For all the offseason noise around Orlando, Franz Wagner still feels like the one piece that can keep the Magic from drifting apart.
That matters because there’s plenty of uncertainty hanging over this roster. Paolo Banchero has questions around him as the team’s lead star.
Jalen Suggs has to prove he can be the kind of point guard a championship-level team can trust. The shooting still looks shaky.
And there’s the added wrinkle of a rookie head coach stepping into a season where the pressure is already baked in.
The Magic may believe in the group they’ve built, but the league’s salary-cap realities make change hard to avoid at some point. So if this thing is going to hold, it needs something - or someone - to bind it together.
That someone is Wagner.
Orlando’s biggest proof point from last season came when the roster was mostly intact and still pushed the 60-win Detroit Pistons to seven games after taking a 3-1 series lead. Around the league, there’s a strong belief that if Wagner had not strained his calf in Game 4, the Magic would have finished the job. Some even thought the conference finals were still in play.
That’s why Wagner’s health looms so large now. After two injury-plagued seasons, Orlando needs him on the floor and at his best. He’s the connector, the player who bridges lineups, stabilizes the offense and takes over when the moment calls for it.
Locked on Cavs host Danny Cunningham said on Locked on NBA, "If he plays 65 games, I 'd be a little surprised if he is not All-NBA," Locked on Cavs host Danny Cunningham said on Locked on NBA. "I think he is that type of talent.
He has shown he can be that type of guy. He just has to stay healthy.
That is something easier said than done. You can say that about a lot of people.
"But I think what Franz has shown and the way that I think he can drive winning in a way that Paolo Banchero maybe hasn't been able to show because Paolo Banchero's game can at times be a little more empty calories."
The conversation around Orlando has started to frame Banchero and Wagner as a choice between two stars. That’s not how the Magic see it, and it’s not how the season has to work. It’s a both/and situation, with Wagner still carrying a massive share of the load.
Banchero has already said part of his job this season is to encourage a more aggressive version of Wagner and then get out of the way when it shows up. Wagner has often carried himself like the quieter younger brother - more comfortable in the background, more naturally suited to cutting and slashing than running everything as the main creator. Now both stars need to lead, and they need to do it together under a new coach.
Wagner’s absence last season, after the high ankle sprain, was felt everywhere. He has a way of making the floor make sense. He helps every lineup settle into the right shape, and he can dominate on the ball or punish defenses off it as a cutter better than almost anyone else on the roster.
Before that injury, Wagner was rolling. Excluding the game in which he got hurt, he averaged 23.4 points per game and shot 48.7 percent from the field and 35.4 percent from three. Orlando posted a +2.5 net rating with him on the floor.
That figure was actually worse than the team’s average at the time, which was 2.3 points per 100 possessions worse offensively. But the bigger point was the effect he had on everybody else.
Banchero, who often draws criticism for his on/off numbers, had a +3.3 net rating in those games, though he also missed time with a strained groin. Suggs was at +9.9 in that stretch.
The same pattern showed up in the playoffs. Through the first four games against Detroit, Orlando’s best net rating belonged to Wagner at +6.8, with the team posting a 104.8 offensive rating and a 98.0 defensive rating.
When Wagner was off the floor, the Magic were at -9.9. By comparison, they were -2.1 with Banchero off the floor.
That’s the kind of impact that makes Wagner look like the player who keeps everything tied together. The Magic could reasonably want more from Banchero as a standalone force, but Wagner was the one making so much of the machinery work.
There’s also a strong case that Wagner should already have an All-Star appearance on his résumé. The belief around the league is that if not for his torn oblique in the 2025 season, he would have made his first All-Star Game.
He was averaging 24.2 points per game that season. He was also on that kind of track before last season’s high ankle sprain, especially with Orlando sitting at 14-10 and fifth in the East when he went down.
The Magic were 1-4 out of the gate, then surged to 13-6 after that start, which only adds to the optimism around what Wagner’s return can mean.
Orlando should want more aggression from him, and more playmaking, too. He has already shown he can take over games. An improved three-point shot would help as well; he hit 35.4 percent from deep before the injury, which marked a step forward after two straight seasons when that shot had gone missing.
It’s not hard to see Wagner back in the All-Star mix. But even more than that, he’s the player who makes the whole vision work.
Another 6-foot-10 ball handler is the kind of piece Jeff Weltman has been building toward, and Wagner is the one who was missing last year. If Orlando is going to click, he’s the one who can hold it all together.
In Other News...
Magic Offseason Now Hinges On One Risk Fans Cant Ignore
The Magics offseason has settled into a careful, cost-conscious pattern, and the addition of Malaki Branham fits that approach as neatly as anything else so far. Orlando brought in the young guard as a low-risk bet, hoping a player with some shot-making promise can add depth without forcing the front office into a bigger financial commitment. With limited room to maneuver, these smaller moves matter more than usual, especially as the team tries to round out the roster around a new coaching staff.
Branham arrives with the kind of profile that makes sense for a club in Orlandos position: limited NBA experience, some appeal as a three-point threat, and enough uncertainty to keep the upside tethered to the risk. His minutes have trended down in recent seasons, which is part of why this is such a restrained swing rather than a headline-grabbing acquisition. For the Magic, the real question is whether these conservative additions can add up to something useful once Sean Sweeney gets his first season underway. [Read more 🡒]