Jamahl Mosley has always had a long-term vision for his team.
When the team struggled to wring out wins, he was preaching to his team a future that most had never experienced and getting on the court to work with them to get there. He was telling them what they needed to do to win and asking them to trust him in the process for the results to come.
They could start to see those pieces come together in the 2023 season with the defensive hints they began showing in their mid-season run. Then that identity fully blossomed in 2024.
Moe Wagner was the loudest of the voices throughout the season to say what they were doing throughout the 2024 season was a product of the three years this team was mostly together to get to this point.
What Mosley had done was to give his players ownership over the process. He had created a partnership that had everyone so much more invested in where the team goes next.
Even in the disappointment of the Orlando Magic's Game 7 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Mosley was only looking forward. He always eyed the growth that is still coming with this young team. He always had a firm grip on the future and what this team's ultimate end goal is.
"I'm so proud of our group," Mosley said after the Game 7 loss. "I'm so proud of these young men and the way in which they played. They battled all year no matter what the circumstances were, they continued to stay together. They continued to fight and continued to play together. It sucks right now. I can't say how proud of this group that I and our staff is."
The task of a coach in a rebuild is a difficult one. Getting a group of typically young players to believe in a process that will not immediately net them results and convincing veterans to spend their precious prime years working on a team that may not deliver wins to their ledger is a challenge. That buy-in is essential to success. It is easy to bail on the vision—and with a 5-20 start to the 2023 season, the team easily could have splintered.
They did not. They continued to come together finished 2023 season strong and broke through to the playoffs.
As the Magic prepare to enter this next phase of their rebuild—going from a team just happy to win to one that is expected to win—Mosley may be the team's greatest asset. Through all the ups and downs of a season and the turmoil that is part of an NBA season, Mosley is a steady hand and voice with a clear vision of what his team would be.
2024 showed what the Magic can build on
So much of the Orlando Magic's season this year is about building on the foundation the team left after the 2024 season. The team quickly moved from its disappointing defeat to its future.
As Orlando left Clevleand in May, the team firmly believed this was just the beginning for as painful as that loss and the finality of the season was.
Losing the way the Magic did in Game 7 "sucks," as Jamahl Mosley put it. The team knew what it was capable of. But Mosley could always keep things in perspective to say that the team will be better because of how painful that loss is. The pain is part of the process of getting better.
The expectations and floor for this team have been raised. But the Mosley knows the lasting impacts of this game will be more about what they learn from it and what they gained from the season.
"It's not fun to lose a Game 7, to be in a position to win the game and let go of it a little bit," Mosley said after Game 7 in May. "But you have to keep it in perspective of a group of young men who have continued to learn and grow and get better and trust each other and find ways to fight and stick together. Stay together in he midst of hard games, hard times, in the midst of runs. That is very rare for a young group to do and they did it all year."
Mosley always understood that the 2024 season was not really about the 2024 season. Winning was important and will be even more important in the 2025 season.
But the Magic were not all-in on the 2024 season. They were still betting on their team to grow and improve.
That was certainly how the Magic acted this summer. With the opportunity and cap room to throw their weight around, the Magic kept all pathways clear for Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner to continue growing and expanding their games. They essentially brought back the same roster, adding only their draft pick, Tristan da Silva, and a major free agent, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
Orlando wants its team to keep growing and developing.
For all the winning the Magic did this season, they were still a development outfit and played like it at times. Mosley's approach with them was always on the big picture. And how to develop their players.
The point then was as much about Orlando believing in its players as it is about Orlando believing in its process. The team doubled down on its strengths to continue building.
What they did was double down on Mosley and his process. The Magic believe in the path Mosley has this team on and the vision he has been building and growing this team toward.
Jamahl Mosley has earned his accolades
Jamahl Mosley was rewarded for that vision last year when he signed a four-year extension in March. That was the preview to his finishing second in the Coach of the Year voting to Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneualt. That was still incredibly humbling for the Magic's still-young coach.
The rest of the offseason has been spent praising Mosley and the job he has done. The Orlando Magic's season has earned them a fair amount of praise.
Sam Quinn of CBS Sports named the Magic the seventh-most attractive coaching job in the league. That is a credit certainly to the young talent they have assembled headlined by Banchero and Wagner. But it is also a credit to the job and culture Mosley has put together.
Like the team though, Mosley still has something to prove. There are still areas he has to grow. And the Magic's job is not finished yet.
In Quinn's recent ranking of all the coaches in the league, Mosley came in at No. 19, in a tier entitled "You look promising, but it's still a tad early." He praised Mosley for getting a young team to buy in on defense and noted Mosley ranks well in key coaching metrics such as efficiency out of timeouts.
But like this young Magic team, they have to prove they can do it all again. They have to make good on all of this promise.
Mosley is the ultimate believer
Jamahl Mosley is the chief belief officer and everyone buys what he sells. That connection is real and will help the team as they build to their next phase.
This is why Mosley remains such a key asset for this team. Mosley has never taken his eye off the ball for that ultimate goal. He has never wavered in the direction he and his team are going.
That vision will be just as important now that the Orlando Magic have reached this milestone as it was when the playoffs were nothing more than a dream. Orlando still needs that dose of perspective and that motivation.
They still need that feeling of ownership and togetherness that defined the 2024 season. The exact kind of culture and power Mosley built with his team the last three years.
This is a bigger challenge for sure. There is less room to improve by another 10 wins from 47 to 57 wins and the margins between success and failure are much finer in playoff games and series that come down to single plays.
The Magic still have young players who need their time to play—Anthony Black and Jett Howard were out of the rotation and there is no clear path for Tristan da Silva to play either on a team that is trying to win.
But Mosley is someone who can get the team invested in the long-term project and the daily steps to get there. He has always had the vision to build this team.
That will be the biggest asset this team needs. Mosley is someone who has executed a clear vision. And he is someone who has done well to keep his group focused on the main thing.
That is what the Magic need as they continue to grow.