2023 Orlando Magic Fourth Quarter MVP: Paolo Banchero showed he is the future

With the Orlando Magic’s season officially complete, we can look back on the fourth quarter of their campaign with real optimism about the road ahead.

Despite going 9-12 in this period, the team flirted with making the Play-In Tournament longer than anybody expected. And in the month of March ranked 13th defensively (114.4 points allowed per 100 possessions).

To combine that solid defensive play with the fifth-highest pace played in that span (101.7 possessions per 48 minutes) was a window into some of the positives that the team is going to bring to the court next season.

The most impressive part to the end of the season was how the Magic’s future stars took the reigns. And despite what some observing the Rookie of the Year race might say, Paolo Banchero had a strong finish to the year.

He made a clear statement to end the season.

Picking the Orlando Magic’s fourth-quarter MVP for the campaign is easy then, with Paolo Banchero once again assuming the mantle.

Banchero is not winning this award solely because he is going to be the Rookie of the Year. An accolade he deserves to win unanimously, but we now know will not.

In the final quarter of the season, Banchero was back to his best as a scorer and go-to guy, after some dips in play over the course of what was a long, 82-game season.

Banchero managed to play, and start, 72 of those contests and was a delight to watch on the court each night. Without question the best rookie the organization has had since Dwight Howard.

His relationship with Franz Wagner continued to blossom, with both already appearing to understand not only their roles on the Magic but how best to work in tandem for the team.

After that aforementioned slump, Banchero was back to putting up just more than 20 points per night, and the sudden consistency from 3-point range (37 percent) was a welcome sight.

That improvement was impressive especially when you consider Banchero in the first two months of the season, when he was blowing people away with his poise and skill, averaged 29 percent and 25 percent from deep respectively.

That shot is going to come with time, and if we want to skew the numbers even further in Banchero’s favor to illustrate this, he shot 50 percent from deep in April. The caveat here being that he only played in two games this month.

We know Banchero is already a high-level scorer, and his ability to get to the line rivals that of a veteran in this league, but there were other ways he separated himself in the final quarter of the season.

The 4.3 assists he managed in March was the highest he posted in any given month, and there were nights where it felt like Banchero was only scratching the surface of how elite a passer he will one day be.

Forget about the advanced stats that show that the Magic were actually better when he was off the court. Banchero is the player, more than anybody else, that fans are coming to watch. The Magic wanted Banchero to make his mistakes now so he will be better equipped to lead the team in the future.

There were a few more moments of Banchero playing as the five in small-ball lineups. This was all part of the experimenting and push for Banchero to take the lead. That is always too much to ask of a rookie if winning is the ultimate goal.

No matter what the offseason holds, you can be guaranteed Banchero will have to be more flexible in how he plays on the court next year, so as to accommodate new, and existing, teammates.

He has shown he can do this in limited spots this year, and to be able to do this willingly is something that cannot be overlooked.

Banchero wants to win, and the fourth quarter of the season, when the Play-In slipped away from the franchise, was further proof of that.

Off the court, he continues to handle himself incredibly well and says all of the right things when speaking to the media, and this is something that he should be given credit for too.

The fourth quarter of the season was further confirmation Banchero not only has the skill set to be the player the Magic build around, he has the mentality and temperament to do so as well.

Throughout the entire year, he led the Magic in points per game (20.0), free-throw attempts each night (a whopping 7.4) and minutes (33.8).

To be a 20-point-a-night scorer, and get to the free-throw line the 10th most out of every single player in the league, in your rookie year, is absolutely fantastic.

These facts alone given Banchero the distinction of being the Magic’s fourth-quarter MVP.

But we know he was so much more than that. There is still so many areas he will continue to grow.

He showed on the defensive end that he is one day going to be a competent player at that end whose big body will give opponents real issues. It is just proof Banchero is scratching the surface.

And that was what he showed in the fourth quarter of the season.

The only shame here is that, as a result of playing in Orlando, Banchero did not get nearly as much national attention as he should have.

This despite getting more attention than any rookie the organization has had in well over a decade.

If Banchero can continue at this pace, he will be an All-Star next season, and his shining star was the reason the Magic were relevant as late into the season as they were. Fans already can’t wait to get him back on the court again.