When everyone thinks about how the acquisition of Desmond Bane will change the Orlando Magic's offense, they think first about his shooting.
With good reason, Bane is one of the best shooters in the league and someone who shoots at a volume that concerns defenses with his presence.
The idea of adding an elite shooter and secondary playmaker like Bane is that the constant threat and volume of his 3-pointers will distract the defense just enough for Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner to get an extra few inches to drive to the basket without having to face a loaded-up defense or they can make them pay for over-committing to them.
Bane gives the Magic a dynamic new way to score.
It will be on coach Jamahl Mosley to deploy Desmond Bane to make the most of his skills and talents. It will be up to him to come up with a new way to make the most of Bane.
While Bane is a stellar shooter and can be used as a primary playmaker, a big part of this season will be about how the Magic can put him in situations that make defenses uncomfortable. And the Magic will need to diversify how they attack.
The reality is that there were multiple reasons why the Magic's offense fell flat last season.
A lot had to do with the team's poor shooting and spacing. It was hard to branch out and do much else when the team could really only attack using isolation plays and pick and rolls with Banchero and Wagner leading the way.
Bane though is eager to introduce -- or reintroduce -- another element to the Magic's offense. And one of the keys to the Magic finding a breakthrough on that end will come down to finding a new way to attack.
"When I'm playing out of DHO, that takes that out of the equation and I am getting an advantage out of leveraging my shot and my cutting," Bane told Kevin O'Connor on The Kevin O'Connor Show. "We've been drilling a lot of that. It's early, we're not full practice or nothing along those lines. With the little bit of structure we have, DHos are in the cards."
The Magic have to think of ways to leverage the attention their stars get and the gravity Bane has. They cannot rely solely on his creation or his spot-up shooting. They need to find ways to maximize the reason they brought him to the team. They need to diversify their game.
The Magic have slowly become homogenous
As Kevin O'Connor points out on the show, the Orlando Magic's offense has slowly become fairly predictable and easy to scout.
The lack of shooting compressed space, forcing the Magic to rely even more on Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner's individual abilities. Players stopped moving, and the team became heavy on isolations and pick-and-rolls.
As Kevin O'Connor notes, in coach Jamahl Mosley's first season, the Magic relied heavily on dribble handoff plays. Mosley explained that he felt it was the best way to give his attackers a head start to get downhill. For a team that did not have any clear stars or creators, it was a necessary action.
Indeed, the Magic led the league in hand-off possessions, according to NBA.com's tracking stats with Synergy in the 2022 season. They scored 0.85 points per possession (25th) on their league-leading 8.6 possessions per game.
As the Magic added more isolation-based players like Wagner and Banchero, that number decreased.
They were sixth in 2023 with 6.4 possessions per game (0.84 points per possession), 22nd with 4.5 possessions per game (0.94 points per possession, 14th in the league) in 2024 and 24th last year with 4.4 possessions per game (0.83 points per possession).
As with all things, efficiency and converting off opportunities is still a big part of the equation. But as the Magic have evolved, they have clearly lost this bit of movement in their offense.
The Magic's scoring off cuts has increased in that time -- 7.3 possessions per game in 2022, 7.0 possessions per game in 2023, 9.3 possessions per game in 2024 and 8.4 possessions per game last year.
There is hope that the Magic are able to keep things moving. And adding Bane should help them get moving and help this offense look the way Mosley originally envisioned.
Bane in handoffs
The question then is how can the Orlando Magic shift their offense to make the most of Desmond Bane.
Bane is clearly excited about many elements in this offense and the things the team has begun working on during their minicamps and preseason training sessions.
Desmond Bane told Kevin O'Connor that he hopes to take a career high in 3-point attempts this season and that he is eager to get the ball in motion more. It seems like that is something the Magic want to work on and improve.
There is good reason for that.
Last year, Bane scored only 0.79 points per possession on 0.8 handoff possessions per game. That spoke to how different the Memphis Grizzlies' offense was last year.
In 2024, Bane scored 0.95 points per possession on 2.5 handoff possessions per game. He had 1.04 points per possession on 2.3 handoff possessions per game in 2023 and 1.01 points per possession on 2.1 handoff possessions per game in 2022.
As Bane's on-ball responsibilities have increased, he has lost a bit of this part of his game. And Bane is eager for more handoff possessions that get him in movement.
He admitted to O'Connor that he tends to struggle running pick and rolls and isolating against physical on-ball defenders -- like the ones he saw from the Oklahoma City Thunder, where he struggled in last year's Playoff series. He also struggled against teams like the Orlando Magic with their physical on-ball defenders -- he scored 29 total points and shot 4 for 12 from three in two games against the Magic last year.
Bane can also be effective as a cutter. He scored 1.34 points per possession 0.8 cutting possessions per game last year. He was at 1.19 points per possession on 0.6 possessions per game in 2024 and 1.43 points per possession on 0.8 possessions per game in 2023.
These are small samples, but they suggest how critical he could be to getting the Magic's offense moving in different ways.
Bane should have a lasting impact on the Magic's offense. He should help reshape and shift the team's offense in significant ways. He hsould make their base sets better and more efficient.
But Bane will also be critical to expanding how the Magic attack. And the Magic should get back to a key aspect of their offense that has been long forgotten.