CLEVELAND — The Orlando Magic lost their playoff series, but they still consider their season a win overall. Few outsiders expected them to win 47 games, earn the fifth seed in the East and nearly reach the second round of the playoffs.
Their rebuild, which started in early 2021, is over. Paolo Banchero made his first All-Star team. Franz Wagner proved he can be a high-level player. And Jalen Suggs made the biggest jump on the roster, emerging as one of the league’s best perimeter defenders.
“I think we shocked the world,” point guard Markelle Fultz said less than an hour after Orlando lost its first-round postseason series Sunday in Game 7 against the Cleveland Cavaliers. “We fell a little bit short of our expectations. But at the same time, I’m extremely proud of my brothers for sticking with it, fighting every game no matter what through the whole season, even when people didn’t believe we can do what we’re doing.”
Next season, however, 47 regular-season victories and a first-round playoff exit won’t represent progress. Fairly or unfairly, it would look like standing still.
Which begs the question: In addition to internal improvement and avoiding injuries to key players, how can Orlando solidify what it just accomplished and then take a step further?
The team must improve its shooting and its playmaking.
The Magic finished the regular season 24th leaguewide in 3-point shooting percentage, making only 35.2 percent of their attempts. The only clubs that fared worse were lottery teams: Washington, Detroit, Toronto, San Antonio, Memphis and Portland.
The postseason confirmed the Magic’s worst fears about their shortcomings. The Cavaliers all but dared the Magic to beat them through the long ball. In the series, Orlando shot only 68-of-213 combined on 3-pointers that the NBA stats database considers open (with the closest defender 4-6 feet away) or wide open (with the closest defender at least six feet away). That’s only a 31.9 percent success rate, and that’s nowhere near good enough to make a long playoff run, even with a top-tier defense.
It’s reasonable for team officials to expect Wagner and Banchero to improve their shooting as they move further into their pro careers. The same goes for Orlando’s 2023 first-round draft picks, guard Anthony Black and swingman Jett Howard.
Suggs, on the other hand, may already have made his big shooting leap, improving this past season to 39.7 percent on 5.1 attempts per game.
Shot creation remains a problem. For all his skills as a defender, and despite his improved long-range shooting, Suggs is fairly limited as an orchestrator who can generate easier shots for his teammates. Reserve point guard Cole Anthony, whose shooting regressed this season, is less a distributor than a scorer.
Fultz, on the other hand, is a natural point guard who has a knack for getting anywhere he wants to go on the floor and finding open teammates. The problem with Fultz, though, remains his shooting. Burdened with thoracic outlet syndrome, he continues to have a wonky shooting stroke and cannot space the floor. He will be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
Magic officials may be content with Banchero and Wagner initiating the offense, generating shot opportunities for themselves and perhaps paint-touch 3s for others. But as superb as Banchero was in the postseason, the approach of Banchero and Wagner shouldering so much of the shot-creation load does not seem sustainable in the playoffs, when opposing defenses raise their intensity. Orlando would benefit from improving at point guard, which would enable Suggs to shift to a two-guard role.
Absent an upgrade at point guard, Orlando desperately needs a dynamic shooting guard who can create his own shot. Gary Harris, who turns 30 in September, is a fine defender and a solid shooter on low volume, but he has never provided the scoring and playmaking punch the team needs. Harris also will be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
But there’s a positive in all of this.
The Magic enter the 2024 offseason with an unusual amount of flexibility, especially for a team that made the playoffs. They have only $69.7 million in guaranteed salary owed to seven players — Anthony, Banchero, Black, Wendell Carter Jr., Howard, Suggs and Wagner — plus the 18th pick in the upcoming draft.
The current league estimate is a $141 million cap figure for the 2024-25 season, so that leaves the Magic a lot of wiggle room to pursue different priorities.
That said, the front office has real choices to make. Their spending power would drop significantly if they decide to keep Jonathan Isaac (whose $17.4 million salary for next season is non-guaranteed), Mo Wagner (who has an $8 million team option) and Joe Ingles (who has an $11 million team option) at those salaries. None of that even includes the impending free agency choices Orlando must make on Harris, Fultz, Goga Bitadze and Chuma Okeke.
If the Magic take an aggressive approach to their cap, they could open up approximately $61.5 million in space and have the $8 million room exception on top of it. But generating all that spending power would require some painful goodbyes.
If Orlando takes an aggressive cap approach, it likely would come via a high-profile free agent wanting to join the Magic or an unbalanced trade to save their trade partner money. The latter mechanism could be useful in negotiations with teams like the Hawks (Trae Young) and possibly the Trail Blazers (Anfernee Simons), because both of those franchises have more long-term money on their books than they would like.
The Magic have the cap flexibility, draft capital and promising young players such as Anthony Black and Jett Howard to use in potential trades for someone along the lines of Portland’s Anfernee Simons. (Jaime Valdez / USA Today)
A more modest approach, where the front office picks up the player option on Mo Wagner but sheds Ingles, Isaac or both to still add some high-profile talent, would create between $35 and $55 million in space. Isaac is one of the most compelling salary situations in the league because his guarantee date is not until January 2025, meaning president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman and company can consistently evaluate whether they would rather have the defensive ace or that $17 million in spending power without having to make any sort of a commitment. The team could even open up a third path, using Isaac as matching salary if a trade partner was interested in him at that wage for the 2024-25 season.
Extreme flexibility lends itself to a high-aiming approach, where the front office pursues its top targets via trade and free agency at the outset while retaining the ability to run largely the same team back or even push that space to the 2025 offseason — though some of their theoretical future room will get eaten up by significant new contracts for Franz Wagner and Suggs via extensions or restricted free agency.
That ties in with the other big cap consideration for the Magic’s 2024 offseason: Their exciting young core will get much more expensive soon. Wagner and Suggs, who were Orlando’s lottery picks in 2021, will be eligible for pricey new deals before the 2024-25 season begins. Banchero will be eligible for an extension prior to the 2025-26 season.
So, the Orlando front office will have to consider the upcoming big paydays for Banchero, Wagner and Suggs when it weighs how it will approach this offseason, even if shedding salary at a later time is possible. It is a complicated calculus that is incredibly important to get right for both present and sustained success.
Orlando has a full cupboard of draft capital to use in potential trades. The Magic have retained all of their own first-round draft picks and also have an incoming protected first-round pick from the Nuggets (via the 2021 trade headlined by Aaron Gordon and Harris) that likely will convey in 2025.
In any potential trade or free agent decision, Magic executives must consider the degree to which they’re willing to sacrifice defense to add offensive talent, with Young being a primary theoretical example. Look at Orlando’s main starting five of Suggs, Harris, Wagner, Banchero and Carter, and you won’t find an obvious weak link on defense.
Washington’s Tyus Jones, an unrestricted free agent-to-be, could help Orlando at point guard with his court generalship. But at just over 6 feet tall, he would be a liability on defense.
Perhaps Klay Thompson, who will be an unrestricted free agent this summer, would be an upgrade over Harris. Denver’s Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who would become an unrestricted free agent if he turns down his $15.4 million player option for 2024-24, would be an upgrade.
Another positive for the Magic: after many years of irrelevance, they are widely regarded as an up-and-coming team is positioned to win big. The organization has a head coach whom players love in Jamahl Mosley. The team is based in a warm-weather climate in a location with no state taxes. As a sweetener, the Magic also boast the best practice facility in the league.
Orlando has been a draw for free agents before, back when it could dangle the opportunity to win big. The front office can make that case now, for the first time in at least 13 years. Banchero, Wagner and Suggs form an enticing nucleus, as they proved this season.
“It just shows where we’re headed,” Banchero said. “It shows what we were able to do in just this year by itself, and I think it’s really encouraging for everybody: players, coaches, the whole organization. So, we’re really going to build off this.”
(Top photo of Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner: Rob Gray / USA Today)
