The Orlando Magic will never stop.
Injuries have piled up like rush hour traffic near the Disney parks. Orlando’s three best offensive players — Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, and Mo Wagner — are all out, the first two with rare torn oblique injuries and the latter for the season with a torn ACL. They should be dead and buried, with the funeral service concluded long ago.
Instead, the Magic keep raging, sticking out their middle fingers to the basketball gods who seem determined to throw every obstacle imaginable in their path. They’re 3-3 in the six games since the elder Wagner’s injury (including the win in which he went down in the first quarter), pairing a defense that gets more ferocious after each blow with an offense that has cobbled together just enough points to keep things interesting.
Jalen Suggs has become the de facto number-one option, a role he is ill-suited for. Suggs is shooting 41% from the field and 31% from deep, but you’d never know from the 37% usage (a monstrous figure) he’s posted in the last six games. The Magic’s offense looks best when someone else can help him out. Rookie Tristan da Silva has been the unlikely second banana many nights — he’s had five games in his last eight of at least 15 points after only notching one such performance in his first 23. Consistency, unfortunately, is hard to find; da Silva also had two games in his last three where he scored exactly zero points.
The Magic play like they’re defended by themselves — they have an offensive rating of just 105.1 since Mo Wagner’s injury on Dec 21, second-worst in the league in that time frame, and they’ve failed to crack 100 points in three of their last four matches. It hasn’t hurt their spirit. They’ll have multiple futile offensive possessions in a row, but it only makes them madder, more dogged on defense. They’ve also turned opponents over 20% of the time during that short stretch, most in the league.
Unfortunately, even near-perfect defense can be overcome by tough shotmaking, and the Magic have fewer tough shotmakers than anyone in the league right now. All three of their recent victories have been comebacks after they dug themselves into a hole (often thanks to their own turnovers); they nearly had another Wednesday night against Detroit, cutting an 18-point deficit to three before running out of steam in the final minutes. Waiting until the second half to score is not a viable long-term strategy.
It’s hard to overstate how much turmoil Orlando’s top-heavy injuries have created up and down the roster. Coach Jamal Mosley (a frontrunner for Coach of the Year) has had to use players in creative, unsettling ways. Off-ball guards like Suggs and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope suddenly have to initiate for themselves and others, a job they’re ill-suited to in degrees this large. Wendell Carter Jr.’s role has vacillated from starting center to starting power forward to backup scoring big man off the bench, something that’s left his head spinning. Cole Anthony goes from scoring 35 points one night to being out of the rotation the next. Depth players like Goga Bitadze and Anthony Black have become essential parts of the rotation. Trevelin Queen, who had played 31 games in his three-year NBA career before this season, has started two games for Orlando lately. The team has run plays specifically designed to get Gary Harris open. Gary Harris!
But the Magic seek no pity. A few other teams in the league have had injury crises as bad or worse than Orlando’s. Unlike, say, the New Orleans Pelicans, however, the Magic have scratched and clawed and slashed their way to enough wins to stay not just relevant but at the front of the playoff conversation — right now, they’re still fourth in the Eastern conference, although Milwaukee, Miami, and Atlanta are nipping at their heels.
Even as the offense’s struggles worsen, hope emerges. Star third-year player Paolo Banchero’s return grows nearer. He’s begun light contact work at practice, and his return seems just a few weeks away. If Orlando can pull out a couple more victories in a difficult upcoming stretch of schedule (after opening 2025 with Detroit, Toronto, and Utah, the Magic will then have to face Minnesota, Milwaukee, a surging Philadelphia, Milwaukee again, Boston, and Denver), they’ll be well-positioned to integrate a primary ballhandler again.
Until Banchero’s return, though, you’ll catch the Magic on TV every other night or so, seething against the basketball gods like a roundball Odysseus.
