10 Opponents the Orlando Magic should get a national TV game against
Eastern Conference up-and-comers
10. Indiana Pacers
The Orlando Magic and Indiana Pacers in many ways are running on parallel tracks, with the Pacers perhaps a year ahead of the Magic on their development timeline.
The Pacers acquired Tyrese Haliburton in a controversial trade that gave the team a clear identity. And it is one the team embraced.
They made the playoffs in 2023 as the 6-seed and returned to the playoffs last year, again as the 6-seed. In the process, they made a big trade without giving up too many future assets to acquire Pascal Siakam.
If the Magic and the Pacers are the two most promising young teams in the Eastern Conference, the Pacers were the first ones to announce themselves.
They reached the championship game of the inaugural In-Season Tournament, defeating the Boston Celtics in an elimination game in the process and bursting onto a big stage. Then they upset the Milwaukee Bucks and New York Knicks to reach the Eastern Conference Finals, where their inexperience finally caught up with them with three close losses in a four-game sweep.
While you would be hard-pressed to find someone who will openly predict the Pacers will return to the conference finals this year, everybody can acknowledge they have made some major strides and no one would blame people for picking them to finish ahead of the Magic.
In reality, the Magic's chief competition is the Pacers. And the two teams make for an incredibly interesting matchup.
Orlando was ranked third in the league in defensive rating and Indiana was ranked second in offensive rating. The Magic did a good job defensively against the Pacers too giving up 107.4 and 114.6 points per 100 possessions in their two wins (before the Siakam trade). Even when Indiana defeated Orlando in February, Orlando gave up only 112.1 points per 100 possessions.
If styles make fights, no two teams are more stylistically different and ultimately entertaining against each other with the Pacers' inconsistent but improving defense, than the Magic and the Pacers.
If the league wanted to feature two up-and-coming teams against each other, the Magic and the Pacers would make for an entertaining matchup. This is a matchup I will have circled on my calendar once the schedule is released. This will be on e of the games I immediately track down.
9. New York Knicks
Of course, the league likely is not going to invest wholly in two unproven teams like the Orlando Magic and Indiana Pacers, even if they are both fighting for homecourt advantage and have proven themselves capable of winning. They likely want to pair the Magic with a proven brand.
If Orlando were to get matched up with one of their Eastern Conference contemporaries, then the clear answer is the New York Knicks.
The Knicks will get a ton of play on the national TV schedule after winning a Playoff series last year and adding Mikal Bridges in the offseason.
Fortunately, for the Magic, the Magic and Knicks have played several entertaining games with the Magic winning three of the four matchups last year including a fun close game in a Martin Luther King Day matinee at Madison Square Garden. The December matchup featured the Knicks getting frustrated with Goga Bitadze talking with them after a big block late in the game.
There is not exactly bad blood here. But there are the seedlings of a fun rivalry to develop. And the NBA Cup should be a good time to feature these two teams.