Expectations for the Orlando Magic are through the roof this offseason. At least among Magic fans.
Everyone saw the excitement that comes with Paolo Banchero’s Rookie of the Year campaign and the history he made throughout his rookie year — let alone the performance he put on in his debut with Team USA ahead of this month’s World Cup.
The team itself really seemed to put some things together. After getting healthy following a 5-20 start without any point guards, the Magic went 29-28. Their statistics — a -0.5 net rating — suggest they were at least a near-.500 team for about three-quarters of the season.
That was something the team can build on. And indeed, the Magic have bet on this continuity carrying over with a young team ready to get better.
The Orlando Magic have a lot to build on as they try to push their way into the postseason picture. But there are still plenty of things to clean up and their path forward is not as certain as it feels.
Still, the Magic had a negative net rating even during this time. They outperformed their statistics in some ways and this is still a .500 team subject to the whims and ups and downs of inconsistency that teams like the Magic would typically see.
Despite the overall optimism for the upcoming season, there are still plenty of things to clean up. The Magic’s rise to the postseason is not assured even with the talent on this roster.
Orlando fans might be extremely optimistic about this team. The rest of the NBA world sees the potential but is at least a little bit skeptical about whether it all comes together this season for the breakthrough. Even the most realistic optimistic projections have the Magic playing in the Play-In Tournament this year.
There are a lot of reasons to believe in the Magic during the 2024 season. There are at least a few reasons to still cast some doubt. And there are obviously a lot of questions the team has to answer this season one way or the other.
As we sit here and begin to think of the contours of the season, here are three reasons the Magic are on the rise and two reasons still to be concerned.
3 reasons the Orlando Magic are on the rise, 2 reasons to remain concerned
On The Rise: Paolo Banchero
Why did the Orlando Magic’s rebuild in the wake of Dwight Howard’s departure fail? Bad management choices and poor roster construction and expectations were a big part of it. That is probably why the Magic bottomed out and were one of the worst franchises of the last decade.
The big reason though? The team did not have its star.
At the end of the day, this is a star’s league. And teams need to find players who can carry them through the dark times and find baskets to win games.
Teams go as far as their stars can take them.
And so earning the top pick in the 2022 NBA Draft undoubtedly completely changed the Magic’s fortunes. Getting that pick right in selecting Paolo Banchero has changed the Magic’s outlook and fortunes.
Banchero was the near-unanimous Rookie of the Year last year because he looked like a star. He was the first non-center to score 20.0 points per game for the Magic since Steve Francis in 2005. He is the first Magic player on Team USA since Dwight Howard in 2008 (Jonathan isaac participated with the Select Team in 2018).
Everything this team is building starts with him and his growth. If the Magic have a future, it is because of the belief Banchero just had the worst year of his career during his historic rookie season and that growth in efficiency, defense and rebounding are on the way (Franz Wagner is also part of this as he had some strong growth his sophomore year too).
Banchero is a unique player with his ball-handling and passing at his size at 6-foot-10. The Magic used him in a lot of different ways.
They will likely continue to experiment and expand his game. Part of his growth will be with how much better he gets at attacking defenses and whether he can withstand the pressure defenses are going to throw at him.
Banchero has met every challenge so far. Everyone expects a repeat and improved performance his sophomore year. Whether he can take the leap to true stardom or just continue to hint with that will determine whether the Magic have a truly great season or merely just a good one.
3 reasons the Orlando Magic are on the rise, 2 reasons to remain concerned
Concern: Lagging Offense
Paolo Banchero certainly seems like a player who can be the centerpiece of an offense. That is what a great scorer can do. And obviously, the Magic are still eager to find out just how good of a scorer Banchero can be.
But even with Paolo Banchero having a strong scoring season and the potential and efficiency Franz Wagner had in his second season, the Magic’s offense was still fairly flat.
Orlando ranked 26th in the league in offensive rating at 112.5 points per 100 possessions after Dec. 7 (when we take out the 5-20 start). The remaining Magic player with the highest on-court offensive rating for the entire season was Gary Harris at just 113.0 points per 100 possessions.
Taking out the 5-20 start, the best remaining player was Cole Anthony at 114.0 points per 100 possessions. That would rank 23rd in the league for that time. After the All-Star Break, Paolo Banchero led the team with a 114.3 offensive rating (but with a horrid 117.7 defensive rating when he was on the floor). That would rank 20th in the league.
Orlando has some interesting offensive weapons and had a lot of players seemingly play better toward the end of last season.
Jalen Suggs shot the ball a lot better — 36.0 percent from deep in 22 games after the All-Star Break. Markelle Fultz looked more confident and bursty after the All-Star Break. Banchero found his shot a bit more later in the season after dealing with a nerve issue in February — where he shot 1 for 32 from deep. Cole Anthony had a really strong shooting close to his season.
There are signs the team can play better offensively. The team added some shooting in Joe Ingles and Jett Howard in free agency. And working to reduce turnovers and mature a bit more on that end will help.
Orlando wants to play better basketball and reducing those mistakes to help give the defense a leg up and value offensive possessions will go a long way.
Still, this is a Magic team that has not had an offense outside the bottom 10 in offensive rating since Dwight Howard left a decade ago. And there are probably some adjustments to the roster that need to be made to get there.
For now, the Magic are going to bank on internal improvement. They are going to bank on a healthy and fully developed Fultz pushing the pace and playing smarter. And they are going to bet they can make more threes.
This is the kind of thing where the offense is going to struggle until proven otherwise. And it will remain a big thing to focus on this season.
3 reasons the Orlando Magic are on the rise, 2 reasons to remain concerned
On the Rise: Internal Growth
So much of the Orlando Magic’s season is betting on internal growth.
They are betting that Paolo Banchero will take what he learned from last season and come back doing all the things he did last year but better and more effectively. They are betting that Franz Wagner will continue to refine and grow his game. They are betting on so many of their young players just getting better.
And in some respects, that is a good bet. Young players who at least show they can contribute in some way typically do get better. And there are a lot of players who have seemingly been on an upward trajectory.
The biggest one is obviously Markelle Fultz. He has struggled to get a healthy season, let alone a healthy offseason, since joining the Magic. And this summer feels like it could be very similar to how he entered the 2021 season.
After his first season with the team, Fultz came out on a blistering pace to average 12.9 points per game and 5.4 assists per game in eight games before tearing his ACL. A year after his return last year after the All-Star Break, Fultz started that ascent again, averaging 15.6 points and 6.0 assists per game while shooting 53.3 percent from the floor and 32.4 percent from beyond the arc.
Fultz showed some real burst and ability to leap too. He played with a ton more energy. If he reduces his turnovers and continues this aggression and downhill attacking, that is the growth the Magic will need at point guard to charge the team a bit more.
There are plenty of other players who could follow a similar pattern — Jalen Suggs shot 36.0 percent from deep after the All-Star Break and Cole Anthony shot 41.8 percent from deep after the All-Star Break.
The Magic are betting on their internal growth to help them grow and develop and climb over the hump. The reality is that, unlike in 2019 and certainly 2020, all these players are still incredibly young. The Magic still have one of the youngest rosters in the league and while certainly stagnation could occur, all of these players are just as likely to get better.
3 reasons the Orlando Magic are on the rise, 2 reasons to remain concerned
Concern: Injuries
The Orlando Magic have felt like they had talent in every season since the 2019 breakthrough to the playoffs. Only one thing has seemingly been consistent to derail any chance in those seasons.
Magic fans know exactly what this is and it remains the big thing that can derail any season anywhere: Injuries.
The plain fact, for now, is that this will be a specter hanging around the Magic’s season until it is not. Until the team proves it can be healthy enough to get through a season, it will always be the thing the team has to overcome at a very basic level.
You can hear even from the team how much they know health will be a factor in this upcoming season. We talk about the Magic in terms of pre-injury to the point guard (the 5-20 start without Markelle Fultz and Cole Anthony) to the post-injury to the point guards (the 29-28 finish).
Everyone says clearly that once this team was healthy they were pretty good, or at least good enough to make the postseason. And so injuries remain a big concern.
To some extent then, the Magic helped fill that need. They added tons of depth simply by adding players who could be in the rotation and eliminating players who were out of the rotation. The outgoing players on this team were Bol Bol and Michael Carter-Williams, who both were not playing late in the season. And the team dropped Admiral Schofield to a two-way contract.
Incoming this year then are rookies Anthony Black and Jett Howard and veteran sharpshooter Joe Ingles.
At the very least, the Magic have prevented not having any point guards or ball handlers available should injuries hit that position.
Still, injuries to the wrong players could expose some fissures in the roster. And while that is a concern for every team, it feels especially heightened for this Magic team.
No one can control for random injuries throughout the season. And an injury to star players like Paolo Banchero or Franz Wagner would derail the season in a major way. But the team itself is still relying on a lot of players who are unproven when it comes to their health, even if there is nothing to suggest there are lingering injury issues.
Fultz should have a healthy outlook this season. A year after returning from a torn ACL, the only games he missed last season were the 20 to start the year because of his fractured toe. The Magic are probably most secure at point guard. Still, Fultz’s injury history is very long and he has only played one full season (and even COVID interrupted it).
Wendell Carter played most of last season with a plantar fascia issue that clearly affected him in a major way. But Carter has dealt with little injuries throughout his career. He has never played more than 62 games in any season of his career.
Orlando did not look to upgrade his backups and will rely on Goga Bitadze and Moe Wagner to back him up. This could be a weak spot in the team’s rotation.
To his credit, Wendell Carter told Dan Savage of OrlandoMagic.com that he has focused this offseason on his conditioning to help prevent some of these little injuries that have knocked him out throughout his career.
Then, of course, there is Jonathan Isaac. He has played in only 11 games during the last three seasons. The Magic have remained invested in his talent and potential. but they also did not add anyone this offseason to play his spot should he still play under restrictions.
It really does feel like the Magic are betting on Isaac being available for regular bench minutes. And while his talent remains something worth keeping around, counting on him feels like a fool’s errand until Isaac plays 65-70 games in a season.
The depth behind Jonathan Isaac probably consists of small forwards sliding to the spot in Joe Ingles or Caleb Houstan helping out. Chuma Okeke has had his own injury issues to overcome.
Teams in the Magic’s position are constantly shuffling and trying to find the right combination of players, fixing holes from the previous season and making bets elsewhere. Orlando has moved the chairs around a little bit to shore up the team’s guard depth. But now the frontcourt depth feels a bit exposed should injuries hit at the wrong time.
Until this Magic group proves it can be healthy, there will be concern about injuries.
3 reasons the Orlando Magic are on the rise, 2 reasons to remain concerned
On The Rise: Defensive Identity
The Orlando Magic are ultimately optimistic about this season because they could see their young players putting the pieces together. They watched this season as the team established an identity of who it will be and how that could branch out and stabilize the rest of the team.
The Magic as the season wore on started adding new wrinkles to adjust and affirm this identity and they experienced fairly consistent success — being a .500 team in this case, which is an important step for a young team.
If Orlando is going to make the postseason this year, it will be on the back of its defense. If the team is going to improve its offense, it will be on the back of its defense. If one thing could derail this team, it will be the offense not supporting the defense with turnovers and the like.
After Dec. 7, the Magic finished sixth in the league in defensive rating in giving up 113.1 points per 100 possessions. That was good for 11th for the entire season.
Orlando still has a lot of things to improve upon defensively — especially defending the 3-point line and securing rebounds more consistently — but there is a clear-cut identity to what the team is trying to do.
The Magic’s main goal last season was to defend the paint. After Dec. 7, Orlando was second in the league giving up 46.3 points in the paint per game.
Opponents shot 26.9 field goal attempts per game in the restricted area (16th in the league) and 17.1 attempts in the paint outside of the restricted area (15th in the league). Teams were not lacking for shots inside the paint, but opponents made 67.1 percent of their shots in the restricted area (17th in the league) and 42.2 percent in the paint outside of the restricted area (fourth in the league).
Orlando did some good things in terms of a raw overall number, which the team’s relatively slow pace helped. But there are obviously still some things to clean up. The Magic gave up a ton of 3-point attempts and often got burned because of the overall focus on the paint.
Still, the numbers do not lie here either. The Magic’s defense was effective enough that it should give a better offense a chance to succeed. And if Orlando can use the team’s defensive pressure to create some more turnovers, that will boost the team’s offensive numbers too.
The Magic are going to lean on their defense throughout the season. And for now, it looks like it has some legs to stand on and support the team moving forward into this season.