The day after the Orlando Magic's season ended, there was disappointment.
President of basketball operations Jeff Weltman fired coach Jamahl Mosley, signalling a major change to his team. He took attention away from a team that was likely suffering the biggest defeats of their lives. All the questions needed to be directed at him. All the pressure needed to be on him.
On this day after the season ended, Weltman tried to paint at least a partially positive picture. He acknowledged the frustration that ended with the team making a coaching change. He acknowledged the team did not accomplish its goals.
But, despite all the frustrations and injuries, the Orlando Magic took a 3-1 series lead over the 60-win Detroit Pistons, only collapsing after Franz Wagner's injury again staggered the team.
The thought was that the playoffs showed who this team could have always been. Better injury luck with one of its best players was the key to everything. This group deserved another run.
It also seemed to prove something that felt real even in first-round defeats: The Magic are a team that is built for the Playoffs. They outperformed external expectations in three Playoff series.
That is something to build on.
"When you build a team for the playoffs, you try to construct a roster that has the attributes that we have," Weltman said the day after the season ended. "It's not easy to get the positional versatility, the guys that can elevate their games when it matters most. I think a lot of the way that we're built is designed to be successful in the playoffs. I think we unfortunately didn't see enough of that. I don't see any reason why we couldn't have competed with anybody else in the East if we can compete with the No. 1 team like that."
The Magic have proven to be a tough out. They went to seven games with the Cleveland Cavaliers in their playoff debut in 2024. They played what everyone considered a tough five-game series with the Boston Celtics in 2025. And last year, they went another seven games with the Detroit Pistons.
Something about this team indeed works during the Playoffs.
Perhaps one reason Weltman felt he could give this group one more chance together was the hope that the playoff series provided. If the Magic had lost in five games like a typical 8-seed does, maybe they would have looked to make bigger changes this offseason.
It is among the many bets Weltman made about this roster that he hopes cashes out.
Orlando will be judged by how it performs in the Playoffs. The team has many of the tools. The trick now is getting there and winning there.
A playoff team
What makes a good playoff team?
There are several elements. Teams need stars who can make the tough shots. They need the versatility and depth to defend at a high level. And they need all those players at their best at the criticla moment.
Orlando can count on a few of those things.
Jeff Weltman is right to say the team's versatility and size serve them well in the Playoffs. The Magic had one of the best defensive showings in the Playoffs, finishing the Playoffs first in 2024 and fourth in 2026.
Orlando's physical defensive identity is the foundation for the team and something tha thas translated to the Playoffs, giving the Magic a chance to stay in the games despite their often poor offense.
The Magic were the team nobody wanted to see in teh first round just for the physical toll it would take playing them in a long series.
Orlando also had the kind of player who seemed to step up his game in the Playoffs and play like a star.
For all the criticisms Paolo Banchero has faced in his career, his individual performance in the Playoffs has been unassailable, even by his critics.
In the Playoffs, defenses tend to load up against star players. They are star players because they still find a way to beat that.
In all three postseasons, Banchero has shown he can beat Playoff defenses. Better still, the team was far better with him on the floor than off the floor -- the Magic were -3.4 points per 100 possessions with Banchero on the floor in last year's Playoffs compared to -22.9 with him off the floor, according to DataBallr.
Banchero has proven definitively that he is a playoff performer. It is one of the many reasons the Magic should still believe in him.
He averaged 22.2 points per game in the regular season last year on 45.9 percent shooting and 30.5 percent from three. He jumped to 26.3 points per game on 42.0 percent shooting and 33.3 percent from three in the Playoffs.
In his previous two playoff series he averaged 27.0 and 29.4 points per game. All sizable increases over his regular season. It was a sign of his payoff performances.
Look no further than some of his biggest games. He had 38 points in the Game 7 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2024, following 27 points in the hallmark Game 6 win and 39 points in Game 5.
In the first game with Franz Wagner out of the lineup, Paolo Banchero's 45 points in Game 5 kept the Orlando Magic in the game, putting a scare into the Detroit Pistons in an unforgettable duel with Cade Cunningham. While he struggled like everyone else in Game 6 -- 17 points on 4-for-20 shooting -- he delivered with 38 points in the Game 7 loss.
No one could blame Banchero for that defeat.
If the Playoffs are for the stars. Banchero is a star in the postseason.
That has clearly not been enough.
Getting there and winning there
The trick for the Orlando Magic is still to win in the Playoffs. Something is still holding them back.
The Magic's inexperience certainly cost them in 2024. But they led by 17 in the first half against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 7 before fading down the stretch.
Injuries hit the Magic hard throughout the 2025 season. The lack of offensive depth left Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner on an island against a championship-level Boston Celtics team. Perhaps even lingering injuries there helped that series feel closer than it was -- it was still five games.
The Magic finally won a road game and got the homecourt advantage they so desperately wanted after the 2024 series. But the injury to Wagner left them one dimensional on offense and gutted their size advantage.
They ultimately squandered the opportunity with an embarrassing second-half showing in their Game 6 defeat.
Offense is still the big issue facing this team. Something that remains mostly unaddressed.
But something fits the Magic's eye with the playoff style.
"I think that this team we believe is constructed to do well in the postseason," Weltman said the day after Game 7. "We have to like Paolo said, it starts in the preseason and continues on and you build good habits. I don't set numbers or rounds, I just want to get better every montha nd be playing the best basektball tat the dn of the season and that's when good things happen."
It still has not delivered the only thing that matters: wins.
That will be tougher in a more difficult Eastern Conference. That is not something Weltman could have foreseen back in May.
But this team is confident that it is set up to play well in the Playoffs. They just need to get there.
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