Orlando Magic will define success through young stars' development

To get a good sense of how a team feels about its roster and its future, listen to what they say during their exit interviews.

In the days after a season ends and the finality of things, teams gain clarity of what they accomplished, what they left undone, and what they can do in the next season. Their motivations and their views for the future become crystal clear.

The Orlando Magic suffered a devastating Game 7 loss in their breakthrough season to the playoffs in 2024. It was a gloomy locker room for a usually boisterous and confident team.

But by the next day with the team back in Orlando to meet with the media one last time, the mood had completely changed. The Magic looked back at their season with loads of pride. More importantly, they looked forward to a brighter future. A future where they felt like they had control and now experience to shape it any way they wanted.

Several players said on that May morning that they believed they could net homecourt advantage in the Eastern Conference—no one has wavered in that belief and the Magic's place in the Eastern Conference. They said they understood now in a way they did not before how important every game is and how vital their homecourt is as they get deeper in the playoffs.

Those are the clear internal goals for the Magic. It would be fair for fans to expect this kind of measurable results-based progress.

Still, Orlando left a lot of key needs unaddressed. The Magic did not act like a team that was all-in on accomplishing these ambitious goals this year. They did not make aggressive moves to correct what led to their playoff loss.

Instead, Orlando acted like a team still curious about what its ceiling is. The Magic acted like a team that still does not know what its limits are or even what it needs to reach its next level. They acted like a team that is still focused on the development of their young players over maximizing their short-term results.

This is the difficult balance the Magic face in the 2025 season and the next phase of their rebuild.

Orlando is both a team with major ambitions in the short term and the capability to achieve them. But it is also a team that is still heavily invested in its young players' development and went out of its way to make sure those key players have all the space and room to develop on the court.

The Magic are still finding their limits and they are not all-in on winning as an end goal. The 2025 season is still about development, even if this is not a rebuilding team anymore.

The Magic's offseason pointed to finding their limits

The Orlando Magic's front office still believes in what this team is doing. President of basketball operations Jeff Weltman did not shift course or deviate from what the team did that made it successful in the 2024 season.

They made very few changes to the roster—adding a major free agent signing in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, adding veteran guard Cory Joseph and drafting Tristan da Silva. Weltman re-signed virtually all of his pending free agents.

The roster remains virtually the same and the team doubled down on its preferences and strengths. They added more size and positional versatility. They added an elite 3-and-D wing.

But the Magic did not address the playmaking need that was evident after the playoff series and was even requested by their star player in Paolo Banchero.

Instead, the Magic seem content to put the ball in their young stars' hands and see if they can carry that burden. They want to see how far they can take this team.

The Magic, after all, sat in the 2-seed entering the final week of the regular season. Orlando was right in the race at the end of the season not only for homecourt advantage but a high seed in the Eastern Conference.

There is at least the thought the Magic left something on the table last season.

Orlando knows the ultimate truth of this rebuild project is that it will go as far as Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner's development goes. And the team still wants to see how far this team can go with a 21- and 22-year-old do-everything forward leading the way without any limits or restrictions, even if that means making mistakes and taking some hard lessons.

Banchero showed in the playoffs he could take his game to another level, even if that responsibility to carry both the scoring and playmaking burden proved too much in the end. Wagner showed he can be an elite driver and the Olympics hinted at a playmaking push.

The Magic were not prepared to take the ball out of their hands this year. They needed to find their limits. They needed to see where their ceiling might be. They needed to let them grow.

Winning is the goal, but not the main goal

Finding this limit is the key to the Orlando Magic's 2025 season. That is what will help guide them to the next level and next stage of the team's build. That will clue them into what they need and what they ultimately need to spend their trade capital to find.

And that is what Jeff Weltman and the Magic want to see. this season.

The team needs to win. The playoffs are a baseline measure of success. Orlando should be a playoff team from now until whenever Paolo Banchero leaves the team or retires. He and this team are that good.

No one will complain if the Magic accomplish their goals—and they are capable of accomplishing these goals too. That is a sign of the team's success and development. Orlando could easily make the leap into contender status with a major leap from Banchero and Wagner.

Orlando has to learn all these lessons while winning.

But the goal is to win a title. It may not be for the 2025 season, but it is ultimately to win a title. And the Magic are trying to find their path there.

They have a clearer vision of that after last year's trip to the playoffs. They know they have the pieces in place to get there. But they also know they are still young and incubating.

Orlando still needs time to grow and develop.

That remains the main goal for the Magic this year. As the team is winning, they are trying to find their path to contending.

That falls on Banchero and Wagner's development into true All-Stars in the league. That is the most important thing for the Magic to cultivate to get where they want to go.

Fans and pundits can debate whether Orlando is doing the right things to cultivate that status and that development. But no matter the opinion or take, everyone can acknowledge the Magic's development of these two young stars is the most important task ahead for the team.

That is the main purpose for the 2025 season. To keep pushing those players' development forward. The wins will be a byproduct of that.

The Magic need to make their path to contention clearer by the end of the season, no matter how it ends.

Orlando may face some adversity this time around. They may not have that rosy feeling the day after their season ends. But the team should have a clearer purpose to improve this team by the time this year ends.

How quickly their young players develop will be the main storyline this season.