There are certain markers that denote a team's seriousness and competitiveness in the league.
A team with two All-Stars is most likely one competing for a championship. A team with 50 wins? That is a marker that a team is serious about competing for a title.
Orlando has had only eight 50-win seasons in the team's 36-year history. Those eight 50-win seasons represent all five teams that won a playoff series.
It is a small marker. But it is a big step up for the Magic. One that the team is expected to make for the first time since the 2011 season.
Indeed, Orlando has an over/under of 50.5 wins according to most sportsbooks. The team is expected to finish third or fourth in the Eastern Conference. It is indeed a season of great expectations.
What will it take to get there?
There are the obvious things, of course. The Magic must maintain their elite-level defense that has been the franchise's bedrock the last several years. They must improve their offense, something the acquisition of Desmond Bane and Tyus Jones is meant to help remedy.
But the Magic will have to continue doing the things that largely built their strong records the last few seasons.
The path to get to 50 wins is abundantly clear. Here are the things the Magic must do to hit this mark:
1. Protect home court
One of the foundations for the Orlando Magic's breakthrough in 2024 and the best parts of the 2025 season was simply that the Magic took care of the Kia Center.
It is still a universal truth that teams should win as many games as they can at home and make up the difference on the road. Winning in the Kia Center was critical to the team's 2024 breakthrough.
Orlando went 29-12 at the Kia Center during the 2024 season. The team won all of its home games in that seven-game series against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Magic used that as a rallying cry throughout their 2025 season. Their goal was to get homecourt advantage because they were so confident at home.
Orlando was set to make good on that cry to, going 10-0 at the Kia Center to open the 2025 season, a streak that last even after both Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner were out with their injuries.
But Orlando finished only 22-19 at the Kia Center. The team went 1-6 in that critical homestand in February, likely the point everyone realized this team was destined for the Play-In Tournament and a major wake-up call for the rest of the season.
The Magic will need to be stellar at the Kia Center to hit 50 wins.
2. Take care of the bad teams
The Orlando Magic built their 47-win season in 2024 at the Kia Center. They also built it by taking care of business against all the teams below .500. The Magic did not cede any ground and their defense feasted on teams at the bottom of the standings.
In the 2024 season, the Magic went 28-7 against teams with records below .500. Only the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks -- the top two seeds in the East that year -- were better.
The Magic went 29-16 against teams with records worse than .500 during the 2025 season. That is more wins against those teams. But also significantly more losses. That included the double whammy of the pair of losses to the Toronto Raptors and to the Chicago Bulls during the 1-6 homestand. It included being swept by the Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers.
Being in the Eastern Conference means the Magic get a lot of these games. They are going to face teams with records below .500. Those are all opportunities to score major wins and build the buffer as the team tries to defeat more of the elite teams around the league.
Feasting on the worst teams in the league is key to building a strong record. The Cleveland Cavaliers were 36-7 against sub-.500 teams. The Boston Celtics were 37-8.
If winning 50 games puts you 18 games above .500, an elite record against the worst teams in the league is the easiest path to 50 wins.
3. Winning Big
The other trait of the teams that win 50-plus games is something even simpler.
Every team is trying to get wins any way they can. No one will complain with 50 one-point wins. But that is mostly unsustainable.
While buzzer-beating wins and close wins are far more memorable and impactful, winning them is not sustainable if a team is trying to be a consistent 50-win team.
Being able to win close games is vital, of course. Those wins can flip a team from one tier to the next.
But, indeed, good teams do not win close games, they avoid them. The best teams are the ones who win comfortably more often than not. They always have a chance to win because of that.
Most analytics-minded people look at net rating as a better picture of a team's profile. A team could theoretically win a lot of close games but actually be quite poor. They look at win margin and point differential to get a sense of which teams are truly performing well.
In 2024, the Magic had a +2.2 net rating, ranking 14th in the league and seventh in the Eastern Conference. It was one of the reasons it felt like the Magic overachieved. Orlando was just 27-20 in games decided by 10 or more points.
They finished 21-14 in clutch situations. That helped flip their record in their favor.
In 2025, the Magic went 18-17 in clutch situations. Predictably too, a .500 team had a -0.2 net rating. They went 22-20 in games decided by 10 or more points.
That is a .500 team. But if the Magic want to win 50 or more games, they need to win more games by more points. They need to win blowouts.
That is what the best teams do. Last year, the Cleveland Cavaliers were 28-11 in 10-plus point games and the Boston Celtics were 24-13.
There is no perfect formula to get to 50 wins, other than to win more games. The trick is to dominate the games that you would expect the team to win -- games at home, game against losing teams and the potential blowouts.
Those are all areas the Magic slipped in 2025 and areas they could easily fix heading into this season.