The Orlando Magic's season was all about trying to climb into the contending clas of teams in the Eastern Conference.
That feels like a silly thing to say now with how much the Magic have struggled. It has made a lot of decisions that were up in the air in the preseason more obvious -- and brought other critical questions to the front.
The final result of this season is still to be written. But the Magic did not reach their goals -- they will not have homecourt advantage in the first round of the Playoffs and seem all but certain to be in the Play-In Tournament.
The question will ultimately turn to why.
Most fans -- and really those around the league -- believe that the team will make the simple decision and move on from Jamahl Mosley this offseason. That was a direction that was always possible this season.
It may have been more inevitable than anyone believed.
Orlando could rightfully blame the injury to Franz Wagner for knocking the team back into the group of teams fighting for the Play-In.
But clearly something else has gone stale with this team. The Magic's defense has collapsed, entering Sunday's game against the New Orleans Pelicans at 16th in the league at 114.2 points per 100 possessions.
But there is still another trend that would hint that the Magic were not on track for their goals. And it was a trend that has continued even as the team made the Playoffs the last few years.
If the mission was to point toward a championship, the Magic's record against teams with winning records is still the biggest knock on the team. Orlando has struggled to build a system to compete consistently with the best teams in the league. And as the team has struggled to find itself, a slip down the standings was inevitable.
Even if the Magic had won 50 games, earned homecourt advantage and got to the second round, they might have reached this same conclusion for this reason.
If Orlando wants to compete with the best teams, the team actually needs to beat the best teams.
The struggles in "big games"
Before this season, Orlando Magic fans were obsessed with -- and often frustrated by -- the team's inability to win on national TV during the regular season.
The Orlando Magic had not won a nationally televised game since the 2019 season finale against the Charlotte Hornets before their late-season matinee win over the Cleveland Cavaliers last March.
The new TV deal brought more national TV games, and the Magic's offseason trade gave them more appearances in the spotlight this year.
Orlando acquitted itself well, finishing 8-6 in national TV games. This team can win big games and has victories over the Detroit Pistons, Boston Celtics, two against the New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets.
But a big part of why the Orlando Magic will struggle to escape the Play-In Tournament is that they won the season series against just one Eastern Conference postseason team -- their 5-0 sweep of the Miami Heat.
The Orlando Magic can still tie the season series with the Detroit Pistons (Monday's game at Kia Center) and Boston Celtics (the finale next week) and tied the New York Knicks with four early season games.
But the Magic find themselves in a deeper hole because they have struggled to beat the teams on their level. They do not own the tiebreaker against any of the teams they are competing with.
In all, the Magic are 21-29 against teams with records better than .500. Only the Toronto Raptors have fewer wins among Eastern Conference postseason teams.
That is not unusual though. And that is perhaps the biggest weakness for the Magic under coach Jamahl Mosley. They run a style that can dominate the bad teams in the league, but has struggled at times to scale up to the best teams.
Last year, Orlando went 12-25 against teams with records better than .500. That tied with the Heat and the Pistons for the fewest among postseason teams.
In 2024, when the Orlando Magic won 47 games, they went 19-28 against teams with winning records, beating out only the Chicago Bulls among East postseason teams.
There is at least a moderate upward trend in winning these games -- going from a .404 win percentage to .324 last year to .420 this season.
But the teams the Magic want to compete with are comfortably over .500. The Detroit Pistons are 33-15, the Boston Celtics are 29-20, the New York Knicks are 26-22, and the Cleveland Cavaliers are 26-23.
The good teams are better than .500 even against the best teams in the league. That is something the Magic are still chasing.
Lost identity
There might be something to it then that this kind of record is the biggest signal of the team reaching its ceiling and needing to make some changes with the way the team operates.
Jamahl Mosley was hired to lead a rebuild. He has worked tirelessly to build a foundation that has helped the team get to the Playoffs.
It is losing this identity and being unable to beat the best teams consistently that has had the Magic reaching this plateau.
The issues with the team are only greater because the team has seemingly lost its identity, dropping into the middle of the league in defensive rating.
That is seen in how the team has struggled against even the worst teams in the league.
The Magic are 20-7 against teams below .500, tied with the Heat for the fewest of those wins, explaining why they are in the 9/10 Play-In game.
Unlike previous seasons, the Magic were not able to feast on the bad teams in the same way. Orlando went 29-16 against the sub-.500 teams last year and 28-7 in 2024 (only the top two teams in the East had fewer losses in these games).
That is among the reasons why the loss to the Indiana Pacers last week stung so much. And why there was some hand-wringing over the narrow win over the Sacramento Kings. These are games you need to take care of.
And in the end, to win in the Playoffs means beating the best teams in the league consistently.
Right now, the Magic need to win games, period, at this point to escape the Play-In.
But these numbers suggest that Mosley did his job to build a foundation. But there was a ceiling to the kind of system he was running. One this team has struggled to climb in the last three years as they became moe competitive.