The Orlando Magic tried to temper expectations. This was a year to improve and get better — to “level up” as they all said — but it was not a year where they were putting the specific expectations of reaching the play-in tournament or playoffs.
Aside from Markelle Fultz cryptically tweeting “4th seed” in August and Gary Harris, the veteran of the team, specifically saying he believed this team has Playoff potential.
That was more than enough for fans to take the ball and run. Especially once they got their first look at first-overall pick Paolo Banchero and this team. It was clear this team had something to hang onto and some talent to build with.
Impatience is probably the biggest thing holding this team back.
Impatience to make the right play offensively, leading to a ton of turnovers. Impatience to see a young team learn how to win. Impatience waiting on injured players to return.
All of these are part of the story for the Magic in the first quarter of the season. A frustrating 5-16 through the first 21 games and another sink to the bottom of the standings.
The Orlando Magic had a frustrating start to their season. But there is hope for a stronger second quarter as the team gets healthier and more comfortable playing together.
It is hardly enough to say the team is completely out of any postseason hopes. But the odds of it happening are slim. It will take an impressive turnaround and improvement.
One that may well come as the team gets healthier — only Franz Wagner and Bol Bol played all 21 games to start the season with Markelle Fultz and Jonathan Isaac missing the entire first quarter, Gary Harris not returning until 17 games into the season, Cole Anthony getting hurt four games into the season and Jalen Suggs going in and out of the lineup with ankle injuries.
That was the overarching story for the first quarter of the season. Injuries and who was missing were a big part of the story for a young team trying to find its way.
But the team still needed to find its way and establish its culture. There were sign the team was doing this until the injuries seemed to overwhelm them. And now the Magic are searching for that fight all over again.
It was a mixed bag for the entire first quarter of the season, oscillating between the extreme promise of from Banchero and Wagner along with the frustration of a young team struggling to cement an identity to build off.
It is just one-quarter of the season. And there is a long way to go and a lot more the team can learn. And the next 20 games will go a long way to cementing this team’s path.
5 questions for the Orlando Magic’s second quarter
Will the Orlando Magic get healthy?
The biggest question facing the Orlando Magic will have to do with health.
It was the overarching story of the first quarter of the season with Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz missing the first 21 games (Fultz returned Wednesday in Game 22), Jalen Suggs going in and out of the lineup, Gary Harris returning late in the run, Paolo Banchero missing seven games with a sprained ankle and Cole Anthony missing all but the first four games of the season.
The Magic’s injury list is still quite long with Wendell Carter currently sitting with a plantar fascia strain (he is likely out another week or two), Jalen Suggs and Chuma Okeke dealing with soreness in previously injured body parts and Gary Harris now dealing with a strained hamstring.
It still feels like every time the Magic bring one player back, they lose another one. And that has made it hard to evaluate much of anything in this season of evaluation.
Even a veteran NBA coach like Jamahl Mosley has said openly he has never seen a team go through the injuries this team has gone through.
It is not completely surprising the team has faced some physical and mental fatigue trying to make up for it.
There have been good things that have come out of it. The injuries have forced the team to feature Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero more as ball-handlers, an experiment the team surely envisioned when it drafted Banchero trying to leverage their playmaking. Both have had successes and struggles there.
It also helped the team push Bol Bol into the starting lineup and try its mega lineup to see its potential strengths and flaws. There is a lot to like about it and a lot that still needs some work.
But the team would still like to see its full complement so many of these experiments can remain experiments rather than full-on identities for this young team.
Fultz and Anthony already made their returns. And they immediately upped the team’s pace, giving the Magic a much more solid base at point guard. They need time to work their way back into game shape and the lineup, but their impact was still pretty clear.
Carter, Suggs and Okeke’s injuries should be fairly short-term. It is just a matter of the Magic feeling comfortable that they can stay on the floor without reaggravating these injuries.
And, of course, hanging in the background, Jonathan Isaac will return to the court at some point. He has been playing five-on-five with coaches for a while. It is just a matter of getting him on the court without restrictions with the main roster.
Next week’s five-game homestand may be big in getting Isaac some time on the court with the team in his final ramp-up to playing. The more likely date for Isaac’s return would be the stretch of five of six games at home beginning Dec. 23.
That would be quite a Christmas gift (there is not another extended homestand until the end of January). But everyone has gotten their hopes up before with Isaac only for it to pass without much news.
That has kind of how things have been. Getting Isaac back t last would signal the team is as healthy as it is going to be and the team can really begin testing and looking at this group more seriously.
5 questions for the Orlando Magic’s second quarter
What impact will point guards have on Orlando Magic?
The Orlando Magic essentially played the whole first quarter of the season without a point guard in the lineup. Markelle Fultz was out until Wednesday’s game against the Atlanta Hawks and Cole Anthony injured his oblique four games into the season.
That absence was apparent as the team tried to use forwards Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero as the team’s main ball-handlers, playmakers and organizers. They did their best, using their size and skill to find advantages. But they also struggled to get the team into its sets quickly.
Orlando finished the first quarter of the season 23rd in the league playing at a pace of 98.5 possessions per 48 minutes. That is a product of the heavy isolation style that both Wagner and Banchero used as the lead ball handlers. They really did not know what else to do to initiate the offense.
That is part of the problem of having non-point guards playing point guard. Especially a rookie and second-year player. They are still learning how to make those reads on drives. So it was a valuable experience nonetheless.
The Magic want to see the team pick up its energy and play with more pace. And it is clear how much traditional point guards will help the team do that.
There are still going to be a lot of adjustments that need to be made as players move off the ball and more guys come into the lineup. That is always going to be the case whenever new players are reintroduced.
The Magic though have been very open with their ideas that any player can initiate and begin the offense. So the question of how much a point guard will matter is certainly a greater one for a team like this. Orlando is not going to abandon using Wagner or Banchero as their main ball handlers. They will still get their usage.
But there is something to having players who know what they are doing on the floor as the organizers and point guard. There is something to having someone who understands the responsibility of when to attack and how to get the ball to others who need it.
That is something the Magic missed throughout the first quarter of the season. And something the team is eager to pick up in the next 20.
5 questions for the Orlando Magic’s second quarter
Can the Orlando Magic learn to win close games?
The early part of the Orlando Magic’s season was optimistic. The team was young and struggling for sure. Nobody was confusing the Magic with a dominant outfit.
But being in close games was a victory in itself. It was a sign of the progress the team could make and where the team still needed to grow.
Orlando ended the first quarter of the season with the fourth-most games that qualified for clutch situations — within five points in the final five minutes — with 14 clutch games. The Magic played only 33 clutch games last year. To be 42 percent of the way there a quarter through the season is a good thing.
Of course, the Magic have won only three of those games. That is the big reason why their record is what it is. And the struggles to win close games might be why the team is hitting a new low. Some confidence in late games early in the season might have powered the team through some of these injuries.
The Orlando Magic have had some bad showings late in games — the loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder stands out as an especially bad late-game showing as does the end of regulation in the loss to the Sacramento Kings despite the late-game heroics that tied the game late in overtime.
The Orlando Magic have the second-worst net rating in clutch situations, ahead of only the Los Angeles Lakers. They average only 95.3 points per 100 possessions in clutch situations. This is where the team adding a point guard would seemingly be most important. The Magic have not always looked organized or able to get good shots consistently.
The defense is not much better at 138.0 points allowed per 100 possessions.
These all seemed to be young player issues for the Magic. These are all things the team should improve in as they get more experience in late-game situations.
Right now, the Magic need to get back to playing close games and going through those growing pains to learn and improve. The team will need to take steps up in that category.
Orlando certainly hopes that this is an area where Markelle Fultz can help stabilize things.
The Magic need to get back to playing these close games again so they can see what the team looks like under pressure. They need to get comfortable playing under pressure so they can grow. That will be another key factor very soon.
To be sure, the Magic are sitting at five wins because they lost a lot of these close games. Even finishing .500 in close games would give them four more wins. That does not seem like a lot, but nine wins puts them 2.5 games out of the final play-in spot. Just flipping a few of those wins would make the postseason a little bit more of a reality.
Losing close games is very much still a problem for the team.
5 questions for the Orlando Magic’s second quarter
Where does Franz Wagner’s game grow next?
There is plenty of obsession on the Orlando Magic’s new toy in Paolo Banchero. The Rookie of the Year front-runner has been putting up historic numbers and placing himself among lists of some of the greatest players in the league’s history. There is still a long way to go for Banchero to reach those heights. He has a lot to learn.
The real leap that seems to have come this year is from Franz Wagner.
The Magic put Wagner in some very new positions this season. No longer the third or even fourth option on the team, content to work off cuts or hit spot-up threes, the Magic listened to fan complaints and put the ball squarely in his hands. They asked him to create and be a lead ball-handler. His shot attempts spiked and his usage did too.
All the restrictions were off Wagner.
He was our first-quarter MVP after averaging 19.5 points per game, 4.1 rebounds per game and 4.0 assists per game in the first quarter of the season. He shot 50.0 percent from the floor and 31.9 percent from beyond the arc. His ability to finish at the rim was particularly incredible.
Wagner looked like a genuine star, as evidenced by his nomination for Eastern Conference Player of the Month for October/November. If not for the Magic’s record, there might be a solid campaign to get him to Salt Lake City in February.
That is secondary. The question for Wagner is where does his game grow next?
He has stepped his game up with his ability to drive and get to the basket. He likely is not going to develop a mid-range game mid-season, but learning how to make passes and plays off his drives is an important next step.
So too is improving his 3-point shooting. That was already turning around toward the end of the first quarter. And playing more off the ball with Markelle Fultz and Cole Anthony’s returns will help with that process. But it is undoubtedly an adjustment for everyone as Wagner and Banchero have less of those point guard abilities.
Everyone can see how much better Wagner can still be. They can see what an impact he can have on the game. And how much better he can play.
Wagner is going to get a lot better in the months and years to come. That is something fans should get excited.
5 questions for the Orlando Magic’s second quarter
How much will winning matter?
The charge for the Orlando Magic before the season began was to “level up.”
Coach Jamahl Mosley explained this was learning to play with fewer mistakes and reduce repeated mistakes. It was an aim to be more competitive and put the team in position to win more often. Winning would be a byproduct of this process, but not necessarily the end goal.
Aside from a few players, nobody was saying anything about the play-in or postseason. Even if that did get fans excited.
To say the least, nobody is satisfied to sit at five wins through a quarter of the season. The bare minimum everyone expected was to see the team improve on its 22-win season last year. That is still in reach — the Magic were at four wins at the quarter mark of the season last year — but the team has a lot of work to do.
The discussion among Magic fans, at least, is whether this team is committed to winning and actually taking those next steps or whether the front office is content to play for the Lottery again. That temptation is even greater considering the players available in this year’s draft — specifically Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson.
The players on the Magic are certainly focused on trying to win. As optimistic as Jamahl Mosley may sound in his media availabilities, he is a fierce competitor too. He wants to try to teach this team how to win. And for sure, the Magic need some health to compete more consistently.
But they also need to be more focused on the details and what they have to do to be successful. That growth has been uneven to put it kindly. The Magic have to and can be a whole lot better.
The question is really about how well Mosley can keep his team together. Winning and striving to improve are still important parts of this team’s development. Accepting blowouts and waiting for ping-pong balls is not going to help anyone get better and make this more of a lost season.
Orlando has a lot of young players it needs to see develop, even if this whole group is not the group that will one day push this team into the postseason. The Magic can still learn a lot. But it is impossible to learn anything if this group is noncompetitive and not pushing to win.
That may well be the biggest battle for the Magic in the next 20 games. Orlando is not trying to save its season to make a playoff run. It needs to save the season to point itself in a positive direction so that the front office can take significant steps to put the team in a winning position sooner than later.