Paolo Banchero had a fantastic first season with the Orlando Magic, and that is underselling it. The first overall pick balled out for most of the campaign setting several historical markers for rookies and getting mentioned in the same breath as several of the all-time greats. Or at least perennial All-Stars.
With the organization failing on multiple attempts to get their superstar of the future through the NBA Draft in the past decade, Banchero arrived at just the right time as the Magic look to lift off in the coming seasons.
To think that there were those out there who thought the franchise might end up taking Jabari Smith Jr. instead of Paolo Banchero on the night.
The Orlando Magic made the right pick in Paolo Banchero, and will reap the benefits for years to come after a stellar first season in the league. His rookie year was an unqualified success that hints at a very bright future.
Banchero was all the Magic could have asked for right from the jump. Yes, he made plenty of mistakes as any rookie would. He went through a deep shooting slump in February that briefly opened up the conversation for Rookie of the Year.
But at each turn and in each moment, he stepped up to the plate.
If you cast your mind back to October he had 27 points in his debut against the Detroit Pistons and scored more than 20 points in his first six games.
That is a fantastic way to begin a career. For a team like the Magic who have been sorely lacking offensively for a long time now, it was everything they could have hoped for.
By year’s end, he had averaged 20.0 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.7 assists. Although some of the advanced numbers would have you believe the team was better off when he was on the bench, that was clearly not the case.
Orlando wanted him out there making mistakes and learning what a good play and a bad play were. They know he is the future of this team.
Banchero was an iso-heavy player without much efficiency — 5.1 total isolations per 75 possessions according to Basketball-Index with a 44.1 percent effective field goal percentage in isolations — as you would expect from a rookie.
He struggled from beyond the arc especially but got plenty of pull-up opportunities. Banchero hit just 35.1 percent of his 5.6 pull-up field goal attempts per game according to data from Second Spectrum.
He was a great driver and able to get to the line effectively, but he was not someone who was passing effectively out of those drives. He had 10.7 drives per 75 possessions according to data from Basketball-Index and had a solid ability to finish at the rim but still shot just 61.9 percent at the rim, good for the 64th percentile in the league.
The arguments against Banchero were that there was a lot of usage without much efficiency.
But that was part of the grand experiment. The Magic wanted him to see what he could do and explore the boundaries of his game, learning what does and does not work.
We even got to see glimpses of Paolo Banchero as a small ball center, which is a move coach Jamahl Mosley will surely turn to again in future depending on the matchup.
This may feel like a small thing, especially as we did not get to see much of it during the season, but having that kind of versatility already is going to be huge for the Magic.
In the end, this season for the Magic was about seeing exactly how the team can use Banchero moving forward and how his game can continue to expand as the Magic narrow their focus to become a playoff team.
And that is where Banchero shined. It is clear what the contours and borders of this project lie.
Paolo Banchero also established a relationship with Franz Wagner early, and the two have a chance to reach the levels of success enjoyed by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown in the coming years.
Defensively it went about the way most fans would have expected. But there is no doubt Banchero has a big body and is willing and capable of trying to shut down elite scorers.
The unspoken reality here is that for Banchero to one day be a top 10 player in the league, he is going to have to do it on both ends. We saw nothing to suggest he will not do this in his rookie year.
But there will have to be several big leaps if that is to be the case.
Banchero also hit his rookie wall. But to his credit continued to play through it and always looked to get his teammates going even on the nights when he didn’t have it.
He came out the other end, and really if there is any criticism we can have of Banchero during that time, and on the season as a whole, it is that he managed fewer than four assists per night. That was still among the best marks for rookies. This from a 6-foot-10 forward.
His passing is already underrated, but Banchero will need to do more to find his teammates, especially on his drives, to create easy looks as his career progresses.
Banchero delivered on several fronts for the Magic this season. There is no denying that. He provided a glimpse of his potential as a future star in this league.
There are still plenty of areas for him to improve.
The 3-point percentage (29.8 percent) was not good enough. And taking four of them a night, it often felt like Banchero was forcing something that just was not there. Defenses sagged off him so much, it sometimes felt like he would settle for jumpers rather than use his strength to attack the hoop, his greatest strength.
He gets to his spots with such ease and is so comfortable taking all manner of shots, that it surely must frustrate Banchero that the 3-pointers weren’t falling as often as he wanted them to.
This will be a big goal in the offseason for him, and in doing so it will open up the court more for his teammates and allow him to up his own assist numbers as soon as next season too.
We have heaped all of the praise on Banchero already, and you can make the case he should have been the unanimous Rookie of the Year.
We talk about players coming in and delivering from day one. And Banchero did that and more.
If anything he was so good that when the inevitable progress either hits a speed bump or he takes a small step back for a period of time, fans are going to be extremely disappointed. We are talking he can be an All-Star as soon as next season after what we saw this year.
This was the near-perfect season for a rookie. And in the case of Banchero, it was exactly the one that the Magic required from him.
As brilliant as his on-court abilities are, and they were showcased early and often, the other piece was finally getting a player in the Amway Center to excite fans and put the organization back on the map.
In only 72 games Banchero not only managed to do all of that, but he has ensured that the Magic will one day soon become a destination players want to go to in order to win. If that is not deserving of an A grade, nothing is.