other changes the Magic might be able to make inside the Amway Center. They designed it for a particular time and place it seems and now the league is going through a different trend when it comes to team facilities.

The Magic are seemingly willing to explore and find ways to upgrade. Judging by how the rest of the league is going, it seems like it is necessary to do.