The dog days of NBA August are well here.
The league is watching pro-ams and analyzing Instagram and social media beefs between players while everyone is in a holding pattern waiting for the international basketball season to begin and for the schedule to come out.
That is the next big landmark on the NBA calendar.
The schedule usually comes out in early or mid-August. And everyone is waiting for this piece of the puzzle to come into place.
The league appears to be waiting as long as it can for the potential trade of Donovan Mitchell and Kevin Durant to make their schedule and finalize the national TV slate. But at this point, it does not seem like that is coming down any time soon.
The Orlando Magic are waiting for the schedule to come out. While they wait, here are some games we are already looking forward to.
So everyone is waiting for the schedule to get finalized — teams should already have a draft of the schedule but have to keep it secret under penalty of severe fines. The fans will have to wait a little bit longer to map out the next eight months of their lives.
In Orlando, everyone is eager to see the season tip-off.
The excitement for the top overall pick, Paolo Banchero, is palpable (seriously, I look at the traffic on this site). Fans here are eager to see the development for young players like Franz Wagner, who is getting set for Eurobasket with Germany, and Jalen Suggs. They are eager to see Jonathan Isaac’s return after a two-year absence and a full year with Markelle Fultz.
For a team with just 22 wins to build on from last year, there is a lot of optimism for the Magic. And so everyone is just eager to see how it all comes together.
The schedule is a big part of that, determining the way the season may progress and at what points the team should be able to zoom ahead. The chance for this young team to make the playoffs may well be determined by how the NBA composes the team’s schedule and where the easier parts and tough parts exist.
We still have to wait for that. But the anticipation to play certain teams has already grown. The beauty of the NBA schedule is we know we will see every team at least twice. So who are the teams the Magic should be looking forward to playing? We have those answers.
5 Orlando Magic games we are already looking forward to
Atlanta Hawks
The temperature between the Orlando Magic and the Atlanta Hawks has always run pretty cool. The two teams have been geographically close, but there was never much intrigue to spice things up.
Sure, the Magic beat the Hawks in the 1996 and 2010 playoffs. But both were relatively boring series — a five-game series that was saved from a sweep by a missed Shaquille O’Neal free throw and the most dominant four-game sweep in NBA history.
There was not much connecting them. The only spice seemed to come from Jonathan Isaac torturing John Collins and D.J. Augustin putting Trae Young in a spin cycle. That is obviously not much to build a rivalry on.
These division rivals who see each other four times a year do not seem to have a reason to hate each other.
The temperature of this rivalry went from tepid to boiling Sunday in a way that it had never before. Suddenly, the Magic’s game against the Hawks is must-see TV (at least in Orlando).
Dejounte Murray did that all by himself by going after Paolo Banchero at the Zeek Weekend in Tacoma, Wash., this weekend. Their back and forth continued on social media with Banchero feeling miffed and maybe a bit confused exactly what Murray was doing.
Murray seems to have taken something personally and took it out on his fellow Seattle-area hooper. So now naturally everyone wants to see what happens when the two meet on an NBA court. There will be plenty of time to do that.
The Hawks are in a different league from the Magic right now. They acquired an All-Star in Murray to try to ease the pressure off Young, who is a true superstar.
Atlanta finished in the Play-In Tournament last year and upset their way into the playoff field. But that was a disappointment for the team especially after reaching the Eastern Conference Finals in 2020. The Hawks are pushing all in and they needed the second ball-handler and scorer in Murray to get there.
The Magic will be little more than a nuisance this year. But they potentially could be a big one.
There is the feud between Banchero and Murray bubbling. If Banchero is the player we think he is, he is likely to remember this feud and save something for the matchup.
Then there is the playing feud between Isaac and Collins. A feud where Isaac simply does not allow Collins to score.
The Magic are going to have to climb the standings eventually. And the Hawks are a team in their way. Atlanta is a young team that is already on its perch. So this will be a measuring stick game for the young Magic and a rivalry that should percolate for the next few years.
It is certainly a prisoner-of-the-moment thing between Banchero and Murray. But everyone is eager to see these two teams play.
5 Orlando Magic games we are already looking forward to
Oklahoma City Thunder
A lot of Orlando Magic fans, let alone NBA fans, were upset with the team’s decision to sit Paolo Banchero for the team’s third Summer League game. Nobody expected Banchero to go the entire distance and play all five games. That would have been a bit too optimistic with how this team operates.
But there was disappointment that he did not get one more game. The NBA set up Summer League to feature all three of the top picks with the Magic opening against the teams that held picks 2, 3 and 4 in the draft.
The Orlando Magic got its battle with third overall pick Jabari Smith Jr. and the Houston Rockets. They got a double-overtime epic with fourth overall pick Keegan Murray and the Sacramento Kings.
Both of those matchups are certainly ones to watch. But the Magic deprived the NBA world of the matchup they really wanted to see: Paolo Banchero against No. 2 overall pick Chet Holmgren.
Holmgren would play through much of the Summer League while Banchero sat. Some cynical fans would say Banchero was ducking Holmgren. It was not true, but the narrative existed.
Never mind that Banchero dropped 21 points and five rebounds in 30 minutes against Gonzaga early last season. There is certainly no fear with Banchero dealing with cramping issues in the second half that limited his playing time.
This is the marquee matchup from this draft class, all due respect to everyone else in the class. It is the big matchup everyone wants to see.
Quietly too, this might be one of the more interesting League Pass games.
Neither the Magic nor the Thunder are expected to be contending teams in the playoff picture. But they are expected to be two of the more fun teams in the league — with a bevvy of young players and interesting prospects that nobody knows how they are going to fit together.
These two teams are peers in many ways. They are going to be on the rise together — maybe the Thunder are a bit ahead with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s development. But this will be one to circle. Perhaps even national TV worthy with the intrigue of Banchero battling Holmgren.
5 Orlando Magic games we are already looking forward to
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics are a different class from the Orlando Magic. They are the defending Eastern Conference champions and the top of the mountain every team east of the Mississippi River (virtually, NBA geography can get weird).
Boston is everything Orlando wants to be and that is why this is a matchup worth paying attention to. And one, at least, that I look forward to every year.
The Celtics dominated their games against the Magic last year. They bounced back from getting called out for selfishness by Marcus Smart to throttle the Magic 92-79. They came back from an impossible deficit to get 50 points from Jaylen Brown for an overtime win. Then they blew out the Magic in Amway Center in February.
Each time, Boston stymied Orlando offensively with its switching defense. The Magic simply had no way to break them down one on one or create space consistently.
The Celtics had the best defense in the league last year because of their ability to switch seamlessly. They were at their best when they were stifling teams and forcing them to play one on one all the time.
Only later in the playoffs when the Golden State Warriors figured out how to manipulate those switches did their defense finally crack. Stephen Curry does that to people.
Orlando is very much trying to copy this style. With all of the team’s versatile defenders and length for days, the Magic should be able to be a stifling defensive team and copy a lot of the principles the Celtics rode to the NBA Finals last year.
They may not have the same offensive firepower and certainly not the veteran know how, but this is a good measuring stick game for the team. It is always good to measure yourself against the best team in the conference (or one of them, at least).
The two teams play similarly so there should be something to learn from these encounters.
5 Orlando Magic games we are already looking forward to
Toronto Raptors
During the NBA Finals, the Jimmy Kimmel Show aired their segment clearly filmed at All-Star Weekend of NBA players reading mean tweets. It featured Orlando Magic rookies Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner.
Everyone was catching strays in this segment. That is kind of the point. But Magic fans especially noted where the mean tweet at Wagner came from:
Yes, that is a comment from a user named @YABarnes4MVP.
Orlando Magic fans are very miffed and confused by Toronto Raptors’ fans obsession with the Magic’s two rookies. They chanted “Scottie’s better” at Jalen Suggs during an early season game in Toronto forgetting that the Raptors made the choice to pick Scottie Barnes over Jalen Suggs.
A lot of Magic fans on Twitter reported Raptors fans jumping in on conversations to lord their selection of Barnes over Suggs and Wagner in the Draft.
Mind you, this is not the Magic passing on Barnes and the Raptors scooping him up. This is Raptors fans making their own selection and lording options the Magic did not even have over a team beneath them.
This sounds like punching down, which is never a good idea.
Magic fans have never begrudged the Raptors’ selection of Barnes. Barnes won Rookie of the Year last year and deservedly so. Everything seemed to work out for everyone.
Orlando loved the team’s selection of Wagner and Suggs. Sure, Suggs struggled, but there is a lot to like about him and nobody is giving up on him yet.
But there is some lingering animosity between these fan bases, at least. Orlando fans are still a bit salty about Kyle Lowry injuring Aaron Gordon in the bubble and derailing any hopes in the 2020 season. Not to mention all of Lowry’s other antics during the course of their meetings in 2019 and 2020 (and now he is on the Miami Heat which does not make him a favorite person in Orlando).
Whether the teams like it or not, this is a game that carries some bragging rights. Even if it is just among fans.
5 Orlando Magic games we are already looking forward to
Chicago Bulls
The Orlando Magic and Chicago Bulls are going to be tied together for a little while.
The teams were involved in a major trade about a year ago that changed both franchises. The Bulls got an All-Star in Nikola Vucevic, who is reportedly due for an extension soon. The Magic got Wendell Carter and a pick that turned into Franz Wagner.
In a lot of ways, both teams accomplished their goals. The Bulls did enough to keep Zach LaVine this offseason and solidify their playoff potential. And it gave them the runway to sign DeMar DeRozan (reportedly because of his friendship with Nikola Vucevic) and push their chips in to try to do more.
Injuries were probably the big thing that derailed them last season — to Zach LaVine by the end of the season, but mid-season injuries to Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball really sent things off the rail.
The matchup this season will carry some extra weight. It will not just be about the matchup of Carter against Vucevic.
The Magic hold the Bulls’ pick this offseason. So Orlando will be cheering hard for Chicago losses (although not too many because the pick is top four protected). It is in the Magic’s best interests to win their games against the Bulls and everyone will be keeping an eye on what Chicago does.
Especially because the 2023 NBA Draft is shaping up to be a good one.
Beyond that, the Bulls ended up last year as the 6-seed. They should be better if they can stay healthy. But right now, they are a team squarely in the Magic’s way and a team the Magic will have to climb above to get where they want to go.
That may not happen this season. But it is something to keep in mind.
The connections between these teams is pretty clear and something that will add some intrigue to this season.