The Magic are almost back, and the questions around this team are lined up as neatly as the chairs inside AdventHealth Training Center for media day.
Orlando opens camp this week with a new head coach, a fresh batch of expectations and a roster that still has some unfinished business. Sean Sweeney is taking over a group built around Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Desmond Bane and Jalen Suggs, and the first real test is less about talent than about how quickly this team buys into a different voice.
That’s the big theme hanging over the start of camp. When Jeff Weltman explained the move away from Jamahl Mosley, now head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans, he put it bluntly: “Short of acquiring a star player, I do believe that the greatest impact that you can have on a team is to bring in a new coach.”
Now it’s on Sweeney, 42, to prove that point. He said in June, when he was formally introduced, “I’m a competitor,” he said in June.
“I want to do things with integrity, and I want to make sure we’re connected in how we play.” That message - character, competition, connection and the game itself - is what he’s bringing into his first training camp as an NBA head coach.
The calendar is moving fast. Orlando hosts media day Monday at AdventHealth Training Center, starts camp the next day, plays its first preseason game Oct. 7 at Memphis and opens the regular season Oct. 21 against Atlanta at Kia Center. Before any of that gets here, though, the Magic still have a few loose ends to sort through.
One of the biggest involves Anthony Black. The 2023 lottery pick still hasn’t landed a rookie-scale extension, and the deadline to reach one is 6 p.m. on Oct. 19, the day before the season begins.
If nothing gets done, Black would be a restricted free agent next summer. That would let him sign an offer sheet elsewhere, with Orlando able to match.
He could also become unrestricted if the Magic choose not to qualify him, opening the door for him to sign with any team.
Black’s camp has seen several peers cash in already. Houston’s Amen Thompson got five years and $208 million, Detroit’s Ausar Thompson landed five years and $155 million, and Utah’s Keyonte George agreed to five years and $157.5 million. Black missed time late last season with a left lateral abdominal strain, but he still posted career highs of 15 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists in 29.8 minutes per game across 64 regular-season appearances.
There’s also the matter of the final roster spot. Orlando enters camp with 14 of 15 standard contract slots filled, just as it did last year before waiting until February to add Jevon Carter. The Magic could take that same patient route again and hold the last spot until after the Feb. 11 trade deadline, or they could fill it sooner if someone on a two-way or Exhibit 10 deal makes enough noise in camp.
The two-way group includes rookie second-round pick Izaiyah Nelson, center Colin Castleton and forward Alex Morales. The Exhibit 10 players are JD Davison, Malaki Branham and Kevin Knox II. There’s a financial reason to keep the spot open, too: Orlando sits only $2.5 million below the league’s second apron, and waiting would allow the team to sign someone later at a prorated salary.
Nikola Vucevic is another name worth watching, even if he’s in a very different stage of his career now than when he last wore a Magic uniform five seasons ago. He turns 36 on Oct. 24 and said he still has plenty left.
Last season, split between Chicago and Boston, he played 64 regular-season games and averaged 15.1 points, 8.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists in 28.4 minutes a night. With Moe Wagner gone to the Brooklyn Nets, Vucevic was Orlando’s only free agent addition, and his fit in a frontcourt that already includes Wendell Carter Jr. and Goga Bitadze is one of the more interesting camp questions.
Then there’s Nelson, whose rookie year has already been complicated by injury. The USF Bull fractured his left ankle July 12 in a Las Vegas Summer League game against the Trail Blazers. At the time, the team said he would need surgery and was expected back in basketball activities in three or four months, which points to sometime in October or November, possibly after the regular season starts.
Before the injury, Nelson had signed a two-way contract, which would have allowed him to move between the NBA and G League. Players on those deals can appear in up to 50 NBA regular-season games and aren’t eligible for the postseason.
Even before the ankle fracture, a major rookie role was unlikely. Now, his place in the picture is even less certain.
In Other News...
Franz Wagner Could Decide How Far This New Magic Team Goes
Franz Wagner enters this season in a different kind of reset for the Magic, one that goes beyond the new coaching staff led by Sean Sweeney. He spent the offseason working back from a high ankle sprain and calf strain that hampered him last year, and Orlando will be eager to see how quickly he settles into a fresh system after an interrupted stretch.
There is also a personal adjustment layered into the basketball one, with Wagner preparing for the first time to play an NBA season without his brother on the same team after the older Wagner signed with the Brooklyn Nets. For Orlando, the bigger picture is clear: if this new version of the team is going to take a meaningful step, Wagners health and comfort in the new setup will be a major part of it. [Read more 🡒]
Magic Believe Their Quiet Reset Can Finally Change One Big Problem
A quiet offseason has left the Magic looking much the same on paper, and that is partly the point. Orlando kept most of its roster intact, made only a few moves, and moved into a new coaching era with Sean Sweeney taking over as head coach, a setup that has them landing in the middle of a lot of national preseason power rankings rather than at the center of any summer splash.
Jeff Weltman has sounded comfortable with that low-drama approach, saying the organization liked the focus that came with it, and players have already spoken positively about Sweeneys style. The real test, of course, starts when training camp opens Tuesday, with the preseason set to begin Oct. 7, because the Magic still have to prove that a quieter reset can turn into something more meaningful once the games count. [Read more 🡒]
Paolo Banchero Faces The Question That Could Define Orlandos Season
The Magic head into the new season with Jamahl Mosley in place as the new head coach and Paolo Banchero sitting at the center of everything they hope to build. As Orlando keeps shaping its identity, Banchero is expected to be the franchises leading player, the one who can set the tone night after night and give the team a clear direction in a crowded Eastern Conference race.
Banchero has already shown the kind of talent that makes the ceiling easy to imagine, but the next step is about turning that promise into something steadier. Analysts have pointed to his need for more consistency and stronger leadership, and those are the traits that could determine whether Orlandos season feels like another step forward or just another year of waiting for the breakout to fully arrive. [Read more 🡒]