Ask anybody what the Orlando Magic's biggest needs are, and they will inevitably center on the team's offensive struggles.
After all, the team's 18th-rated offensive rating was their best since 2012. That is still not much to celebrate. The Magic have not had an offense in the top half of the league since Dwight Howard was playing. They merely escaped the bottom 10. That should not be a banner-waving accomplishment.
Orlando still seems to be thinking it will have some offensive issues. The team's shooting still appears suspect, with Desmond Bane helping, but not solving all of the team's issues. And the Magic face plenty of questions surrounding the efficiency and spacing their two best players can provide.
Offense does matter. And Sean Sweeney was brought in, at least in part, to revitalize and reshape the Magic's offense.
But something more important was missing from last year's team that disappointed on its way to the 8-seed. The Magic lost their identity.
Jamahl Mosley's tenure was defined by the team's growth defensively. They cut their teeth on defense and gained the reputation as a physical team that nobody could break.
The Orlando Magic got blown out in a five-game series with the Boston Celtics in 2025, but they gained respect for how they defended the high-powered Celtics and pushed them despite their offensive flaws.
The 2026 series with the Detroit Pistons was all about the Orlando Magic being able to go toe-to-toe and match the Pistons' physicality.
This is a defensive team.
But you would not know it from last season. The Magic's season did not fall apart because of an anemic offense. The offense, for all of its flaws, improved.
The Magic's defense dropped like a rock, from second in the league to 13th in the league in defensive rating. It was the inconsistency on defense that changed the Magic and led to their disappointing season.
Sean Sweeney's first task to unlocking this team's potential is to restore its defense.
"The key with getting Sean Sweeney is: Will that elevate your defense back to where you need it to be for all the rest to work," Steve Jones said on The Dunker Spot podcast. "I don't know what they are going to run offensively as of now. We're in July. I felt like the defense slipping last year really exacerbated all of the issues. Injuries didn't help. You can't afford for your defense to not be really good with this current roster. If you fix that and you defend at a high level, does that now re-unlock a lot of things? Can you try different concepts to unlock Paolo? You have the talent, you have the size and length. Can you get the defense back up to a certain level and make a run based on that?"
That is the essential question for the Magic
This is a defensive team that struggled all season on defense. And hiring Sweeney was as much about getting a new voice as restoring this defensive identity.
Where did the defense go?
The question the Orlando Magic have been quietly asking themselves all offseason is where did their defense go?
They were third in the league with a 110.8 defensive rating in 2024 and second in the league with a 109.1 defensive rating in 2025. Last year, the team fell to 13th at 113.6 points allowed per 100 possessions.
That is quite a drop.
Injuries were certainly part of the reason.
Franz Wagner is one of the team's best and most versatile defenders and played in only 34 games last season. The Magic had a 113.5 defensive rating with Wagner on the floor, according to Databallr, 2.7 points per 100 possessions better than the team's overall average.
Wagner made a bigger impact on defense than he did on offense. His absence cut out part of the Magic's defensive force.
Injuries explain part of the problem. But the Magic slipped in many areas.
During the 2025 season, the Magic allowed 120.0 points per 100 possessions in eight games. They had 26 in the 2026 season. They had nine games where they gave up 130 points per 100 possessions or more in the 2026 season, compared to three the year before.
A big part of that downturn was the team's inability to force turnovers at the same rate. The Magic went from second in the league in opponent turnover rate in 2025 at 16.8 percent to 14th at 14.7 percent.
There was a breakdown in the team's overall defensive intensity and effort. Franz Wagner suggested that Jamahl Mosley lost some of his voice in the locker room. The team's motivation was clearly off.
That was undeniable and the Magic need to figure out how to fix that issue to move forward.
Sweeney's task ahead
Sean Sweeney has built his reputation in this coaching search for his defensive identity.
With the San Antonio Spurs, he employed a high-pressure defensive style that blitzed teams and led to loads of chaos. It helped that he had Victor Wembanyama as a backstop near the rim. But the Spurs finished third in the league with a 110.4 defensive rating, the same level the Magic were at the past two seasons.
San Antonio was still 28th in opponent turnover rate. Sweeney's defense was focused less on creating turnovers and more focused on being solid, speeding up teams and making them uncomfortable, and communicating and contesting everything.
It is a different kind of defense. But it had a lot of the same principles.
Sweeney has a lot of tools at his disposal with this team defensively. They can still be an elite defensive team, even in a league with some really quality and unique defensive teams.
A better defense is the key to unlocking everything for the Magic.
"I think the Magic have something that works," Jones said on The Dunker Spot. "Can we rebuild a formula that elevates everyone? The defense gets high, and Paolo and Franz are able to have a little more synergy. You unlock things offensively. I think there is a higher ceiling than people expect."
If the Magic can get back to playing defense at an elite level, a lot of things open up for them on both sides of the floor.
Sweeney will change some things offensively, too. Everyone is expecting the team to play faster and with more purpose and direction.
Everything starts with a recovery on defense though. Orlando needs its defense to bounce back to have a chance to do something special this season.
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