Following a 22-60 season in 2021/22, the Magic are crossing their fingers that No. 1 overall draft pick Paolo Banchero can become their transformative franchise player. In a new piece for The Athletic, Zach Harper recaps the Banchero draft selection and the rest of Orlando’s eventful 2022 offseason
In addition to Banchero, the Magic selected swingman Caleb Houstan out of Michigan with the No. 32 pick in the draft. Harper thinks that the team had a solid, under-the-radar summer and views Banchero as a prospect capable of making a positive impact on the team even as a rookie. Still, Harper cautions that the team will probably continue to have trouble recording a significant uptick in wins this season. He also wonders about how the team’s top three healthy backcourt players — Jalen Suggs, Cole Anthony and Markelle Fultz — will contribute.
There’s more out of Orlando:
- Magic small forward Franz Wagner, the No. 7 draft pick in 2021 out of Michigan, enjoyed an eventful 2022 EuroBasket run playing for his native Germany. Khobi Price of the Orlando Sentinel takes a look at where the 21-year-old thrived for the German national team, and what areas could still use some work. Price notes that Wagner’s play-making, his three-point shooting, and his skills as an off-ball cutter were among the highlights of his summer abroad. Price suggests that Wagner could still work to upgrade his ability to finish around the rim in coverage.
- After nabbing the bronze medal against Poland today, Wagner is optimistic that the German national team can look at its success at EuroBasket as a foundation for the future, per John Rammas of Eurohoops.“Hopefully, we can keep a little momentum from this,” Wagner said. “It was very difficult, I thought. Mentally, to re-focus and get a really intense Polish team. They did a good job fighting all tournament and obviously tonight. That was the toughest part.”
They should’ve went after Spida. If their front office wouldn’t have just signed contract extensions, I def think they would have.
One of the few things I agree with you on. I wanted Dono to wear a Magic uni so badly.
Whoa whoa whoa — Sankara you told me a while back OFFICIALLY that they were?? That I was apparently slow for not realizing Orlando was about to make a monster offer for Donovan….
What happened? I thought you had that inside info broh? While I was foolishly reading sourced headlines and listening to informed podcasts…
Sankara operates the same way a chimp does when throwing its feces. Throw enough and somethings gonna stick. The rest just stinks.
I love the pick the Orlando Magic made when they took Paolo Banchero first. He’s the best player in the draft to me and going to be special. I could be bias because I’m a die hard Duke Blue Devils fan.
Imo Fultz is expendable. Suggs is the future at PG. And Cole cause of his scoring. Can make an excellent third guard. But will he accept that. Is the question.
A more interesting move for me is. What they do with Issac. He’s a 4 to me. And was starting to flourish before his injury. Just don’t see how you keep him. With Banchero here.
Magic have good young talent. But no direction.
Because of Isaac’s weakside help defense and shot blocking he’s an excellent fit for small ball lineups with banchero at the 5.
JI will most likely come off bench and pick up minutes at both F spots and C.
BUT he’ll have some competition for bench F minutes:
Bamba has already shown he can play and be effective playing next to WCJr + fills key Magic needs (3P/rim protection). So JI will have to fight him for those 4-5 bench rotation minutes.
Bol Bol is also a wildcard factor to grab rotation minutes at 3-4. There has been a mounting buzz about him from Magic players and personnel this summer.
Terrence Ross recently said that Bol has been killing it in scrimmages (most of team has been in ORL playing together all summer). Additionally, former Magic player and current TV analyst Jeff Turner said something similar about Bol just yesterday.
On top of those two, JI will also have to compete with Okeke for minutes at 3-4. He had a rough start to his sophomore year but was very solid in 2nd half of season.
They have a direction…some people just don’t watch the Magic so they don’t know wtf they are talking about when commenting about them.
Fultz is by far the Magic’s best PG prospect, he is no more/less expendable than the rest of the backcourt is at this point.
Franz and WCJr are definite core building pieces, with Paolo most likely one as well (but you never know until actual NBA games are played).
This year the Magic will be evaluating which of the backcourt will be the right fit with them. So as far as being “expendable,” all 3 of Fultz, Suggs and Cole are equally in a position to be moved if they don’t look like they fit w/core frontcourt.
Fultz’s fit with the Franz/Paolo tandem is a question…but so does Suggs – and he has even bigger questions, like is he even a rotation tier guard in the NBA?
Suggs is not a primary ball handler at the NBA level and IMO is pretty unlikely to ever be one. His handle and shooting are both a very long way from being sustainable in a starting PG role, at least if team is actually trying to win games.
At this point, the hope is Suggs can at least improve those aspects enough to one day play a Marcus Smart type role.
Cole is not starting guard material as he’s not a potent enough scorer to be able to ignore his horrific defense. Teams will just hunt him in the post-season. Unless he takes a massive leap this year, his future is more than likely in a 6th man type role.
In regards to Isaac, he’ll almost certainly be on minutes restrictions for a while + it’ll be a while before he gets back to form (if ever). It will take at least a full season of him staying healthy before the team trusts his health. I’d expect him to come off bench grabbing 20-25 mpg spread out over all 3 frontcourt spots.