It is often said that when the schedule comes out every year, every team is upset about something.
They may dislike a particular stretch of games with little or no practice time. Or they may dislike a swatch of road games with few home games to break it up. There is always something teams are upset about.
And often those misgivings even out in the end. Everybody gets 41 home games and 41 road games one way or the other (although there are now some regular season games in Las Vegas for the NBA Cup semifinals).
There are rough spots and lighter spots on the schedule every year. And there is always the unforeseen—which teams exceed expectations, which teams fail to meet them and when do injuries hit?
The Magic have their share of difficult spots. They will start with 16 of their first 25 games on the road and 11 of their final 19 on the road. That will make getting off to a fast start difficult just as it might be difficult for the team to finish strong.
There are quirks in every schedule that make them unique to each team. It is not simply that you play every team virtually the same as your opponents. There are built-in advantages because of teams coming on the second night of back-to-backs or at the end of long road trips. There are even differences in the number of back-to-backs that teams get to play. There are teams you get to play four times and others three.
That is where it is hard to get a handle on the Magic's schedule though. Every team will have some part of the schedule they dislike.
But the Magic's schedule is both one of the most difficult and easiest in the league.
Huh?
Orlando has arguments to cry foul and to be pleased with how its schedule breaks down. That is probably something to say about the balance in life. And the balance of trying to piece together an 82-game schedule.
So how is this possible? That is an argument worth breaking down on both sides.
The difficulty of the Magic's schedule
Let's start at why the Orlando Magic got the raw end from the schedule makers.
The only time the Magic were mentioned in the ESPN schedule reveal special on Thursday was this note: The Magic's schedule has a .506 opponent win percentage, the highest among all teams that made the Playoffs.
At least based on last year's records, the Magic will play one of the toughest schedules in the league. This is a very basic function to determine strength of schedule, but there is something to it.
Each season, teams face two teams from the other divisions three times (or they are supposed to). The variance in schedule difficulty starts with analyzing which teams you only have to face three times.
On first blush, this would seem like a benefit for the Magic. The Orlando Magic are scheduled to face the Boston Celtics (2 home/1 away), Chicago Bulls (2h/1a), Cleveland Cavaliers (1h/2a), Detroit Pistons (2h/1a), Milwaukee Bucks (1h/2a) and New York Knicks (2a/1h) only three times.
You might notice that is more than two teams from each division.
Because of the NBA Cup, the league releases only 80 of the 82 games during the schedule release in the offseason. They will add two games during the week of Dec. 10-17. Of course, everyone hopes those two games are difficult ones because that means they have advanced to the knockout rounds of the tournament (remember: those games count toward the regular season).
But if the Magic do not make the knockout round, it means they will likely face two of these six teams that week. That leaves a good chance the Magic will miss out on a fourth game with the Pistons, a team that likely would drop their opponent win percentage.
It is not clear what rules the NBA follows to fill these games—last year the Magic got a road trip to face the Cavaliers and a home game against the Pistons -- but it would follow that the league would try to ensure they limit teams to facing each other four times (the only time they would go over is if they play each other in the NBA Cup quarterfinals or semifinals).
That means the Magic are more likely to add one of these (on paper) difficult opponents to their schedule this December. And that will be added to a difficult part of the schedule.
The Magic will be in the middle of one of two particularly brutal stretches in their schedule when the NBA Cup comes around.
Beginning Dec. 3 with the NBA Cup game against the New York Knicks, the Orlando Magic play nine straight games against playoff opponents—Dec. 3 at the Knicks; Dec. 4 and 6 at the Philadelphia 76ers; Dec. 8 vs. the Phoenix Suns; Dec. 19 vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder; Dec. 21 and Dec. 26 vs. the Miami Heat; Dec. 23 vs. the Boston Celtics; and Dec. 27 vs. the Knicks.
That does not include the two games during NBA Cup elimination week. That could make for 11 straight playoff opponents.
The other brutal stretch is a Jan. 6-19 stretch of seven straight games against playoff opponents—Jan. 6 at the New York Knicks; Jan. 9 vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves; Jan. 10 vs. the Milwaukee Bucks; Jan. 12 vs. the Philadelphia 76ers; Jan. 14 at the Bucks; Jan. 17 at the Boston Celtics; and Jan. 19 vs. the Denver Nuggets.
Of course, these are the stretches good teams have to learn how to win. And the Magic should feel confident they can win these games.
Why the Magic's schedule is easier
But dig a little deeper and the Orlando Magic actually may have gotten a beneficial schedule.
Those two stretches of difficult games highlighted above include a lot of home games, where the Magic went 29-12 last year. The Magic beat the Nuggets, Celtics, Bucks and Cavs at the Kia Center. Defending the Kia Center home floor was one of the team's major steps forward last year.
There is more to it though.
According to the website Positive Residual, which does deeper analytics into the schedule, the Magic have the third-easiest schedule in the league next season by their strength of schedule metric. This takes into account more than just opponent win percentage. It looks at back-to-backs and rest advantage/disadvantage.
In both of those categories, the Magic have a major advantage.
The Magic will play a league-low 13 back-to-back this year. There is typically not a ton of difference in back-to-backs—the most in the league is 16. But those three can make a huge difference.
Last year, Orlando had among the most back-to-backs with 15. So the decrease in the back-to-backs is a major advantage for the Magic this year over last year.
But it is a little bit more than that.
The Magic play four of those back-to-backs without travel. That is quite unusual to play so many home-home back-to-backs. They have only five away-away back-to-backs too. And one of those is without travel with the Los Angeles double against the LA Clippers (Nov. 20) and Los Angeles Lakers (Nov. 21).
Orlando will only face three home-away back-to-backs. These can be especially daunting with long travel going away from home. But this year they are only to Memphis (Oct. 26 against the Memphis Grizzlies after the home opener), New York (Jan. 6 against the New York Knicks) and Charlotte (March 25 against the Charlotte Hornets).
The Jan. 6 game against the Knicks might be the only one we can rightfully consider a schedule loss based solely on travel.
The only other bad travel for a back-to-back is a Cleveland-to-San Antonio back-to-back on March 16-17.
On top of this, the relatively geographically isolated Magic are not among the heaviest travel teams in the league this year. They do not rank in the top five in most miles traveled as they typically do. Their week in New York to play the Brooklyn Nets (Nov. 29 and Dec. 1) and New York Knicks (Dec. 3) eliminates a major there-and-back on the team plane.
Orlando also will benefit from more games with a rest advantage—facing teams with fewer nights of rest than them.
The Magic will have 11 games with a rest advantage compared to eight games with a rest disadvantage. Last year, Orlando had one of the biggest discrepancies in the league with eight games with a rest advantage compared to 13 with a rest disadvantage.
Flipping both the back-to-backs and rest advantage games, especially considering how intense, physical and frenetic the Magic can play, could mean the Magic will be tougher to play and be able to take advantage of games they dropped last year when fatigue set in.
In this way, while the Magic may be playing tougher opponents on paper, they may be at an advantage for these games and steal some just because of the nature of the season.
The schedule has set Orlando up better for success this season than the team was even last year. And last year was a runaway success.
That is at least one reason to be excited for the 2025 season. But, of course, they have to play the games. And there are sure to be some surprises along the way that nobody can anticipate.
The countdown to Oct. 7 and the start of the preseason and the season opener Oct. 23 in Miami is very much on.