The Orlando Magic are facing a critical offseason with few avenues to improve the roster dramatically.
The team seems committed to its starting five and its young players, whom the team has drafted and developed into a playoff team.
There are storm clouds on the horizon.
The Magic being a first-apron team and needing to improve the roster will force the team to make some shifts at some point. But Orlando seems willing to push forward with their roster largely unchanged.
That makes the biggest move the Magic make this offseason their negotiations with Anthony Black over an extension.
The team is diving into the first and second aprons for the first time. As a tax team, every dollar the team spends is crucial. Orlando has to be mindful of their situation.
The team will most likely be a first apron team for the 2027 season -- its biggest restriction being the team cannot take in more money than it sends out in a trade. But with a Black extension, the Magic likely become a second apron team in 2028 -- which means the Magic could only sign minimum contracts and can no longer aggregate salaries in trades.
Orlando knew this reality was coming. That comes with having successful drafts and retaining its own players.
And so Orlando needs a different negotiating tactic this summer with Black.
Anthony Black's market may end up a bit depressed
After his breakout season where he averaged 15.0 points per game, Anthony Black seems due to get a pretty hefty contract.
There is a lot of discussion and confusion about what his market will be.
Some of that may come down to what anyone believes his ceiling to be. His three-year career does not offer many clues even with the breakout season in 2026. Black and his representatives themselves may want to take this season as a prove it to increase his value.
There is a gap to bridge in negotiations this offseason.
At one point in the season, there was some suggestion that he and his agent may push for something similar to Jalen Suggs' extension -- a five-year, $150.5 million deal that was front-loaded and has an annual average value of $30.1 million.
The Orlando Magic are more likely to push back on that as they navigate the tax and the apron for the first time. With how depressed the restricted free agent market has become in the NBA, it seems more likely that these are starting points in negotiations and the number will come in much lower.
The Magic certainly want to maintain a reputation that they are good to work with and will take care of their own players. But there certainly seems to be a bit of hard ball the team needs to play.
Projecting Black's extension number has now come much lower.
Keith Smith of Spotrac projected Black to get a four-year, $80-million extension, crediting his growth this season but citing his inconsistent shooting.
That also seemed to be about the area Yossi Gozlan of Third Apron had Black coming in at when I spoke to him on Locked On Magic:
"I think what the Magic are going to try to push for is in the $20 million per year range to be a very high-end reserve," Gozlan said. "It just fits within their payroll structure where if they lock him to an average of $21-22 million per year, they conceivably could keep the rest of their starting lineup moving forward. The rest of the bench would be really lean."
Gozlan said Anthony Black may push for a salary closer in line to the Dyson Daniels extension (four years, $100 million). A $25 million salary seems like a decent baseline as negotiations continue through the summer.
Gozlan notes the Magic may not be as generous with Black's extension, too, because Black is likely coming off the bench for the foreseeable future. He is in a quiet competition with Suggs, but all the numbers, outside of the raw scoring numbers, still point in Suggs' favor.
The starting lineup with Suggs in the lineup had a +11.6 net rating (117.3 offesnive rating/105.7 defensive rating) in 182 minutes. That lineup with Black instead had a -4.7 net rating (110.1/114.8) in 115 minutes.
The Magic are not ready to make this final decision yet. But Suggs is certainly still the starter.
And the most important thing for the Magic would be to have that player in place for when the team will need to break up the roster and try to cut some payroll when the tax becomes too onerous.
The Magic take care of their own
It seems inevitable a deal will get done before the October deadline, even if negotiations last all the way into camp. This team always takes care of its own.
The Orlando Magic started their rebuild with tons of cap room and no one really to spend it on.
They have maintained their posture throughout the last five years of aiming to be a developmental outfit first. They did not have many big salaries. They were reserving it for the players they drafted.
Orlando certainly was not competing with anyone else when the team gave Cole Anthony a fairly generous three-year, $39 million extension.
The team quickly handed out a max extension to Franz Wagner, shocking much of the NBA world. Jalen Suggs received five-year, $150.5 million extension (front-loaded to help relieve some of this cap pressure).
Paolo Banchero received a Rose Rule max with a player option on the final year. Even Wendell Carter received a max extension of his type in his three-year, $58.7 million extension that begins next year (with a team option on the last year).
Orlando has some outs from these deals and many were structured to be team-friendly. But the Magic made it abundantly clear that it was going to take care of its own players. There is little reason to think the Magic will not do the same for Black.
Or at least, that will be the intention.
That was easier to do before the team dove into the tax.
Orlando is walking in different waters now. The team is watching its pennies a bit and looking to get Black on a fair deal for both him and the team.
It seems like the thought that Black could get something similar to Suggs' deal have dissipated. It seems there might be a bargain to be made on the Magic's side.
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