Happy New Year from The City Beautiful!
The Orlando Magic have exceeded expectations this calendar year. Their young core of Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs and others have developed into one of the best up-and-coming squads in the NBA.
They have gone from near the bottom of the league last season to a current top-five position within the Eastern Conference heading into 2024, capped off with a 40-36 record this calendar year entering the New Year's Eve finale in Phoenix against the Phoenix Suns.
The best part of 2023? This team has a swagger. They have an identity. Banchero and Wagner are developing as two-way threats and both are putting a bid in to make the trip to Indianapolis in February as NBA All-Stars for the first time.
Both of the Magic's young stars have taken significant leaps this year.
Banchero went from 29.8 percent to better than 35 percent from deep so far in the 2024 season, making steps to becoming the dual inside/outside scorer that gets him to the next level.
Wagner improved away from the ball, making him a perfect complement to Banchero. Wagner has improved his rebounding and assist numbers this season, all while averaging a cool career-high 20.6 points per game. Not too shabby.
With all of the good, there are still some improvements this team needs to make to make the next step from a good young team into a legitimate playoff roster.
The Magic will have one more game before the ball drops and ushers in a new calendar year. It is sure to be a big one for the Magic as they look to break through to the playoffs for the first time since 2020 and grow well beyond that in the years to come.
Here are three New Year's Resolutions for the Orlando Magic for 2024.
3 New Year's Resolutions for the Orlando Magic in 2024
1. Develop an alternate gameplan against elite three-point shooting teams
This was going to be difficult for the Orlando Magic to deal with as the season progressed.
While they have found great success this season despite not being a high-volume three-point shooting team (last in attempts with 29.7 per game), playing against the elite teams from deep has been a struggle, especially once they fall behind.
Against teams in the top 10 in three-point percentage, Orlando sits at 3-5. It has been a relatively small sample size this season, but for a team that thrives in the paint -- they sit second in the league at 55.9 points in the paint per game -- it works well until teams start hitting from behind the arc.
Threes are worth more than two and at a certain point, that adds up. The Magic are always going against the 3-point math.
Orlando has done well to score off of kick-out threes. The Magic make 39.6 percent of their spot-up opportunities, according to Synergy, and make 35.4 percent of their catch-and-shoot 3-pointers according to Second Spectrum. Those opportunities are there, but the team has to make these shots.
Their defense has been able to force teams into tough looks, but an overall note for the upcoming calendar year is to have alternate game plans. That is the mark of a playoff team.
Orlando simply cannot keep up when shooting a high clip of threes. If they cannot get to the paint or score from the foul line, the Magic's offense simply sputters. They are a one-dimensional offense in the half-court.
The team is eventually going to have to take and make 3-pointers to succeed at the highest levels.
In games where Orlanod has shot more than 35 threes, the team is 2-6. That is mostly due to getting in a hole and needing the points to get out of it. But in those games, half of them came against teams in the top 10 in three-point attempts.
Those will fall and the Magic need a way to get out of that hole. They just cannot keep up with teams that can fire from deep at volume.
It will likely start on the defensive end. Good defense will lead to transition points and points in the paint, two areas that Orlando has been thriving in this season. In the halfcourt, they need an alternate game plan to keep up.
3 New Year's Resolutions for the Orlando Magic in 2024
2. Improve fourth quarter play against upper-echelon teams in the NBA
This has been a struggle more as of late for this squad.
It is not uncommon for young teams to experience inconsistencies down the stretch. The Orlando Magic do not, as a collective group, have a ton of experience taking over games in the final 12 minutes, let alone in the final five. Outside of Joe Ingles and Gary Harris, there is not enough experience to take over.
Still the Magic have had a lot of encouraging moments late in games. They have salvaged a lot of games with some clutch shot-making even if getting there is shaky.
Orlando has the seventh-most clutch wins in the league (when the game is within five points in the final five minutes) with a 10-4 record. But the team only has a +0.3 net rating. The Magic have also played only a total of 31 clutch minutes, the fewest in the league.
The Magic have had success, such as Paolo Banchero's game-winning baskets against the Utah Jazz and Chicago Bulls or Franz Wagner's game-winning shot in the second matchup with the Bulls. Orlando also came up with several big plays to defeat the New York Knicks on Friday.
It will change with each new late-game situation but as of now, adjustments need to be made. The Magic have had too many games where they were in the lead and lost it in the final moments and needed a basket to bail them out.
Take the December 27th game at home versus the Philadelphia 76ers, for example. With nine minutes to play, Orlando cut a double-digit lead to just three, only for the visitors to go on a 23-6 spurt to finish the game. The Magic shot 25 percent from the field in the fourth and could not shake the Joel Embiid-less 76ers.
It was a similar story toward the beginning of the year too. Orlando led by 11 late in the fourth against the Atlanta Hawks on Nov. 9 before Atlanta flew back on a 14-2 to grab the lead with 4:04 to play. The Hawks hit some big shots down the stretch with Dejounte Murray draining a big three to secure the win -- and one of the Magic's few losses against a team with a below .500 record.
They have gotten better, of course. Friday against the Knicks, the Magic held a 12-point lead heading into the final quarter and successfully held on for a win with some key plays down the stretch when the game got tight.
Orlando let New York back in the door as the lead was cut to six with a little more than three minutes to go. The Magic turned up the heat on defense and led on their hard-nosed offense, attacking the basket for a Goga Bitadze dunk and a flurry of free throws as a result of drives by Franz Wagner, Paolo Banchero and Goga Bitadze.
Similar to their first resolution, three-point shooting has been a big key for them. It is an element of the offense that is so huge for most teams down the stretch. Not having it as a consistent option allows for teams to defend the paint and dare Orlando to shoot itself out of close games -- something the Los Angeles Lakers did successfully early in the seaosn.
It has resulted in a bottom-six fourth quarter scoring average at 26.7 points per game. And this will be something the Magic need to continue showing growth in.
3 New Year's Resolutions for the Orlando Magic in 2024
3. Win the turnover battle night-to-night
Young teams struggle with turnovers and Orlando is not the outlier, here.
Many young teams, even those in the postseason, have consistent issues protecting the ball. The 2012 Oklahoma City Thunder, the season's eventual Western Conference champions, led the league in turnovers per game. Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors' first championship team in 2015 saw the team finish with the sixth-highest turnovers per game.
With high pace and not a ton of isolation in the half-court offense comes turnovers simply due to how much the ball moves.
In 2012? The Thunder were fifth in pace. Golden State led the league in 2015. This season, Orlando sits 12th in pace (although the team's pace numbers rate higher than both Oklahoma City and Golden State's campaigns mentioned above as the league has gotten faster in that sense).
Orlando sits at 13-5 in games they have won the turnover battle and 6-7 on the other side of it. They have shown an ability to win on the defensive side in games they lose the turnover battle (they force the second-most turnovers per game with 15.6), so it is not as much about simply the number of turnovers they give up.
They are a young team that thrives off defense but can also be dismantled down the stretch in a close game with turnovers. They can come back from a seven-turnover quarter against the New York Knicks in December but every possession that ends without a shot is a lost one for a team that struggles to score.
The truth is though that the same numbers in April and May would be a backbreaker in a seven-game playoff series.
The Magic are on the rise. Their young core is improving with every game, flying around the court, and stuffing the win column. There are always places to improve but things are looking bright inside Kia Center heading into 2024.