Jase Richardson’s path with the Orlando Magic starts with the same thing that’s been missing for stretches of his first year: a real opening.
That’s the tension with Richardson. Orlando clearly saw a skill set it needed when it took him, because he wasn’t the kind of prospect the Magic usually chase.
He was 6-foot-1, didn’t bring the long wingspan the roster tends to favor, and wasn’t known as a defensive stopper. What he did bring was shot-making, efficiency at the rim and the kind of scoring pop Orlando has been trying to add.
For a team built so deliberately around size and defense, that made Richardson stand out.
The Magic have been asking a lot from a roster that has gotten closer to contention while still needing more offensive creation. Richardson fit that need better than most of the players on the board in that range, but the fit never came easy once the season started.
He opened behind Tyus Jones, then later Jevon Carter after Orlando added the veteran guard, and the rookie spent a lot of time watching instead of playing. He was mostly on the sideline in the playoffs, too.
That’s not unusual for a first-year player taken in the 20s. But Orlando doesn’t really have the luxury of being casual about those picks.
The organization is short on draft capital and cash, which makes every swing matter. And when second-rounder Noah Penda looks like he may have a clearer route to minutes than Richardson, the pressure only grows.
Richardson still has to earn his way into the picture. The encouraging part is that, when he did get run, he showed exactly why Orlando was interested.
He appeared in 54 games and averaged 4.4 points while shooting 47.3 percent from the field and 35.4 percent from three. Inside five feet, he went 38 for 55, good for 69.1 percent. That finishing ability was one of the main selling points coming out of college, and it translated when he got chances.
The bigger minutes told a slightly fuller story. In 21 games where he played at least 12 minutes, Richardson averaged 7.6 points and shot 61 for 133 from the floor, along with 18 for 55 from deep. The production was real enough to notice, even if it came in uneven bursts.
He showed he could get to his spots and score. He made fast decisions.
He played at the pace Orlando wanted. But consistency was the issue, and so was the context of those minutes.
A lot of his extended run came in blowouts, and his two highest-scoring games were part of late pushes that made the final score look tighter than the game actually was - a 20-point effort against the Washington Wizards and an 18-point effort against the Boston Celtics.
That’s the tricky part of Richardson’s rookie year. There were flashes, but not enough of a runway to build a full evaluation.
He had one real stretch in the rotation, and that went away quickly. He never got the kind of steady look that lets a young guard settle in and show whether he can stick.
The question now is what Orlando does with that unfinished business.
The answer probably starts with the same concerns that kept him from locking down a role in the first place: mistakes and defense. That’s the threshold in Orlando, and Richardson hasn’t yet shown enough scoring to override it.
He competed, though. He played hard and brought energy, and there were moments when it felt like the Magic could have used exactly that.
This offseason, Richardson tried to address another part of the job. At Summer League, he focused on being a better creator and playmaker, because Orlando also needs help at point guard.
That wasn’t his main role in college, where he was more of a scorer and played off the ball. The transition to the NBA has asked him to expand beyond that.
In three Summer League games, he averaged 18.3 points and 4.7 assists. The effort was encouraging, even if the mistakes were still there. Richardson helped Orlando go 2-1 in the games he played, and the Magic finished 4-1 overall in Vegas.
That’s not the same as proving it in the NBA. It just sets the stage.
Now the work becomes about whether Richardson can turn that offseason into something that sticks once the real games matter again. He still has promise.
He still knows how to score when he gets a chance. But the chance itself was scarce last season.
This year, he has to make the Magic give him one. And Orlando has to find out what it really has in the second-year guard.
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