What Happened to the Magic?

Orlando’s Strong Start to the Season

The Magic have had a rollercoaster of a season from start to end. They were as high as the second seed early in the season, and it looked like Orlando was going to build on last season’s success at the beginning of the season after a hard-fought series against the Cavaliers in the 2024 playoffs, which ended in seven games.

Down Go the Magic’s Stars

Everything changed after Paolo Banchero’s injury in October and Franz Wagner’s injury in December, which was the beginning of the end for Orlando. Franz and Paolo were en route to an All-Star season before their injury luck, but their dreams died as soon as they were sidelined.

Without the Magic’s stars, the Magic’s role players stepped up big time for multiple games midway through the season, but it was definitely unsustainable as they quickly fell back to reality. To make matters worse, once both Paolo and Franz returned from injury, Jalen Suggs went down, effectively for the whole season, as did Sixth Man of the Year candidate Moritz Wagner, while the stars they took quite some time to get back to game state and reintegrate with the lineup, causing the Magic to continue sliding in the standings.

Orlando’s Mid-Season Madness

At the trade deadline, the team looked poised to make a move and turn their season back around, but to most fans’ surprise, the Magic made no moves at the deadline. Jeff Weltman decided he liked what he saw prior to the injury bug hitting the team, and he wanted to see them all play together for a full healthy season, which, in hindsight, may have been a poor decision by Weltman and may come to haunt them this offseason.

Paolo and Franz eventually found their footing again after the All-Star break as they both went on a tear to try and keep the Magic in playoff contention, but their efforts weren’t enough as the role players didn’t play up to standard and failed to provide adequate offensive production to match the stars’ output. Orlando’s signature defense is what mainly got them through the last few grueling months of the season.

Near Sweep in the Playoffs

Through the final stretch of the season, the Magic fell all the way to the play-in tournament, as Orlando ended up finishing the season as a seventh seed. Luckily, they ended up beating out the Atlanta Hawks in their first play-in game convincingly for a ticket to the playoffs.

After facing the juggernaut Celtics in Round 1, the odds were already stacked against the Magic from the jump as they were up against the reigning champions, but with the Magic’s defense, there was a slim chance.

The team was able to make strike the Celtics with their physicality early in the series and made the first few games interesting, as they won their first game at home in Game 3, but just about every other game, although competitive at times, was ended in a pretty convincing win for Boston and Orlando simply couldn’t keep up with the firepower that was thrown at them.

What’s Next for the Magic?

Early Look Towards the Offseason

Now that the Magic are officially out of the playoffs, all their focus shifts to the offseason. Orlando will look to build around Franz and Paolo and will need to make some tough decisions on the roster to see who is necessary to keep and who needs to be moved in order to take the team to the next level. Jamahl Mosley has done a great job with the team as well during his tenure, but the Magic will also need to evaluate if he is the coach of the future or if there is a better option out on the market right now.

Orlando’s Interesting Situation

The Magic have a great blend of enticing young pieces and respectable veterans on team-friendly contracts on the roster next season, It will certainly be interesting to see who Orlando decides to keep and which players are expendable.

The Magic also have some capital in this year’s draft, including their own first, the Denver Nuggets’ first, and two seconds, which sit at 16th, 25th, 46th, and 57th overall. It will be interesting to see if the Magic decide to draft anybody in what is shaping up to be an exciting draft class or if they will be shipping these picks out.

The value of Orlando’s players is up in the air after the season that the team had, as many players were inconsistent in many areas of their game. The Magic’s draft picks from beyond this year may also be on the table for trades this offseason, which may be of value to other teams because of the current uncertainty around Orlando’s future.

Making the Orlando Magic Competitive

With almost everybody under contract next season, the Magic will need to rely on the trade market as opposed to the free agent market in order to make this team more competitive. With Paolo Banchero’s contract extension looming, the Magic may struggle to find wiggle room and value, forcing the front office to make some tough decisions when calling other teams up.

As of now, it seems like the team is going to try and main the core of Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, and Jalen Suggs together, but nobody else seems untouchable for Orlando, not even Jamahl Mosley and the coaching staff. We may be looking at a very different team next season as Orlando will try to make the Magic a top team in the East and make the Magic competitive again.