The Orlando Magic are coming off a season that was a massive success.
For the first time in nearly a decade, the Magic not only can count on a season that feels like progress, but a team that seems to be growing.
The early stages of the Magic’s post-Dwight Howard rebuild had some hope but nothing ever coalesced like this — not until the Magic were ready to detonate things. And the late revival from the Steve Clifford-led teams in 2019 and 2020 always seemed to have an expiration date.
Getting the No. 1 pick and having Paolo Banchero win Rookie of the Year indeed changes the outlook for a team. The fact Banchero seemed to have a historical rookie season only adds to the excitement.
Now it is about building the right team around that group to make the jump from 22 to 34 wins a jump into the postseason.
This is not the end of the journey. The Magic aimed to level up this season and certainly did that in establishing more consistency toward winning. Now they want to level up again. They have already laid out the terms for the season and their desire to make the playoffs.
Banchero’s description of “Playoffs or bust” is a good goal to have. But to get there is going to take a lot of work.
And it is easy to see where the team’s biggest need is. The Magic have to find shooting to improve.
As the Orlando Magic prepare for their offseason, shooting is the biggest need they have to fill. And they will have a lot of avenues to find this needed improvement.
After revolutionizing the league and its relationship with 3-pointers in the late 2000s with Dwight Howard as the central figure everything pivoted around. The Magic have not been able to replicate the shooting necessary to compete since losing Howard. Three-point shooting has only gotten bigger and more important since then.
Orlando was left behind through some poor drafting decisions that did not emphasize shooting and poor team building that did not emphasize shooting as a supporting trait.
That is still a hole the team is digging itself out of. And a big reason why Orlando still ranks in the bottom 10 in offensive rating is because of the team’s poor shooting.
So the Magic will spend their offseason hunting for shooting.