5 Most important stretches of the Orlando Magic's 2024-2025 season
The Orlando Magic know the path ahead of them for their much-anticipated 2025 season. The first 80 games of the Magic's 82-game journey are on the horizon.
Of course, the NBA schedule is virtually the same every year. There are only so many different ways to say: You will play the other 29 teams in the NBA. This is not college sports where you can pick and choose your schedule and you can get excited about certain opponents. The Magic are guaranteed to play everyone in the league at least twice (and at home at least once).
The NBA is a league where new players have to get used to losing -- a good season still features 32 losses.
The games come unendingly. It is the blessing and the curse of the NBA schedule—there is always another game. It is why nobody can ever get too high or too low after wins and losses. There is no turnaround time before the next game.
What we look for in the schedule is the rough spots. We look for the soft spots where the team can bank up wins. We look for when and where the back-to-backs are.
The Magic got the good end of the schedule this year, playing the fewest back-to-backs in the league with 13 this year and holding an advantage in rest advantage games against rest disadvantage games, flipping both from last year. Orlando has parts of the schedule that will benefit the team.
There are always moments that are important in the schedule—the team's West Coast road trips and extended road trips always matter just like long homestands are vital. As we break down the schedule, it is easy to prepare for the monotonous dog days of the season.
It is easy to lose sight of what is important and get lost among the trees.
Right now, we can have a bird's eye view of the season. We can look at the whole schedule and highlight where the season will turn and what is important. We have already highlighted one of these 10-game stretches (and we will discuss it again here, because it is important).
To help digest the schedule though, we are going to break down the five most important stretches in the season. The stretches that will determine whether the team is successful this year or whether they will fall short.