The Orlando Magic made a big deal throughout their preseason and offseason, talking about their pace.
With some more shooting and two dynamic matchup nightmares in Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, the Magic wanted to shed the label of being a slow team. They wanted to push the tempo and play faster after spending last year playing at the league's slowest pace.
Coach Jamahl Mosley explained that the thinking was the Magic needed to be more effective at turning their defense into offense. If their defense was going to create a lot of turnovers and extra possessions, the Magic needed to be better at converting on them.
Through four games, the Magic have indeed increased their pace. They are playing at more possessions and getting more fastbreak opportunities. They have improved in that area.
But the downside has been some sloppy play. The team has turned the ball over and given back its share of fast-break points, too. Orlando has not been able to settle its defense. It has looked a bit rough on both ends.
Their results have reflected that. The team is searching for answers at 1-3 and on a three-game losing streak as they go into game two of a five-game road trip.
"I think playing fast, you are going to give up some more points because it speeds the game up, and there are more possessions," Paolo Banchero said after Monday's game. "We just need to be smarter about how fast we are playing. If you are just going fast without any direction, it's not the best. Direction is more important than speed. We can play fast, but if there is no direction, it's tough."
The Magic's struggles are so pervasive that statements like these are getting dissected. The team has struggled to make the puzzle pieces fit.
But everyone is trying to find their fit. And there is a point to this, better direction and guidance, better strategic focus might be the only way to get this thing to work.
Stars make sacrifice
It is certainly easy to point to the team still needing to learn to play together for many of their mistakes. They are still not sure where to find teammates when they get caught in double teams and there have been more than a few miscommunications.
To fit in another high-volume scorer like Desmond Bane would inevitably take some sacrifice. But Paolo Banchero still has something of a point. The team is a bit disorganized and trying to flow the ball to the right people.
Banchero has had his issues with inefficiency this season -- he is shooting 39.4 percent on 17.8 field goal attempts per game and has drawn at least one wild comparison as national media try to cast doubt on him.
But Banchero's usage is down. He has only a 27.7 percent usage rate, the lowest since his rookie year. According to NBA.com's tracking data, Banchero is averaging 36.5 frontcourt touches per game, down from 38.0 per game last year.
That is expected considering the team added another high-usage player in Desmond Bane.
It is with Franz Wagner though that the difference is clearer.
Wagner is averaging 22.5 points per game and is shooting 55.7 percent from the floor. His field goals are down from 19.4 attempts per game back to 15.3 per game (virtually the same amount he had in 2024). His usage rate has dropped from 31.0 percent to 23.2 percent.
Bane is second on the team in frontcourt touches per game at 33.5 per game (up from 29.2 per game last year). Wagner is averaging only 31.0 per game this year. Wagner appears to be the one sacrificing the most, and it is fair to ask if the Magic can involve him more.
Quite simply, the Magic are not getting the ball to their best players nearly enough.
Certainly, the Magic can get Banchero involved more and give him the ball in better spots for him to score -- as they did in Monday's game, where he scored 32 points and posted a 70-percent true shooting percentage.
Orlando wants to share and move the ball more. They were inevitably going to get fewer touches. But the organization may come down to re-establishing a better pecking order for scoring and maximizing the team's best players.
The faster pace
The Orlando Magic were right to try to push the tempo though. They could not go back to that plodding offense that struggled to scrap together enough points. Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner are too good in transition not to push the ball downhill early.
The easiest thing they could do was to try to focus on running more off all the turnovers they have created.
Through four games, the Magic have successfully gotten more possessions -- going from a league-low 96.5 possessions per 48 minutes last year to 104.9 possessions per 48 minutes this year (eighth in the league).
Orlando has improved in transition, too.
The Magic have gotten 24.3 transition possessions per game this year, according to data from Synergy Sports, up from 17.9 per game last year. The team is scoring 1.20 points per possession in transition this year, slightly better than the league average, and up from 1.11 points per possession from last year.
This is a significant improvement -- so much, in fact, that the Magic have run more transition possessions than pick-and-rolls in the early part of the season.
The Magic have even decreased their turnover rate from 10.7 percent to 8.2 percent in transition. The Magic's turnover issues are not coming from playing faster. This is one of the areas the Magic have been effective.
This is not to say the Magic need to run more. But when they have been able to get in transition, they have found it to be effetive.
It is why there is still a lot of faith within the team that they can figure it out and find a way to improve.
Franz Wagner told Josh Robbins of The Athletic after Monday's game that adjusting to this new style is certainly a challenge, but it will ultimately be good for the team in the long run. Desmond Bane repeated what he said after Saturday's loss that the team just needs to stick with it, work on their details and continue to improve.
Jamahl Mosley stressed the team needs to trust the process and the results will come as they grow together. There is still this call for patience.
"Everything gets better with time," Banchero said after Monday's loss. "But at the same time, you can't sit around and wait for it to happen. This is a tough league. There are a lot of good teams in this league. You can't just drop games and say it will get better with time. You have to act now and got to be better. Stuff needs to change and we've got to get better."
The Magic will need some patience.
Better ball movement, spacing, and movement in the half-court will go a long way to breaking through these struggles. Trusting decision-making in their stars and maximizing these lead players will help too. That is perhaps the biggest shift. Orlando need their stars to lead and they are not getting the ball enough.
The fixes should not be complicated. And when the Magic get their turnovers and pace where they like it, the rest of the team should fall into place.