Orlando Magic fans entered the offseason with big dreams. That is what loads of cap room will do for a franchise. Especially one that has struggled to find much of a direction for the past decade.
The Magic were active pretty quickly. They agreed to terms Sunday evening on a three-year, $66 million contract with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, taking care of the starting guard position that was the most urgent position to fill this offseason.
Everyone was then curious to see what the Magic would do. Everyone suspected the team would bring back Mo Wagner even after declining his team option. Everyone suspected the team would try to bring Goga Bitadze back.
But the rest of Orlando's offseason was spent bringing back everyone else from the Magic's 2024 roster. They re-signed Bitadze to a three-year, $25 million deal. They retained Gary Harris on a two-year, $15 million deal. And they kept Mo Wagner on a two-year, $22 million.
Orlando even used extra cap room to extend Jonathan Isaac's contract on a five-year, $84 million deal.
The Orlando Magic lost Joe Ingles to free agency after he signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves. But the team is going to look very familiar this year to last year.
As the Magic did last year, they are betting on continuity to carry them forward. That was something that mattered to them last year—Wagner, most notably, always talked about how the success in 2024 was not merely about this season but about three years of building together. The Magic are going to bet again on everyone's ownership over this project to elevate the franchise.
They are betting they can invest in their depth once again. The team will likely integrate new players in Tristan da Silva, Anthony Black and Jett Howard into the rotation. But everything is a competition. And the Magic should know what they are getting with so many returning faces.
There will be changes to the lineup and the rotation. The Magic added a new starter to the mix. But this is largely the same team that finished 47-35 and the 5-seed in the Eastern Conference last year. Only time will tell if the Magic can repeat their success.
On paper, the team got better just by adding Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to the roster. But there is at least a tinge of disappointment that there were not many major changes to the team. Continuity is boring especially when it seems like there is an opportunity to get better and mix things up. There is something to perhaps things getting stale and changing roles to force growth.
Time will tell whether the Magic's bet on continuity works out again. But the Magic are not bringing players back for any favors. These players add something to the team. And there is a reason they are coming back.
Not that Magic fans did not know that already.
1 reason why the Orlando Magic re-signed each of their free agents
Goga Bitadze: Interior Defense
Depth can be a powerful thing because it allows teams to be able to play in different ways and adjust to their opponent (not to mention let players take their time returning from injuries). When the team needs something different for a particular matchup, they have a way to change how they play depending on the matchup while not sacrificing key pieces of their identity.
Not to mention, depth allows the team to maintain normal rotations when they face injuries.
Goga Bitadze's best run in the season came when Wendell Carter went out with his hand injury in November. Bitadze's interior defense particularly stood out during that absence that included the team's nine-game win streak in November.
Orlando struggled to balance how to use him once Carter returned and the team was healthy. His standout game after that came in February when he stepped in to help give the Magic an interior presence in their overtime win over the Chicago Bulls.
Bitadze had a career season averaging 5.0 points per game and 4.6 rebounds per game in 15.4 minutes per game. Bitadze averaged 7.5 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in his 33 starts.
Bitadze is a different center than either of the Magic's other center options. While he is more limited offensively than Carter or Wagner, he is the best rim protector of the three. Opponents shot 55.1 percent at the rim against Goga Bitadze, a number that trails only Jonathan Isaac among rotation players.
Bitadze is an excellent shot blocker and rim protector. That was something the Magic did not really find in any of their other centers. And with how thin this year's center free agency market ended up being, retaining a player with this skill was essential to the Magic.
What they will have to figure out is how to integrate him into the lineup as more than just an injury replacement.
If there was a criticism of how Jamahl Mosley managed the season it was that he did not ever give spot minutes to a player like Bitadze he might need in the playoffs. Bitadze was not someone he ultimately could trust in the playoffs because he had played more than 10 minutes in just three games after the All-Star Break.
Bringing Bitadze back gives the team a reliable third center they know gives them an element they do not have anywhere else.
Gary Harris: 3-Point Shooting
Gary Harris took the brunt of the criticism for his poor playoff showing. Harris had one critical job for the Orlando Magic and in the playoffs he did not perform it. Everyone could see how inconsistent the offensive production was from the team's guards.
Harris' struggles and his status as a free agent likely meant the team was parting ways.
But that was always a bit of a puzzling thing. For a Magic team whose biggest weakness was shooting, why would the Magic part with one of their best 3-point shooters so easily?
With the Magic able to carve out a clearer reserve role for him with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, it made sense to stick with one of the team's better shooters.
Harris was eighth on the team hitting 37.1 percent from three last year. But he has been historically one of the most reliable 3-point shooters on the team, shooting 43.1 percent from three in 2023 and 38.4 percent in 2022.
That made Harris' 7-for-22 showing from deep in the playoffs all the more disappointing. His misses hurt more because his role on the team was to take threes.
Regardless of what the Magic did with Harris, everyone recognized shooting had to be a focus for the team this offseason. Adding Caldwell-Pope (who shot 40.6 percent from three last year and has shot better than 40 percent in two of the last three seasons) improved the team's shooting. Orlando probably was also looking for some extra shooting off the bench.
Of course, the concern with bringing Gary Harris back is that the Magic might fall back on old habits and decisions, choosing to go with a veteran like Harris rather than give opportunities to young players like Anthony Black and Jett Howard.
On one hand, Black and Howard have to earn their playing time. Conversely, when winning matters, coaches tend to lean on veterans.
In either case, Harris will give the team a reliable shooter. And in a smaller role off the bench, Harris will have a chance to thrive in a way he did not with the pressure of starting.
Moritz Wagner: Winning Edge
It did not take particularly long for Cleveland Cavaliers fans to understand Mo Wagner was public enemy number one. Wagner got involved in a shoulder bump battle with Isaac Okoro and Georges Niang early in Game 1 and Wagner only raised the ire when he clapped toward the Orlando Magic's bench to try to create some energy.
Wagner is not trying to cause trouble. He never has in his various stops around the league. But trouble seems to find him. He is not someone who is going to back down.
The 2024 season was by far Wagner's best season in a Magic uniform. He averaged 10.9 points per game and 4.3 rebounds per game. He shot an incredible 67.3 percent on 2-point field goals and 60.1 percent overall.
Wagner is perfect as the team's backup center. He has a knack for scoring around the basket and punishing many of the backup centers around the league.
The Magic scored 1.33 points per possession on Wagner's pick and rolls as the roll man, which was good for the 80th percentile in the league according to NBA.com's tracking stats.
Wagner may see those numbers dip without his typical running mate in pick and rolls in Joe Ingles. But Wagner knows how to score.
But what Wagner really gives the team is some swagger.
That never-back-down attitude makes him the most hated player by opposing fans. He can be a bit of an irritant even if he does not mean to. He energizes everyone on his team and they feed off his energy.
Wagner greatly improved as a defender too. He added improving his defensive field goal percentage at the rim from one of the worst marks in the NBA in 2023 at 75.5 percent to 62.6 percent last year. That changed his impact and utility for the Magic. It also helps that he was third in the league with 24 charges drawn, according to NBA.com's hustle stats.
Wagner makes a lot of winning plays. A lot of plays that go unnoticed.
Orlando does not want to lean on him as a starter—the team did everything it could to keep him in that comfortable bench role and the re-acquisition of Goga Bitadze ensures the team maintains that balance—but Wagner always seemed to make the most of his minutes.
Jonathan Isaac: Financial Flexibility
Jonathan Isaac was not a free agent this summer, but the Orlando Magic still did some work to ensure he stayed with the team long-term. The team's unique renegotiate-and-extend deal with the forward ensures the Magic keep one of their most impactful defenders.
But more than that, it ensures the Magic keep a key player on an affordable contract and maintain tons of financial flexibility for the trade markets ahead.
President of basketball operations Jeff Weltman has long warned the Magic know their team will not be so affordable soon. There are big contracts to hand out to Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner in the next year and Paolo Banchero soon after them. Even though the salary cap should continue to increase, there will be some sticker shock on those contracts.
Ensuring the Magic keep an impactful player at a bargain price—a five-year, $84 million is an average of $16.8 million but the structure of the deal likely means Isaac makes $12-13 million in the final year of the deal—is going to be valuable for the team.
More than that, Orlando's next big move is likely to be one that brings in the big fish fans wanted all along this offseason. Orlando spent its offseason aligning its contracts to make that big move. The Magic have depth, big contracts to move and all of their draft capital when they feel ready to push their chips in.
Getting an elite defender like Isaac on an affordable deal knowing the impact he can make when he is healthy is incredibley valuable.
There are injury protections likely written into the contract. But Isaac showed when he played how dominant he can still be on defense. Everyone spent the end of last season plotting how to get Isaac more minutes and maximize whatever time they could get with him on the floor.
The Magic have to hope that Isaac's first healthy summer since 2019 will net some gains and make them feel more comfortable to release some of the injury restrictions that followed him throughout the 2024 season.
Isaac gives the magic a ton of flexibility now on the court, but just as much off of it.
It might have been a fairly quiet summer for the Magic in terms of new-player acquisitions. But the Magic have set themselves up to make some steady improvements.