Franz Wagner faced a choice at the end of the Orlando Magic's game against the Los Angeles Lakers in November.
The Magic trailed by two points with 19 seconds left when Anthony Davis missed a pair of free throws. Orlando did not call a timeout. They put the ball in Wagner's hands to decide what would happen next. The game was literaly in his hands.
Franz Wagner got a screen from Jalen Suggs to switch Cam Reddish onto him so he could isolate at the top of the key. He stared down the matchup and then stepped back for a game-winning three.
It was a star-making moment for Wagner. A game-winning shot against a marquee franchise and the only game on a late night on Tuesday. It was a statement that the Magic were not going anywhere despite Paolo Banchero's injury and that Franz Wagner was a star in his own right.
Looking back at it, it was a fairly bold statement from Wagner. He chose to take a three at the biggest moment of the game with everything on the line for his team.
It is hard to say if he would take that shot again, considering how much he struggled from three throughout the rest of the season.
Wagner made a clear case to be a future All-Star throughout his breakthrough 2025 season. But his shooting remained a snag in his development. For the second straight year, Wagner shot worse than 30 percent from three.
With the Magic so desperate for shooting, having Wagner as the team's highest-volume shooter was part of the whole of their shooting troubles. So much goes through Banchero and Wagner, the team ultimately will not succeed until Wagner becomes a consistent three-point shooter.
As part of everything, Wagner is feeling the weight of this responsibility.
"I think shooting is a single motion, it's very repeatable," Wagner said during exit interviews. "It's like a golf swing, a little bit. Mental pieces play a big part of that. Reps, confidence, stuff like that. The stuff that I can control right away. I thought I got into the gym quite a bit, put in the time, and I think that mental piece and fighting back to my form a little bit.
"I think also sometimes you just don't make shots. Not every shot is perfect. That's my mentality and maybe I have to relax a little more. I'll work on it this summer."
Wagner had a breakthrough season, averaging 24.2 points per game. He still shot 46.3 percent despite the increase in volume. That was still a career-low.
He ended the season shooting 29.5 percent from three, up from 28.1 percent from three in 2024, despite increasing his volume from 4.6 attempts per game in 2024 to 5.9 per game in 2025. But that is a far cry from his shooting 35.4 percent in his rookie year and 36.1 percent in 2023.
Wagner's shooting fell off a cliff in 2024 and continued that troubling trend last year.
Worse still, Wagner looked much worse after he returned from his oblique injury.
He shot just 27.5 percent from three after returning from injury. His shot at that point looked like it had a noticeable hitch, too, as if he was in the process of changing his form from the push shot he entered the league with to a more natural form.
It all looked like he needed a lot of work.
"If you look at the numbers, it probably did a little bit," Wagner acknowledged at exit interviews. "I think sometimes it got slower, a little less fluid. Those are things I want to work on. Some of that is mental. I'm sure some of you guys golf. If you have 10 things in your mind, you don't shoot it well that day. Just the way my mind works, it's been a problem for me. I think that's my challenge for the summer and it has an impact on my shot as well."
Wagner said returning from the injury certainly disrupted his rhythm -- he shot a still-not-great, but less catastrophic 32.1 percent before the injury -- but it was more like coming back from a long break. He never really found his rhythm.
It was never clear if Wagner was changing his form or doing something to try to improve his shot. All anyone saw were the results -- a player shooting worse than 30 percent from three but at least still willing to shoot it.
So much of the Magic's overall problems throughout last season could be attributed to trying to regain rhythm and get back into playing shape in the middle of the season.
Wagner never regained that early season rhythm.
Everyone is trying to figure out what went wrong with Wagner's shot. Wagner, perhaps most of all.
It is something he must focus on throughout his offseason heading into Eurobasket, which he announced he planned to participate in, and then into the season shortly after the tournament concludes.
The Magic never doubt that Wagner will work hard and put the effort into fixing these flaws. But it indeed seems like most of Wagner's issues are mental and start with him.
Certainly, he will spend his offseason in the gym working on his shot. The Magic will get to see that work with the rest of the world at Eurobasket in early September before he returns to Orlando for training camp a few weeks later.
But this is the big mystery for the team. And as much as the Magic will aim to improve other parts of the roster, they will go as far as Wagner's improvements can take them.
For the Magic to take the next step as a team, they not only need to add more shooting and creation to their roster. They also need to see their best players improve in those areas too. Wagner figuring out his shooting struggles -- mental or otherwise -- will be key to this development.