Last year, the Orlando Magic entered their preseason with tons of confidence.
They went 4-0 in the preseason. Their starters won most of the minutes they were playing. They had the second-best offensive rating in the league. Paolo Banchero was scoring at a good clip. Desmond Bane seemed to fit in perfectly.
The Magic looked ahead to a season of massive expectations seemingly ready to meet them.
That is not how things turned out in the ensuing six months. It is a lesson that drawing conclusions from the preseason is always fraught with peril.
It is not irrelevant. There were warning signs and signs of how good this team could be, just as there were signs of how good the team could have been.
We do not yet know what this preseason means.
But several trends were worth watching. And several trends that the Magic hope will continue as the regular season begins.
This season is undoubtedly filled with immense pressure. President of basketball operations Jeff Weltman has already declared that this is likely the last year this group can stay together as constructed because of the team's ballooning payroll.
That goes on top of a team that has failed to get out of the first round for the last three years. At a certain point, a team needs to change things just to try to get to the next level.
The first change the Magic made was hiring Sean Sweeney. He has made an immediate impact, and it is clear this team is operating differently. There was a lot to learn in this preseason.
As the Magic prepare for Wednesday's season opener, Sweeney's message has been to continue building on the team's foundations. The Magic are spending their time reinforcing what they have worked on in training camp as they enter the regular season.
This is still a team learning a lot. And we indeed learned a lot from the four-game preseason schedule. Here are five takeaways from the preseason:
1. The offense may have something (at last)
It has been a long time since the Orlando Magic had an offense that was viewed as a threat.
Last season's 18th-ranked offense was the first time the Magic have been outside the bottom 10 in the league since the 2012 season, Dwight Howard's last with the team.
Competent offense has been absent from Orlando for a long time. Any little breath of fresh air should be viwed as welcomed.
The Magic have had strong offensive preseasons before. Last year, the team finished second in the league in offensive rating in the preseason. But this year somehow feels different.
First, the numbers: The Magic finished their preseason third in the league with a 118.1 offensive rating. That may not mean much considering all the heavily rotated lineups. But in the first half when the Magic faced and played starters, the team had a 118.0 offensive rating, good for seventh.
Contrast that to last year when the team finished 15th in offensive rating at 112.7 points per 100 possessions in the first half of preseason games.
That suggests the spacing and fast-breaking offense Sean Sweeney is implementing is a little more real.
The Magic took far more 3-pointers, too. The principles within the offense were very different than what the team had seen during the last few years. The Magic had never looked this good.
Whether that carries over will be the ultimate question for this team to answer. But for the first time in a while, there is some real hope.
2. Paolo and Franz playing off each other
The biggest question facing the Orlando Magic this season is the existential one: Can Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner function together at a high level?
The duo is not exactly complementary, considering their similar size and position. It is hard for the Magic to play them off each other. Jamahl Mosley seemed to avoid it, separating them in lineups and keeping them on opposite ends of the floor when they were together.
It was never that it did not work. Last year, the Magic had a +4.5 net rating when the two shared the floor. This was a successful duo, by most measurements. But there are still plenty of questions.
What changed in the preseason is that Sean Sweeney leveraged this duo together much more directly. It felt like really the first time.
There was Banchero setting screens for Wagner (as part of a larger set to get Banchero a post-up player). There was the duo executing dribble handoffs with the ball on the move to put the defense under pressure.
Sweeney seems more keen to use the two together and playing off each other. The Magic need new ideas. And this is a big test for them in a season that is interrogating their feasibility.
3. Focus on fundamentals
Sean Sweeney has been very intentional with everything that he wants his team to do. That has been apparent throughout training camp.
It still feels like the team is operating on a very simple level. They are trying to do the basics effectively. That has been what Sweeney is trying to teach in camp. The complexities will come later.
What are the basics? Spacing has been a big one. The other one is just simply dominating the possession game. The Magic's fall defensively last year was as much about failing to get turnovers. And Orlando has a reputation as a poor rebounding team.
Both aspects had their ups and downs this preseason.
The Magic finished the first half 18th in the league with a 68.7 percent defensive rebound rate. Offensive rebounding was up throughout the league -- the Magic finished second in offensive rebound rate in the first half. Orlando gave up 11.0 first half second-chance points per game.
Orlando will need to buckle down on rebounding especially once the regular season begins. And the team has to create more turnovers and points off turnovers to be successful.
4. Bench is better, but with a warning
The Orlando Magic's bench struggled last year. It has struggled since Moe Wagner's injury in December 2024. Thet eam went from one of the highest-scoring benches in the league to one of the lowest. Orlando is hoping that can change.
Health would be the first way to change things. That would slot players into their roles and make the bench that much better.
Orlando added Nikola Vucevic to boost the team's bench scoring. It was mostly successful in the preseason with Vucevic finding his fit playing alongside other starters.
The Magic are waiting for Anthony Black to return from his ankle sprain. But he too would boost the bench and make this team more potent.
And Tristan da Silva was a revelation with his 3-point shooting in the preseason. He could be a huge boost to the team.
Some of those issues still persist. Injuries early in the season are pushing players up the rotation and thinning out the bench. And the Magic lose their advantages without starters on the floor.
Orlando has not played its regular rotation yet. Nobody really knows which player combinations will stick. So the bench looks improved. But it lacks the individual creator. And that could still be a problem moving forward.
5. Three-point shooting will determine a lot
The Orlando Magic have had a difficult relationship with the 3-point shot during the last decade. The team has not only struggled to shoot, but it has struggled to create 3-point shots.
The biggest revelation of this preseason was the Magic's shooting.
They took 42.5 3-point attepts per game and shot 38.8 percent from three for the entire game 23.0 attempts per game in the first half and 38.0 percent shooting in the first half. That suggests there is some staying power and soething real about the Magic's increase in three-point attempts.
Orlando has had bouts of hot shooting before. Whether that will last is another question.
Sean Sweeney has been focused on better spacing for his team all throughout camp. That has played out with higher-quality shooting attempts. But that is preseason.
Better shooting simply opens up everything for the Magic. And that is he biggest thing the Magic hope can carry forward.
Add us as a preferred source on Google