By all accounts, the Orlando Magic’s season should have sunk on Oct. 30.
A team with a mediocre offense losing their best scorer and player should have been it. Most of the Magic faithful hoped the team would just hover around .500 until Banchero returned in early January.
Franz Wagner carried the team and sustained the Magic’s spot near the top of the Eastern Conference until he got hurt. Then it felt like the Magic were really done for.
But there has been a rallying cry for the Magic for much of the last month, “We are enough.” Even with all the injuries, the Magic keep stacking improbable wins – from a 25-point comeback against the Miami Heat to upsetting the Boston Celtics to taking down the New York Knicks on the second night of a back-to-back without their three main players.
The Magic are one game better than they were at the midpoint of last season’s breakthrough year. They have Banchero back in the lineup. They will (allegedly) get healthier as the season progresses.
That is a credit to the players, the coaching staff and, most importantly, coach Jamahl Mosley.
It is safe to say this season is not what it is with all of the team’s preseason goals in front of them without the culture and belief Mosley has instilled in this team. It is why I cannot give the Most Valuable Player of the Orlando Magic’s season to any one player, I have to give it to their coach – as much as he hates taking the credit for anything this team does.
Mosley has built a culture of defense, accountability and belief in three years leading into this season.
Everyone is committed to defense as the basis for the team’s success. The Magic are second in the league in defensive rating and that has carried them through the season. They keep the scores low giving their offense a chance to make up ground even with a low percentage.
Because of the team’s continuity, the team has belief in what the coaches are preaching but also in each other. Mosley has given the team ownership over everything this team does and they hold each other to the standard, lifting each other and encouraging.
There is no other way to survive this period of injuries and still succeed without that belief. Most of the players have seen this work during the last three years. They will all run through a wall if they believe it will help them.
All those strands point back to Mosley. He has been the architect of creating this culture of selflessness (which starts with him).
Culture is a word that president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman has publicly said he detests. It can mean anything you want it to mean. You do not know what it is until you see it. It has to be more than a buzzword.
Having players step up in the face of all of these injuries and still maintain this standard for defense speaks to that culture.
That comes from the team’s leader in Mosley. He has pulled all the strings as frayed as they are with the injuries and put the Magic in a position to achieve their goals. The team has delivered for him.
Without Mosley and his presence, it is hard to imagine the Magic surviving this first half of the season. Instead, they have raised expectations for what this team can do when they are finally healthy.
