How the Orlando Magic fared during other major mid-season absences

It has been a week since Paolo Banchero took an apparent elbow to the gut in the fourth quarter against the Chicago Bulls, tearing his right oblique and leaving him out for at least the next month.

The Magic's season went from a celebration of the team's potential for the rest of the year to one of mere survival until Banchero returns.

Banchero will be re-evaluated in 4-6 weeks, meaning he will miss at least 17 games (taking him out of the running for All-NBA and many postseason rewards). The injury will also put a lot of pressure on him to make an All-Star case that might also come too little, too late with how much time he has missed.

Those are lower concerns. Orlando knows that to compete in the playoffs, they will need Banchero at his absolute best. And the team just has to bide its time and wait for his return.

Indeed, the next two months will be about survival as much as anything. Orlando needs to hold the boat steady and stay in the playoff race for when Banchero returns. The Magic will likely have about half of a season to make up ground and better their playoff position.

Injuries like this can derail seasons. And whether this injury will derail this season will likely depend on where Banchero is at when he gets his re-evaluation in three weeks.

There is a lot of work ahead for this team. Just like there has been a lot of work for the Magic when they have faced key major injuries in their history.

This is not the first time the Magic have dealt with major injuries like this. Every team can point to a season where some injury slowed them down and some injury derailed their hopes for last season. The Philadelphia 76ers rallied from an 11-18 run without Joel Embiid and still won 47 games, nearly sneaking into the playoffs thanks to an eight-game win streak late in the season.

That is to say, the Magic's season is certainly not lost so long as the team can steady their ship. The Magic have survived injuries in the past. But it can also indeed derail the season.

Here is how the Magic have dealt with major in-season injuries in their history and what that did to the Magic's playoff hopes:

Dennis Scott (1992-93)

1992: Missed 58 games with a leg injury
1993: Missed 17 games with calf and ankle injuries

The Orlando Magic were not very good in the 1992 season. They had two young stars in Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott whom the team was trying to push to the front and find their way in the league.

They both were starting to figure things out, each player averaging 19.9 points per game in their second and third seasons respectively. But the Magic were a team moving out of the expansion phase and looking for their purpose.

Then 24 games into the season, Scott suffered a serious leg injury—one that was difficult to diagnose and required two offseason surgeries to correct. Scott averaged 19.9 points per game in 18 games, shooting 32.6 percent from three, the lowest mark in his celebrated 3-point shooting career.

The Magic were only 6-18 at the time and finished 21-61. Orlando was never a threat to make the playoffs.

Of course, that injury set up what happened for the Magic that summer. Orlando won the NBA Draft Lottery and selected Shaquille O'Neal. The Magic did not tank, but Scott probably would have tipped the Lottery luck in another team's favor.

That was not the end for Scott either.

Scott would miss about a month in the following season with calf and ankle injuries. Orlando went 5-5 during that time, falling from seventh to ninth in the East standings. They went 4-6 for another 10 games he missed in March, going from seventh to ninth, a half-game behind the final playoff spot.

Even that worked out though. The Magic missed the playoffs on the fourth tiebreaker with the Indiana Pacers and ended up with the one ping pong ball to earn the No. 1 pick in the 1993 NBA Draft.

Scott's health in either of these seasons may have changed the course of the franchise's history.

Shaquille O'Neal (1996)

Missed 22 games with a thumb injury

The most infamous mid-season injury for the Orlando Magic came on the heels of their 1995 Finals appearance. The Orlando Magic were favored to win the Eastern Conference even with Michael Jordan returning at full force with the Chicago Bulls. The Magic beat him after all in the playoffs the previous year.

But the Magic immediately faced adversity. O’Neal suffered a thumb injury in the preseason that kept him out for the first 22 games.

Like the current Magic, they had to redefine how they played, becoming a faster more fast-breaking team rather than bound to their big man in the post. But the difference was that Anfernee Hardaway was a burgeoning star in a way that Franz Wagner is not so far.

The Magic worked in O'Neal's absence. Orlando raced out to a 17-5 start, including handing the Bulls one of their two losses to that point.

It being the NBA, the seeds of discord between Hardaway and O'Neal were already being laid with O'Neal's contract status in question entering the offseason. People wondered if the Magic worked better without O'Neal.

That was always a silly notion. But that was the debate. And well, we know what happened.

The Magic survived this injury scare. But it might have cost them a lot more.

Anfernee Hardaway (1997-98)

1997: Missed 13 games with knee injury
1998: Missed 26 games with knee injury

With Shaquille O'Neal gone in free agency the previous summer, Anfernee Hardaway was carrying a seriously heavy burden for the young Orlando Magic. What few knew was that he played most of the 1996 Playoffs with a serious knee injury in the first-round sweep of the Detroit Pistons.

Hardaway missed his first run of games after the team returned from a two-game set with the New Jersey Nets in Tokyo, Japan. They went from 3-1 to 9-8 in the month without Hardaway.

Hardaway then missed a second batch of games in the 1997 season after returning for one game in December. The Magic went 2-8 in the 10 games without Hardaway at that point of the season. That had Orlando fall from ninth to 11th.

That is when the Magic had their vote of no confidence in coach Brian Hill and the alleged player revolt that Anfernee Hardaway led against the Magic's coach. The team rallied to earn the 7-seed at the end of the year and Hardaway turned in perhaps the greatest single series in Magic playoff history.

The injury issues continued the following season. Hardaway played in only 19 games all season and faced his first absence in December when he missed 26 games. The Magic went 12-7 to 20-24 without Hardaway, falling from third in the Eastern Conference to 13th in the East and out of the Playoff race.

Hardaway went down for good on Feb. 13, missing the final 31 games of the season. The Magic were 11th in the East at the time and finished the season a surprisingly solid 17-14 to miss the playoffs, the only time the Magic finished .500 and missed the postseason.

Grant Hill (2001-03)

2001: Missed 78 games with ankle injury
2002: Missed 68 games with ankle injury
2003: Missed 7 games with ankle injury

Grant Hill's story throughout his seven-year tenure with the Orlando Magic was all about the ankle injuries that kept him from playing. Hill played in only 47 games through the first four seasons of his career, That included sitting out the entire 2004 season.

Hill's first absence came after playing two games early in the season where he sat out 17 games. He rejoined the Magic on a West Coast road trip. But he played two more games before he was shut down for the season with complications from the ankle injury that slowed him down in the previous year's playoffs.

Hill was ready to start the 2002 season and played the season's first 13 games. Then the ankle acted up again. Orlando went 7-7 through the first 14 games before Hill was shelved for the rest of the season.

He started the 2003 season too and played in 26 of the first 31 games. The Magic went 16-15 during that period as they tried to match winning the 4-seed the previous year.

But Hill first missed seven games. Then he struggled to get back. Hill missed the final 41 games. Orlando stayed in eighth place at the midpoint of the season to the end of the season. But change was clearly in the air.

Hedo Turkoglu (2005)

Missed 15 games with broken hand

Very few injuries in Orlando Magic history had a clear and direct impact on the team's playoff race and chances. In a March game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Hedo Turkoglu was driving to the basket when a defender tried to slap the ball away from him and broke his hand.

The Magic were 32-35 after that game and sitting in ninth in the Eastern Conference, trailing the last playoff spot by 0.5 game. The Magic finished the season just 4-11 and missed out on the playoffs by six games.

It was a rough finish to the season in Dwight Howard's rookie year. The Magic had talent with Steve Francis leading the way as the team's veteran star. But the late-season injury cost the Magic any chance of making up ground to make the playoffs.

Jameer Nelson (2009)

Missed 35 games with shoulder injury

Jameer Nelson turned in an All-Star season in 2009. He hit jumpers and commanded a juggernaut team that was on the cusp of true contention. The Orlando Magic were bursting onto the scene.

Then against the Dallas Mavericks in early February, Nelson injured his shoulder. Immediately he ran to the sideline. And Nelson was gone for the season (or most of the season, this article is not about returns).

The Magic were riding high at that time. The team was 36-11 after that loss to the Mavericks. The Magic were sitting in third in the Eastern Conference. They were preparing for their first serious run at the title. They hoped to be more competitive in their second-round series as Howard blossomed into one of the best players in the league.

It all seemed about to crash down.

Orlando was treading water in the immediate aftermath with Anthony Johnson holding the boat steady. The team acquired Tyronn Lue as a backup. But it was clear the Magic could not win a championship that way.

Credit to general manager Otis Smith for swinging a deal to get Rafer Alston. That replacement gave the Magic its confidence back and helped them upset their way to the 2009 NBA Finals.

Dwight Howard (2012)

Missed 11 games with back injury

For the majority of Dwight Howard's career, he was an iron man for the Orlando Magic. He played in 82 games in five of his first seven seasons. And he played in 79 and 78 games in the other two seasons.

So it was shocking when Howard could not play anymore for the Magic.

Even in the middle of the Dwight-mare, will-he, won't-he, he still played. And his last game in an Orlando Magic uniform was a masterful 20-point, 22-rebound effort against the Philadelphia 76ers. Everyone knew he was playing hurt, they could see it with each grimace.

Howard missed the final 10 games of that shortened season. Orlando went 4-6 in those final 10 games. That was enough for the Orlando Magic to tumble from fifth in the East to sixth, where they were no match for an up-and-coming Indiana Pacers team in a five-game series loss.

Markelle Fultz (2021)

Missed 64 games with torn ACL

The Orlando Magic were off to a hot 4-0 start behind a rejuvenated Markelle Fultz when the NBA started its COVID season in 2021. Things were coming back down to earth shortly after the hot start. But the Magic were a clear playoff team—if one at the bottom of the totem pole.

Then in a mostly empty Amway Center, Markelle Fultz drove down the lane and lost his footing. The scream through the empty building was audible and haunting. Fultz had torn his ACL, the team was able to announce by the end of the evening.

The Magic's season changed completely. Orlando turned to a rookie in Cole Anthony to lead the team (and he suffered his own arm injury a few weeks later). By the trade deadline, the Magic completely overhauled its team, trading the three stalwarts of its failed rebuild.

Fultz's injury likely spurred that decision and set the Magic on a new path.