For the last 15 years, the Orlnado Magic have been left behind in the league's three-point revolution.
Through bad draft timing, a poor rebuild and differing player priorities, the Magic have struggled to break through from deep. They have essentially ignored the 3-point shot.
As attempts around the league increased, Orlando has been playing catch up. The team has faced the dual problems of not making enough threes and not taking enough threes.
No one considers the Magic a threat from deep. That inevitably puts a ceiling on the team. And figuring out how to create better looks and make them remains the team's white shale.
Through three preseason games, the Magic are not going to beat the accusations that they cannot shoot. Not until the regular season begins.
But the Magic are shooting it differently.
In three games, they have taken 45, 38 and 44 3-point attempts. The Magic eclipsed 40 3-point attempts just 13 times and 38 attempts only 22 times.
In the first half of the Magic's preseason games (when the starters and rotation players took up almost every minute), they shot 23, 20 and 26 attempts. That is a blistering pace that looks more like a modern offense.
For a full game, that is 42.3 3-point attempts per game, the sixth-most in the preseason. They are shooting 38.6 percent (ninth in the league).
If those ranks hold, that would certainly be transformative for the Magic.
The Magic are shooting a lot more threes. It may not be directly intentional, but it is part of what the team is trying to get to.
"I think it was about taking the right shots," Paolo Banchero said after practice last week. "I thought we did a great job getting into the paint, making plays, kicking out to open guys and the guys who were open to shoot the ball let it fly and had a good night from three."
The Orlando Magic's hot shooting -- 20 for 45 -- against the Memphis Grizzlies in the preseason opener could be dismissed as a fluke. But now after a second hot-shooting game against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday and another attempt-heavy game in the loss on Sunday, the Magic's focus on working for better 3-point shots seems to be something real.
It is preseason. Three-point attempts are usually up in the preseason. Everything should be taken with a grain of salt.
But this seems like a new leaf. The Magic are trying to take a lot more threes.
The 3-point math
The easy narrative around the league is that it has become a purely 3-point shooting league. Everyone has seen the attempts go up and how vital 3-point shooting is. When a team gets hot and creates loads of threes, they become impossible to defend.
Offenses are simply more efficient than ever because defenses must compromise on what they are willing to give up and how many threes they can concede.
The Orlando Magic have mostly not participated in this. The three-point shot was something they worked around. And so the team would often find itself trying to eliminate opponent 3-point attempts to keep up since they could not shoot.
Improving the team's shooting has been the white whale for this franchise.
In the 2024 season, the Magic took the second-fewest 3-point attempts per game (31.3 per game).
In 2025, the Magic rose to 23rd in the league at 35.3 attempts per game -- but shot a league-worst 31.8 percent. Last year, the Magic were 22nd with 34.1 attempts per game. Their big 3-point addition, Desmond Bane, took the fewest 3-point attempts per game since his rookie season.
The Magic did not really engage with the 3-point shot. And with such a low percentage, the Magic were not only not getting quality looks -- even if teams were leaving them open -- but not keeping up with the 3-pointers they conceded.
The Magic have been top four in the league the last three years in 3-point attempts conceded. That helped them stay in games. But it was always a math problem. The Magic could not keep up with the teams that took a ton of attempts because they could not make enough to match.
Sweeney's emphasis on spacing
Hiring coach Sean Sweeney was not some massive signal of a change.
He was the San Antonio Spurs' defensive coordinator, although he had coached plenty of offense in his time with the Dallas Mavericks. He was not a one-dimensional coach. But nobody knew what his offense would be like or where he would put his emphasis.
But his whole focus offensively before taking over was on promoting getting the best shot quickly and injecting more pace and speed into the offense. Throughout camp, he has talked almost exclusively about creating better spacing and making sure players are in the correct spots to execute actions and give drivers room to create.
"We talk about efficiency on the offensive end. We want to get efficient shots and get high-value shots," Sweeney said at a practice before Sunday's game. "Shot quality is something that we spend a lot of time on as a group, trying to educate ourselves on and ultimately educate ourselves on how to do it in the game to get great shots."
Sweeney is not putting a number on the right number of 3-point shots for his team. But the point is to get into spaces to help each other and make defense make those difficult choices.
That takes some movement and intention. It is part of the principles the team is trying to drill throughout training camp.
As Wendell Carter explained it, the offensive scheme is to get the open man the ball. It is still about trusting the team to be in the right spots and make the right decisions.
But the improvement in shooting is not merely about spacing. Multiple players have talked about how Sweeney has tried to instruct players on what a good shot is and on shot preparation. He has built confidence in this team.
"One thing that Sweeney has really talked a lot about is shot education and understanding what's a good shot and what's a bad shot," Desmond Bane said after shootaround Tuesday. "The quickest we can get a good shot, we're going to let it go regardless of it's a two or a three. We're trying to play the right brand of basketball."
It is OK to be a little skeptical that this will continue. Plenty of teams have shot well in the preseason only to fall apart in the regular season -- the Magic were 10th shooting 35.9 percent from three last preseason.
But this is a necessary evolution for the team. It certainly feels like it was a long time coming.
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