The Orlando Magic ended their season knowing they needed more.
Their slip down the standings was caused by the long list of injuries the team faced throughout the 2025 season. They knew they were better than what they could show on the court.
But they could also clearly see they did not have enough, even accounting for the players who were out for their Playoffs. They were not anywhere near able to compete with a championship-contending team like the Boston Celtics.
As the Magic began their offseason, they knew they needed to make a big move if they truly had championship ambitions.
Back in May, even president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman could not have imagined that Desmond Bane would be the player who they would acquire to accomplish that goal. Bane checked so many boxes for the Magic.
The excitement around the team is palpable. There is buzz about the team winning 50 games for the first time in 14 years. There is an expectation that they win a playoff series for the first time in 16 years. Hope has sprung eternal.
But that is just the first step.
Orlando has received nothing but praise for its offseason -- David Aldridge of The Athletic ranked the Magic's offseason as No. 9 in the league for the big cost of making this splash. The Magic needed to go in like this if they were going to take the step into title contention.
Orlando did the critical part of adding to the roster. Now comes the harder work. Now the Magic need to finish the job and put all that change to work on the court.
The Magic won their offseason. Winning in the regular season will be a different challenge.
The Magic were proactive this summer
If there has been a criticism of Jeff Weltman in his eight years in charge of the Orlando Magic, it has been his patience and reliance on continuity.
Unlike most GMs, he did not come in and immediately tear down the roster. He provided a new coach after his first season, but stuck with the same roster. The Magic returned to the Playoffs in 2019.
But aside from the teardown moves in 2021, Weltman has largely been quiet. Even with cap room to burn last summer, he largely used it to retain players on his own roster.
The trade to acquire Desmond Bane was the first trade Jeff Weltman completed for a player the team actually kept since acquiring Bol Bol in 2022. Orlando was simply not active in the trade market.
But to take the kind of step the Magic were aiming for, they could not sit back. They clearly understood this was a key opportunity to improve the roster -- particularly with the cap restrictions bearing down on them.
The Magic were not going to sit aside and let this opportunity pass. They made it a point to make a summer like this happen.
"It just says you are willing to understand what the organization wants and needs, what our community has been talking about, what our fans have been talking about, what our players have been talking about and what we need to take that next step," coach Jamahl Mosley said in June after acquiring Desmond Bane. "We weren't just going to sit aside and hope something was going to happen and think we could change it just out of nowhere. I think our ability to do this says a lot about where we're going and how we're going to adapt to whatever is necessary to take that next step with this organization and this team."
Orlando was proactive in improving the roster on paper. It was not just acquiring Desmond Bane, but grabbing Tyus Jones, too. The team filled in several key needs that should help the team improve.
But that is only half the battle.
What will the Magic look like on the court?
In many ways, Jeff Weltman is passing the baton of pressure to coach Jamahl Mosley.
Mosley has graciously accepted it.
His mantra all offseason has been that "pressure is a privilege." Orlando has embraced this pressure and wants the pressure that comes from competing for a championship. They have said that publicly every chance they get.
"Our goal isn't to win the East, it's to win the championship," Weltman said after completing the trade in June. "The first step to doing that is we have got to move our team forward and get ourselves into that conversation. We're hopeful this trade will do that. Does that mean it's going to happen immediately? We have to see. We have to let these guys get together."
That is undoubtedly the next step. Everything for the Magic looks good on paper. There is no reason the team should not be among the best in the Eastern Conference. That is indeed the expectation.
But they have to actually put the pieces together on the court. And that is the trick that is ahead for the Magic. They have to turn theory into practice.
That is what everyone is waiting on most for this team.
"To have a whole team is going to be very important that our guys know we're not changing the chemistry, we're not changing some of the things we were able to be successful in," Mosley said in June. "We just have to get better at it. If each guy comes back one or two percent better than what we did last year along with the chemistry and the new pieces, we are giving ourselves a big time chance to be in a very good position."
Orlando was undoubtedly one of the big winners this offseason. They have put themselves in a position where they have expectations to meet. That is coming internally as much as it is coming externally.
The Magic did the work this offseason to build a team worthy of that discussion. With training camp a month away, it will be on the coaches and players to live up to those expectations.
Nobody would want it any other way.