Fortunes in the NBA can change very quickly.
Look no further than ESPN's exercise of doing a future power rankings, ranking teams based on their next three years. Look no further than the Boston Celtics, going from winning a title to dealing with a major injury and still having a surprise season and then breaking their team's core this offseason.
Life comes at you fast. And the Orlando Magic are experiencing the whiplash of being the offseason darling last year to being completely doubted this year.
Again, look no further than ESPN's future power rankings that rubber banded the Magic from seventh last year to 22nd. The only thing the team ranked in the top half of the league in is players. And that was 15th.
That was obviously a different outlook last year. The Magic had two young stars and made their push to acquire Desmond Bane as the final piece.
Another injury-filled season and another trip to the Play-In Tournament have soured optimism about the team's future. Now the team is bumping up against the second apron and is likely to retreat and cut payroll, even if the team has a successful season.The Magic's 2027 first-round pick is their last unencumbered first-round pick until 2031.
Orlando reacted to last year's frustrating season by doubling down on the roster and sticking with the same core group. They believed it was purely injuries that kept them from fulfilling their potential.
The rest of the league is not buying that.
It feels like the Magic are at a crossroads. Everyone has questions about the foundations of this team. Everyone is eager to see change, whether the Magic want it or not.
Orlando is only left to ask: How do they get out?
A miscalculation?
Undoubtedly, the reason the Orlando Magic have found themselves in this pressure-packed predicament is because of the trade they made last summer to acquire Desmond Bane.
Orlando was already becoming expensive after giving max contracts to Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner and a $30-million-per-year contract to Jalen Suggs. Orlando had rewarded players on its roster and believed wholly in what it was building.
The Magic had reason to. Orlando had progressed quickly into a promising young team year-over-year. Injuries derailed the 2025 season. The Magic were confident they were close.
They pushed their chips in for Desmond Bane to take a swing, believing they could climb the standings in the Eastern Conference quickly.
Bane mostly delivered for the Magic last year. He gave the team the shooting it desperately needed. But injuries forced him on the ball more than they imagined. And a player who was supposed to be a final piece became a stabilizing one.
Orlando never really saw its full complement. And when they did in the Playoffs they took a 60-win Detroit Pistons to the brink of elimination.
That the Magic still did not advance and still only finished eighth, resulting in the team firing their coach, has led to the lack of faith in this team. Orlando has left a lot of holes and weaknesses in the roster unaddressed.
The Bane contract only boxes the Magic into a deeper corner with their payroll.
It is why Sam Quinn of CBS Sports joined Yossi Gozlan on The Third Apron to rank the Magic's front office as No. 22 in the league:
"They wanted somebody who could boost their offense through shooting, who wouldn't be a defensive liability, because defense is their defense is their culture, and who wasn't going to demand high usage because they wanted to run their offense through Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner," Quinn said. "The problem with that is they just grossly mis-evaluated their own team and thought they were way closer to a championship than they actually were."
The Magic clearly thought that Banchero and Wagner were ready to lead the team. The Bane trade was the kind of trade a team makes as a final piece to compete for a championship. That Orlando finished eighth has case this much doubt on the team's overall project.
The Magic are still trying to figure out how good this team is.
The rest of the league is unsure of the Magic's two stars together. And with the team leveraging its draft picks and sitting near the second apron, there does not seem to be much hope for an immediate future.
Orlando is still projected to finish in the Play-In ringer.
The way out?
The Orlando Magic's appetite to be in the luxury tax or first apron is the great unknown. But it seems inevitable that the team will see some change this season to retreat from the increasing payroll the Magic have assumed.
The question is the degree of those changes and how good this team can be.
Is this a team that is retooling around two established stars and a high-quality role player? Or is this a team considering a massive breakup?
Quinn has been on The Third Apron multiple times to advocate for the Orlando Magic "ripping the Band-Aid" and acting early to break up their star players, like the Charlotte Hornets did with LaMelo Ball.
The Magic still believe in their group and their philosophy. They are not prepared to head in that direction any time soon. And this is a year when they need to prove how good they can be.
The way out is to win, first and foremost. That is the way to calm these stormy waters.
There is still hidden success and reason for the Magic to believe, even as the rest of the league seems to doubt them.
Despite all the uncertainty, the Orlando Magic have won the fourth-most regular-season games in the Eastern Conference in the last three years, trailing only the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers.
And the Magic's starting lineup was among the most successful in the league in the last two years. They were just never healthy.
Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner have played well together -- better than most give them credit for. It has been a lack of reps the last two seasons with the injuries the team has faced. A new coach can create a new context for the two stars.
There are reasons to believe the Magic are much better than what they showed last year and the last two years. And if Banchero and Wagner are both All-Stars, that always gives the team a chance to retool and improve.
The Magic clearly have that faith. The rest of the league has its doubts.
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