The NBA's schedule is due out in the next few weeks.
With that will come the question every Orlando Magic fan wants to know: How much attention will the team get from the league's national TV partners? How deeply embedded into the league's story will the team be?
The Magic undoubtedly had a stellar offseason. With the injuries around the Eastern Conference, the Magic's big moves to acquire Desmond Bane and Tyus Jones have vaulted one of the best young teams in the league into the conversation at the top of the Eastern Conference.
With two potential All-Stars in Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner on the roster, the Magic seem poised to take a major step forward after last year's injury-filled season. They seem eager to take the attention.
Orlando probably will not be ever-present on the national TV schedule. The Boston Celtics will surely still get their share of national TV games, despite Jayson Tatum likely missing the entire season. But the Orlando Magic will get more than the five appearances they were handed when the schedule was released last year -- with a sixth added for the NBA Cup quarterfinal and a seventh late in the season for that breakthrough win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on ABC, the franchise's first ABC Sunday game since the 2011 season.
The Magic have invited attention and want that stage. But a big piece of the puzzle for Orlando's success this year will be how they perform on that stage. It will come down to how they play against the other elite teams in the league.
Orlando is going to be front and center, whether the team is ready or not. If the Magic want to be considered a contending team, they need to win on national TV and they need to beat the best teams in the league.
The National TV Struggle
While Orlando Magic fans are hungry for the team to get attention -- if anything, then to dispel a lot of the negative talk surrounding their two stars -- they are also a bit fearful of the team being in the spotlight.
The Magic have had some bad runs on national TV during the last two years, whatever few games they get on national TV.
Last season, Orlando went 1-6 in nationally televised games with an overall plus/minus of -99. Those games included a 16-point loss that nearly eliminated the Orlando Magic from the NBA Cup with a 32-point cushion against the New York Knicks, a 27-point loss to the Boston Celtics in one of Paolo Banchero's first games back from his oblique injury and a 40-point home loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The lone win was the March road win over the Cavaliers on ABC, thanks to a pair of big Paolo Banchero plays down the stretch.
Regardless, the three most-embarrassing losses of the season all came on national TV against the three best teams in the Eastern Conference. That says a lot on its own.
Everyone will try to say that national TV games are not any different from any other game. But players know when they are on national TV, and they know these are big games.
Orlando will surely get more appearances on ESPN, ABC, Amazon and NBC this year with the expectation that the team could be a conference finalist this season. These games will come against the best teams in the league. They are not meant to be easy.
It is these kinds of high-profile losses that proved the Magic needed more than cosmetic changes if they wanted to compete for the title and not merely be a playoff team. That is what Orlando attacked this offseason in acquiring Desmond Bane and Tyus Jones.
But the Magic look on paper like a contending team. They are going to get into the spotlight more.
The wins the Magic must get
The national TV struggles are really a symptom of a bigger struggle for the Orlando Magic.
During the last two seasons when the Magic made the Playoffs, they played a style that feasted on the worst teams in the league. They could not figure out how to score against one of the best defenses in the league.
But while the Orlando Magic scored some nice victories over strong teams -- the pair of wins early in the season against the Indiana Pacers, the late-season win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, the surprising road win against the New York Knicks -- they struggled for a second straight season against teams better than .500.
Orlando went 12-25 (.324 win percentage) against teams with records better than .500 last year, tied for the fewest wins among the East's postseason teams. That continued a pattern from the 2024 season where the Orlando Magic went 19-28 (.404 win percentage), beating only the Chicago Bulls in those wins that season.
The top teams in the East last year went 28-11 (Cleveland Cavaliers) and 24-13 (Boston Celtics) against teams with winning records. Only three teams went above .500 against teams with winning records in the Eastern Conference last year -- the Indiana Pacers at 20-18 were the other.
It is simple, the teams that win and advance deep into the Playoffs are the ones that win these games.
And Orlando has a long way to go to be part of that group. The biggest thing the Magic must prove this season is that they can win these games regularly.
That will be the biggest revolution for the team.
A big part of that will be the Magic's offense improving. The Magic must be able to score consistently even against the elite defenses, just as their defense will surely hold up against elite offenses.
The best teams can score and attack in multiple ways. Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner were banging their head against a wall against the Boston Celtics in the Playoffs last season. They put some dents in that wall, but could not break through.
The hope is that being healthy and adding a shooter in Desmond Bane, who can also attack off the dribble, will create some diversity to win more of these games.
For Orlando to make the gains and advance deeper into the Playoffs, the team needs to prove itself against the elite teams and in the spotlight.
That will be the biggest sign the Magic are ready to compete.