The NBA's offseason is about to come to a screeching halt once the Olympics Men's Basketball Tournament ends on Saturday. Everyone will put the basketballs away until training camp begins at the beginning of October.
There is still one piece of news left to fill for the NBA. Perhaps the one fans are most eagerly awaiting to make the upcoming NBA season feel real.
It is usually this time of year when the NBA releases its schedule—usually in mid-August. We are all expecting it to drop within the next week or two and raise the excitement levels for the 2025 season.
That event not only allows Magic fans to map out their lives and know which holidays and weekends they will not be around friends and family from now until April (block off the end of April and early May for the playoffs), but it also gives everyone a sense of which teams the NBA prioritizes and believes will be part of the larger story of the season.
To say the least, this aspect of the schedule has been much-debated among Magic fans.
Despite having the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft in Paolo Banchero, who grew into an All-Star in his second year, Orlando had only one national TV appearance in the last two years before the playoffs. Even the Magic's playoff series saw three games relegated to NBATV until the league was forced to put their Game 7 on ABC—the first time the Magic had been in front of a national network audience since Dwight Howard was on the team.
To say the least, Magic fans are hungry for some national attention and to be put into the spotlight. They feel they have deserved at least a few games. Making the Playoffs should help that argument and should get the Magic at least a few more games—is five too many to ask for?
While Banchero deserves his flowers and deserves the league putting some attention on him, and while the Magic deserve at least some time in the spotlight, they are still going to have to make in-roads and get attached to a team that is more easily sellable to a public that often is not paying attention to the league.
The Magic will be on national TV more when the schedule comes out in a few weeks. And Magic fans will be eagerly looking to see which games ESPN and TNT have selected to feature the team when the 80-game schedule (remember two games will be added after NBA Cup group play finishes) is released.
So who should the Magic play when they get their chance on national TV? We have a few answers:
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.
West up-and-comers
8. Oklahoma City Thunder
Since the Orlando Magic drafted Paolo Banchero they have been scheduled for two games on national TV. They were both slated to be against the Oklahoma City Thunder—and 2022 No. 2 overall pick Chet Holmgren.
The first one, of course, was slated to be in Oklahoma City in November 2022 but was taken off the board after Holmgren's injury forced him to miss the rest of the season. They got a return date In February 2024. But even that one did not feel like a true national TV game, as important as it was.
It was Shaquille O'Neal's night as his jersey rightfully went up to the rafters at the Kia Center.
The game was a big one for sure. But it felt a little bittersweet to share a moment to celebrate this year's team with one of the giants in the league and the franchise's history. It also did not help that the Thunder won the game 127-113 and clearly looked to be a class above the young Magic.
That does not mean this matchup is over by any means or has lost any of its luster or potential. These are still two of the best young teams in the league and teams a lot of observers believe are building the right way. Shams Charania of Stadium said the Magic and Thunder's summer were both successful for adding big-name players to the team in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Isaiah Hartenstein without getting in the way of the young players they are developing on the roster.
Whether that creates an entertaining game is another question entirely. But it is a good storyline to feature two quality young teams against each other. This will be a game the Magic will use as something of a measuring stick.
7. Sacramento Kings
The Orlando Magic and Sacramento Kings do not scream as natural opponents for a national TV game. Neither has a star that is universally known in NBA circles. It might be a tough sell to get TV executives to buy into this game.
But then you show them the highlights of three of the last four meetings between the two teams.
An overtime game ended on a half-court buzzer-beater by De'Aaron Fox. A 40-point effort from Paolo Banchero to send the Magic's game against the Kings in Sacramento to overtime, lifting a sick and undermanned team to a near victory. And then a game that came down to the final possessions and a controversial foul call.
When the Magic and Kings play each other, entertaining games tend to break out.
Title Contenders
6. Boston Celtics
Really, the ticket for the Orlando Magic to get on national TV is to attach them to a proven national brand and a team already in the national spotlight. They are probably going to have to leach of another team's success and attention. And then win that game to prove themselves worthy of more attention.
Narrative-wise, no team probably gets used as a model for the Orlando Magic more than the Boston Celtics. And that is probably unfair considering the Celtics were the runaway champions last year and runaway favorites to win a second straight title after they brought their entire team back.
Still, Paolo Banchero gets easily compared to Jayson Tatum. Franz Wagner has similarities to Jaylen Brown. The backcourt duo of Jalen Suggs and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is getting compared to the defensive prowess of Derrick White and Jrue Holiday.
Orlando is Boston-lite it seems. Or the Magic are trying to build the same kind of continuity and long-term vision that built the Celtics into perennial title contenders. The Celtis are the model for everyone in the league.
Orlando arguably plays Boston as tough as any team in the league. Certainly any team outside the contending tier of teams.
The Magic scored a humongous victory in a marquee game during the In-Season Tournament last year, routing the Celtics 113-96 in a Black Friday matinee. That was a big moment during the Magic's nine-game win streak early in the season. It gave confirmation that the team could compete.
Boston still has Orlando's number. The Celtics won the season series with a pair of blowout victories in Boston in December. No one is under any impression the Magic would have put up a serious series if they had won in the first round.
But the Magic are good for a good game against the Celtics in the regular season. Like with so many other teams, the Magic are just a difficult matchup to deal with.
5. Denver Nuggets
It is always a little easier to get the Orlando Magic or a team not in the national spotlight on national TV against one of the teams on the West Coast. Those 10:30 p.m. time slots are difficult to fill.
The Orlando Magic and Denver Nuggets would be another good candidate to look at too. The Magic and Nuggets have played several entertaining games—including a buzzer-beater from Nikola Jokic two years ago in Denver followed by Paolo Banchero's triple-double to lead an undermanned Magic team to a win last year.
Orlando was one of the few teams to sweep the defending champions last year. The Nuggets recognize the Magic as a tough matchup. They would make for a good January Wednesday on ESPN.
Lottery Teams
4. San Antonio Spurs
Orlando Magic fans' obsession with the national TV thing is legitimate. They have a reasonable gripe for the lack of attention the team has gotten. Especially considering they had the No. 1 pick and runaway Rookie of the Year.
There is a lot of the league that still has not seen much of the Magic because they have been so far out of the spotlight.
It is not like the Magic are asking for a ton of national TV games. They have to earn them. And in many ways, Magic fans feel like they have.
The comparison of the national TV attention the Orlando Magic got after getting the number one pick in 2023 to the attention the San Antonio Spurs got in 2024 really highlights how ignored Magic fans feel.
Victor Wembanyama was an attraction. Everyone should understand why the NBA tried to highlight him.
But to go from one national TV appearance in Paolo Banchero's rookie year (that was taken away because of an injury to the No. 2 pick) to more than 20 in Wembanyama's rookie year and on a Spurs team that had a far worse record than the Magic did during Banchero's rookie year.
There are some bitter feelings directed at the NBA for this slight, even if everyone can admit the Spurs should have still gotten more national attention for Wembanyama's rookie year than whatever the Magic should have gotten for Banchero's rookie year.
It still makes sense for the Magic and Spurs to be two teams matched up on national TV. The Spurs are trying to become what the Magic are right now with their young player. And there should be the underlying storyline of Franz and Moritz Wagner leading Germany against Victor Wembanyama and France to play up from the Olympics into the regular season.
3. Houston Rockets
Similar to the San Antonio Spurs, the Houston Rockets are trying to get where the Orlando Magic currently are. They were the last team eliminated from postseason contention last year, just as the Magic were the last team eliminated during the 2023 season.
The Rockets with Jabari Smith Jr.—the guy the Magic were supposed to pick in the 2022 NBA Draft—and Jalen Green and Alperen Sengun are starting to put their young talent together. They added good veterans and carved an identity on the defensive end. They are a team that is coming together quickly.
A Magic-Rockets matchup would be a fun feature of two of the best young teams in the league.
Rock Fights
2. Cleveland Cavaliers
Ultimately, one of the reasons the Orlando Magic are probably not rolling in national TV appearances is that they are a defensive team. And they tend to play ugly low-scoring games. It was no surprise their series with the Cleveland Cavaliers was relegated as the "NBATV" series. Everyone anticipated it would be a seven-game rock fight where both teams would struggle to score.
That turned out to be true. The Magic finished the playoffs with the best defensive rating thanks to that seven-game series.
Everyone likes to say they want basketball from the 1990s back until they actually have to watch it. And the Magic and Cavs played some rock fights.
Undoubtedly, one of the games Magic fans will circle is their rematch with the Cavaliers. That will be one of the big games on the Magic's calendar. And playoff rematches, especially for long series like the one the Magic played in the spring, are ripe for national TV appearances. They are just easy stories to tell to a national audience.
The Magic and Cavs would be a solid national TV game with how entertaining even their low-scoring games ultimately became.
1. Miami Heat
Of course, if you really want a rock fight, the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat are masters at ugly games that become oddly compelling. These two teams are going to be fighting for the Southeast Division championship all year and state supremacy.
The Heat are still the measure by which the Magic often compete against. And wins over Miami still have a ton of significance for this team. Those games still matter for the Magic and especially for their fans. It has been a while since the Magic won the season series—the 2019 season.
The Magic and Heat have played their share of entertaining games in the process. And selling an audience on a state rivalry makes for an easy story to tell too.