Paolo Banchero has become the face of the Orlando Magic in only four seasons, but the spotlight around him has never matched the kind of buildup that followed some of his fellow No. 1 picks. Now he’s explaining why.
On “Dawg Talk,” Banchero pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic as the force that altered the path of his rise before it really got going. He compared his experience with the attention surrounding Zion Williamson and Cooper Flagg, saying their hype was fully justified while his own was shaped by a very different environment.
“Both of them (Zion and Flagg) are great players, and all the hype they get is very warranted. I think my situation was a lot different,” said Paolo on ‘Dawg Talk’.
“I came up during COVID, and I think that had a big effect. I didn’t get a senior year of High School, really.
My whole senior year of High School was online. High School was shut down.
No one from my class really got that hype. It was Chet and I really, but COVID kind of clouded all that.
We didn’t get a McDonald’s All-American Game.”
Banchero entered the NBA in 2022 as the No. 1 overall pick out of Duke, but the buzz around him never quite reached the level that usually follows the top player in a draft. Williamson and Anthony Edwards were the kinds of first picks who were treated like future MVP candidates before they even stepped on an NBA floor. Banchero, by contrast, came through a draft class that had already been flattened by the pandemic.
The damage started before the league ever got a chance to see him fully in the spotlight. His senior year of high school was wiped out in the usual sense, his college season unfolded in the middle of a health crisis, and even the McDonald’s All-American Game disappeared from his path. It all added up to one less stage, and one less burst of national attention, for a player who might have been a bigger phenomenon in a normal year.
That broader moment mattered too. The NBA itself was thrown into an unusual stretch that included a suspended season, a quarantine bubble, and long months of empty arenas after the initial outbreak. Even the Lakers, who won the title in 2020, had to forgo their championship parade to comply with quarantine rules.
Banchero has still delivered on the floor. He’s averaging 22.3 points, 7.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 0.8 steals, and 0.6 blocks per game while shooting 44.9%. But the recognition he expected has been harder to come by, and the Magic’s lack of competitiveness in recent years hasn’t helped draw more eyes his way.
Still, the door is open for that to change. After plenty of promising signs, Banchero has a chance to make his strongest case yet, and with it, maybe finally get the level of attention that has felt just out of reach.
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