The Orlando Magic’s New Look: How Bane, Suggs, Wagner, & Banchero Fit Together

The Orlando Magic’s New Look: How Bane, Suggs, Wagner, & Banchero Fit Together

All right, we’re going to talk Orlando Magic and we’re going to talk about this team that now has incredible expectations for this upcoming season. Michael Bolton, you can sing the song. Thanks, Josh. It’s Michael Bolton here and it’s time for another episode of the Locked On Fantasy Basketball Podcast. Let’s get to it. Let’s get to it in Dayton. You are Locked on Fantasy, your daily NBA fantasy podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to the Locked On Fantasy Basketball podcast brought to you by Basketball Monster. My name is Josh Lloyd and you’ve changed, man. You used to be about the music. I’m also the lead fantasy analyst at basketball.com and today’s episode is brought to you by Fanul. Football season is around the corner, so visit the FanDuel app today and start planning your future bets now. Thank you also for making Locked on Fantasy Basketball your first listen every day. We are free. We’re available on all platforms. So, I want to see those thumbs. I want to see you double banging audio and video and leaving your comments down below. I want to see you singing the song. I want to see you talking about the Orlando Magic. That’s what we’re doing with for the 10th consecutive year. I’m going to say 10. It might be 11. I don’t even know. but it is the host of the Lockdown Magic podcast. Philip Rossman Reich is here. Phil, this Magic team is just had so many iterations over this time that we’ve been doing these shows and now they’re a legit chance to like some would say Eastern Conference Finals, some would say NBA Finals. They are making moves. They are going allin and it is an exciting time to be uh covering the Magic. Yeah, it absolutely is. I’m I’m I just love that you have the new logo all ready to go. You’re you’re you’re way you’re way ahead of the curve here. It is. It is a new day for the magic. I am very um pedantic about those things about making sure we come out. Got to make sure the colors like for the example Indiana Pacific not talking about they they didn’t change their color. They just made their blue slightly darker. So I had to go through and redo all of my graphics to make sure we had the navy and yellow instead of the blue and gold that they used to have. I like the new Magic logo. I like the update. Like the refresh. I’m all about it here, Phil, because we’re into a new era of Orlando Magic basketball. We saw last season and they were great early on. They obviously suffered unbelievably two oblique strains which cost their two best players multiple months at a time but we saw both of those players France Vagna and Paulo Bankerro take steps forward and really drive this team. Now Desmond Bane comes in not saying he is the level of player of those guys although some could make the argument that he is but there are just not enough touches and shots to go around for all of these guys to work to their optimal. So of I think the immediate gut reaction is that okay so Franvagna is going to sort of take some sort of a step back and Desmond Bane comes in and they’re both sort of the the 2A and 2B behind Parl. But as you know it’s been a big discussion around Parlo and his efficiency issues. Do you think that it would make more sense that maybe Parlo just dials back a little bit, France dials back a little bit more, and then Bane slots into that role there to make this team and this this offense more more cohesive, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense cuz last year the Magic just didn’t have anyone else who could really create or do anything outside of Palo or Fran. I think they both ended the season with usage rates above 30%. Which, you know, if you think about it, like everybody, you know, playing equally as everyone’s got 20%, your superstars are all above 30%, upper 20s. Those are the guys that have a lot of the ball in their hands. And so I I think part of the reason why you bring in a guy like Desmond Bane is to just relieve that pressure and and relieve some of the tension of having two guys that are just constantly kind of, you know, I I would describe it this way. In the playoffs against Boston, it it felt like Paulo Bankro and Fron Vagner were banging their head against a wall. And they put some dents in that wall. They’re they’re that they’re good enough to put dents in the wall, but they’re never going to break through. And so especially against a defense like that. And so you bring in a guy like Desmond Bane to just share the burden a little bit. You know, I would still expect Paulo and France to get their numbers and get some points. But the hope and the idea is that Desmond Bane who averaged five assists per game in each of the last two seasons can create some easier shots for Paulo and Fran. So they’re not having to do everything and they can get a spot up one more spot up three than they would have otherwise. that Desmond Bane could help Paulo get an extra assist or two as a spot-up shooter or Fran’s an extra assist or two as a spot-up shooter. I think that’s where that burden sharing comes from. The ball’s still going to be in Paulo and Fran’s hands. This team, we could talk about, I’m sure we’ll talk about this later. This team doesn’t have a true point guard. Paulo and Fron are still the guys with the ball in their hands. They’ll still get their touches. It’s just the hope is they’ll have space either to shoot more efficiently or they’ll have an easy outlet to get them open threes which they didn’t have throughout last season. Yeah. Because this team was shooting challenged. Um yeah, they brought contus in in for that. And then like he was not really what they expected. He was part of what netted them Desmond Bane, but Bane is a much better player than KCP. He’s a guy that can change his roles necessarily. He can be a higher usage guy. He can be a pseudo point guard. And you’re right, like this team has like in their presumed starting five, which we’re going to presume is Suggs, Bane, Vagna, Bonerro, Carter. Every one of those players I would say is I’m not going to say above average for their position because Suggs is below average as a passer for a point guard, but he’s still a good passer. Bane is a good passer, France is a good passer, Paro’s a good passer, and Wendell Carter is a good passer as a center. So, they’re sort of, I guess, splitting that playmaking creation role around amongst a bunch of different guys. I’ve been joking the entire off seasonason that the Magic are moneyballing the point guard position. They they don’t have a point guard, but they can create one in the aggregate almost. And we’ll see if that works. And I think there’s some things that a point guard does that don’t get captured statistically, but I think the Magic feel like they have enough unselfish guys. And I know like Paulo gets this wrap of, oh, he’s taking all these inefficient mid-range shots. He gets compared to Carmelo Anthony a lot. This guy wants to pass the ball. Like he wants to make the right play. That that’s been my observation. It it just it like it honestly got to a point last year where Paulo Bancer would be facing a double team and you know maybe even Kavius Calwell Pope was open in the corner and Paulo just came to the conclusion that me taking a contested mid-range jumper is a higher efficiency shot than Kavius Calwell Pope shooting a three. It it just got to that point or even like France Vagner shooting a three was just not nearly as efficient as Paulo taking a bad mid-range shot. And I I don’t have the numbers to back me up on that, but I can’t blame him for those choices. And so Desmond Bane comes in and will hopefully give him an option that he trusts to kick out to. Yeah. And he should because Bane not only can do that as a catch and shoot guy, which is what KCP’s role ostensibly was, but Bane can actually do something with the ball. He can put it on the floor. He can he can dribble. And that is going to be key. And I do think that we’re going to see and this seems so hard to judge especially from a numbers perspective because we saw France put up huge numbers because Paulo was out and then we saw France and Paulo both be out and Jayen Suggs put up huge numbers and then those guys came back and Suggs went out. So we didn’t get to see how it all worked together. Now you add another variable in there with Bane. So a lot of these numbers I expect a lot of the usage stuff for Pilot will drop a little bit. I expect France is going to come down and we’re going to talk about Sugs later on. I expect we’re going to see a wildly different statistical um sort of skill set from Sugs this season because of how this this team looks just on France before we get into talking about the big man position of this team. He started off last season started to shoot better and then he didn’t and that is two years in a row where he has been what under 30% from three for a guy that started out with his first two seasons I think 36% from three. 34 36% first two years what is going on cuz that is that is just that’s not even average. That is bad. That is horrendous. That is like yuck. This is like when Russell Westbrook is taking a three. We do not want this. What is h is there anything observable with you go where why has that changed? Yeah. So last year it it had a little bit to do with the injury. Uh I think before Fran’s oblique injury he was shooting 32 or 33% from three which isn’t good. It was definitely better though but it was better and like it was fluid. Like he had the big shot against the Lakers. He’s taking a lot of pull-up threes because he’s, you know, working off the dribble so much, especially with Paulo out. You know, Paulo played only five games before he got hurt last year. So, a lot of Fronz’s shots early in the season were he was the only guy with the ball in his hands creating a lot. And so, he wasn’t getting a lot of spot-up shots and and he was he isn’t necessarily a great spot-up shooter either, but shots that you would typically think, oh, those are easy threes. And on top of that, because the Magic just so three-point challenged, he and Paulo have to take a lot of threes. I think they both averaged five or six threes per game last year. And again, if you’re going to take that many threes, you better be making them at a decent clip. Like 33% would be the bare minimum. After the injury, Fron came back and almost immediately we all noticed there was this little hitch in his shot. It looked like he was kind of reloading his elbow or something. After the injury, he shot I think 20 23 24% from three. Something like horrendously bad like that like weighed him down completely. And I I had scouts come up to me and ask like what’s going on with Franza’s shot? Like everyone could see that there was this extra like motion and this extra movement in his shot and no one could and like Fran wouldn’t talk about it. Wouldn’t even really talk about it after the season ended. Um he other than to acknowledge that yes, I need to figure out my shot and figure this figure this out to be the player that I want to be the player that this team needs me to be. Um core injury, it’s it’s a lot of core muscles. Uh and so we don’t really know like we don’t really know. Um you know we’re as we’re recording this they’ve play Germany’s played two Euro basket games. Franza is shooting one for six on those threes and those two games against Sylvania. But the hitch is gone. That’s good news. Um but he’s not getting those spot up opportunities. So I I am a little curious what happens if he you know when he gets to the magic because like obviously with Germany it’s him and Dennis Shruder like doing a lot of the driving and creating and and stuff like that. Um, I I am curious what happens when he comes to the Magic and you have Paulo soaking up all the attention. You have Desmond Bane who can attack and kick out. You know, even Jaylen Suggs can attack and kick out. I am curious if it’s a little bit better. And and look, I’m not expecting France to suddenly shoot 36 37% from three. A lot of us will take somewhere in the low 30s just to get him back on the right track. But it it’s it’s a mystery that nobody’s been able to solve. We’re going to come back and talk about the center position in a sec. Before we do that, today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. August the 26th is officially FanDuel Futures Day. 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Start planning your future bets now because futures day is one day and one day only. Fanul play your game. Okay, now I know and you I’m sure you’ve heard this. I hear it all the time in fantasy circles, I I even when I put up like a notification of the the Magic and this team coming forward and their starting lineup, I already I got the question that I knew I was going to get because we know that when Dart Jr. starts, he gets hurt. He had some real struggles last season. He works his way back. He takes the starting job, but everyone laments it, Phil. They go, “Oh, no, no, it’s got to be Goa Bad. Go’s way better. He’s the way better.” And then by the end of the season, Goer is out of the rotation. And that has happened two consecutive years. The exact same situation has happened. And people will still be adamant that Go is going to be a starter and he should be a starter and he’s way better than Wendell. And they might think that, you might think that, I might think that. I’m not saying that we do or we don’t, but it does not matter because the Magic very clearly do not think that. So I believe the answer to this question is how stable is Wendell Carter at center as the starter? I think it’s fairly stable because the evidence is piling up. But again, this is not to say that Wendell was great. So again, you can answer this question. Is there any risk that Wendell is not the starting center on this team? Uh not not on this team. No. I I think Wendell Carter is the clear starter on this team. He just again this is this this is stuff that is not to do with fantasy basketball. Uh you know these kind of decisions are not always statbased and and fantasy based. He just gives them a lot of stability on defense. And I know Goget has some great defensive numbers. He blocks a lot of shots. You know, he kind of gobbles up rebounds especially on the offensive glass. The way the Magic like to play defense is they want guys who could switch one through five. If you watch that series against the Celtics, the Magic were almost too comfortable letting Wendell Carter switch on to Jaylen Brown and letting Cory Joseph guard Chris Porzingis, but that was part of their strategy to reduce the Celtics three-point shooting. They trust Wendell Carter to make decisions defensively uh and just be solid defensively. He’s not going to blow you away with any of those stats. He’s not doing the kind of high-flying blocks and and rim protection. Although, I will note Wendell Carter had a better defensive field goal percentage at the rim last year than Goabatza. He was the Magic’s best quote unquote rim protector. He doesn’t block shots. He’s all about positioning, but he used to block shots. I don’t know what happened to He used to block shots. He used to he just doesn’t anymore. He’s gone the the Bio route. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. and and and again like because the Magic switched so much, he’s not always around the basket to rebound, but they just believe and trust how solid he is on that end. Now, having said that, yes, I if you if you ask me now that the Magic have kind of, you know, if you look at the Magic’s cap sheet, I know this isn’t a a cap podcast, this is a fantasy podcast. If you look at the Magic’s cap sheet, they’ve got more than $30 million invested in each of Jaylen Suggs, Paulo Banker, Fran Vogger, and Desmond Bane. when Paulo’s extension kicks in after after the season. Um, center position is very much the next position the Magic are going to examine. And I think this is a a very big season for Wendell Carter as the Magic tried to kind of establish themselves as potential championship contenders. They need to know if Wendell Carter is someone they can trust and kind of build a championship level team around. like they they obviously can build an elite defense with him in there, but they need to know, is this a guy that’s going to help us win a second round playoff series and and that’s really, you know, again, a lot of this stuff, it’s not statbased. It’s not necessarily fantasy based, but it’s stuff that’s going to be he’s kind of the glue guy that makes a lot of this stuff work for the Magic, and that doesn’t always show up in a stat sheet. Yeah. But that’s why it’s important because like yes, Goa, if they were playing equal minutes, would put up better fantasy numbers. No one debates that. But it also doesn’t matter if he’s sitting on the bench like you know fingering his ass. Like it doesn’t matter. Like if he’s not on the court, if he’s not they don’t believe that he’s on the court, then it doesn’t matter. Like if Wendell is the guy and he’s playing his 27 minutes and he’s out there and he’s helping the other guys do what they do, then that’s what he does and that’s what we all need to accept versus like it’s never an individual like people. There are a lot of basketball debates that come down to, well this guy, yeah, he’s got such a a bag he’d win oneonone. Cool. Not the game. Play a different sport. That’s not the game. That guy this guy puts up great numbers. Cool. But does it work with everyone else around him? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? And Goa has had success. I’m not saying he’s a bad player. I like Goa, but say a lot, right? But it also doesn’t. And Goa is going to play until Mo Vagner is healthy at the very least. Um, so you know, Movagner tore ACL in December last year. I’m not expecting him back until around Christmas if not early January just because of the way the Magic are so cautious. Go’s Goa’s gonna get minutes. And you know like my observation is like Goa Goa’s attention kind of wanders sometimes like he is a little bit of a blockchaser and that puts him out of position at times defensively which you know so the magic know to sprinkle him in just the right amount and look you know we talked a little bit about France earlier in the episode. Go Patad suffered a concussion in early January. When he came back he he was in the rotation. Obviously Mo Vagner is out. There’s no reason not to have him in the rotation. He was just a completely different player after he came back from that concussion. Just was not nearly as effective. And so naturally, he lost some trust. And at the end of the day, especially when you’re kind of a bench player, you it’s all about trust. Can I trust you to hold your own in these minutes, expand if need be, whatever the case may be, he he just lost some of that trust, I think, that he gained earlier in the season when he obviously helped keep the team afloat. And then if you go look at the playoffs, like the two moments that stick out to me about his playoff series and just like are just an example of this is why Goa is kind of in and out of rotation all the time is he had that wild elbow that he swung at Christophs Porzingis in game two that bloody Porzingis up. And then game five like Paulo’s out, you know, Paulo gets into the foul trouble. He picks up his fifth foul early in the third quarter. the Magic throw Goa in there and he’s trying to switch and he’s just straight shoving guys like just two-handed open shves with the Magic in the bonus and they’re clinging on to that cling on to their lives, their season lives and it’s just like go like sometimes Goa doesn’t quite understand what the moment needs uh completely and so that’s why trust is up and down up and down with them and we’ll see you know we’ll obviously he’ll play in Euro Basket here in a bit um he’ll get some opportunity early in the season. I think he’s a prime trade deadline candidate to go somewhere where he can get minutes. He is a player that I think deserves to be in rotation rotation somewhere in the NBA. I don’t quite understand why he resigned with the Magic last year without the guarantee that he would get rotation minutes. Um he’s, you know, for those that do support him, yes, he is clearly a rotation player and the Magic have too many centers they want to play right now. You know, whether it’s Jonathan Isaac, whether it’s Mo Vagner when he comes back, they have too many guys and it’s a luxury to have a guy like Oga. So, I I would, you know, if you’re looking at him in fantasy, he is going to be a prime trade deadline candidate, especially if the Magic are trying to upgrade something on their roster for a playoff run. Yeah, he’s one of those guys that, you know, we know when he fills in, the numbers are fine, but yeah, that regular role is just not not something that seems like it’s uh got any chance of happening outside of injuries, which of course knowing Wendell Carter can happen or probably will happen at at any point. Having said that, last year was the most games Wendell Carter’s ever played in a season in his career. Um, okay. Was it? Jesus. Okay. I think it was. Yeah. Let me Let me just He He played the most consecutive games he’s ever played in his Wow. He played You’re right. He did. He played 68 games. I felt like he missed a lot more than that. He played 68 games last season. He missed a lot of time at the beginning of the season. He had he like like he came in the season saying, “My goal is I want to play all 82.” And then like game six or seven, he bumped his knee and was he had game six against Cleveland, the first game without Paulo, he was dealing with some knee issues. So the Magic held him out of that game and he tried to come back the very next game against Dallas and hit his knee and missed two weeks and then that was that was the only injury issue he had. He came back and he was he was there for the rest of the season. What a season. Two three weeks. Yeah. Carter plays 68, Jonathan Isaac goes over 70. Just amazing stuff happening all but of course the two main guys are out for big chunks of the season. And then the next guy we’re going to talk about also missed a very very long time. And we’re going to we’re going to talk about him in a sec. Of course, I’m talking about Jaylen Suggs, who I loved as a prospect. I think he’s one of the And I I say this all the time. I gota be really cautious about how I say this, Phil, because Jayen Suggs is not the Magic’s best player. That’s clear. But to me, especially last season, he was the most important player because a he he gets in people’s faces. He is the chemistry guy. He’s the heart and soul guy, but he shoots. He’s a point guard. He plays balls out defense. He’s I don’t know if this is still true, but I know he had one of the biggest like home road splits in terms of production in terms of feeding off energy and providing energy and he went down and the team turned to realistically and like he kept them afloat when everyone else was out. You go, how is this happening? Well, it’s because of him and and then he went down with that knee injury that cost him the second half of the season. We presume that he comes in as the starting point guard. They’re backups of Tyus Jones and there’s Anthony Black in there as well. But Suggs, and if we’re going to look at his numbers in a second, the numbers were big. He took steps up. He shot the ball well. His usage was high. But like I said earlier, it’s impossible to sort of judge this stuff because all of his games basically were either without Parlor or for the large portion without both Parlor and France. So, he’s going to have to step into a different role. How do we see that? Do you think that he becomes more focused defensively, which we’ve seen leads to injuries with him? Does he turn into more of a spot-up guy, more of a playmaker? how is he how do you expect him to fit into this role because it is entirely different to what he had to do last season. Yeah, I it’s going to be completely different and and I’m actually I’m actually really optimistic about what Jaylen Suggs is going to do next year. You know, obviously like injuries are always kind of on the back burner, but I think one of the things that having a Desmond Bane to kind of take some of that, you know, some of that creation role is that Jaylen Suggs will take less hits going to the basket. Like he’s not going to be a straight driver anymore. he’s not going to be asked to be a lead playmaker. Like he’ll like obviously everyone still runs some pick and rolls. Like the Magic will still run some stuff for him. But I I really think Jaylen Sugg’s best offensive role is as a spot-up shooter. Um if you go back and look at his 2024 season because last year was just so incomplete. I know he had this the numbers below 31.4% shooting from three is not particularly good. He shot what 35 36% from three in 2024. If you look at his just spot up numbers, um I I actually have them up here because I wanted to to to pull have them easy to pull up. Um if you look at his his spot up numbers in in the games before Paulo’s injury, which I know is just five games, he shot 17 for 40 from three and 53.1% on 6.4 catch and shoot three-pointers per game. To, you know, in 2024, he shot 39.7% from three. So, I underestimated him. He shot 40.7% on 3.8 eight catch and shoot threes during the 2024 season. So, if you’re bringing in another creator like Desmond Bane, my anticipation is that like Desmond Bane is going to get six, seven, eight threes per game. Like, it’s it’s a little bit of a volume thing. Jaylen Suggs also has the potential to be a real volume shooter. Someone who, you know, if you can get a guy downhill, collapsing the defense, kick it back out to him, you know, with space, he’s he can make that shot at, you know, maybe not elite level, but at a very high level. So, I think if the Magic can kind of carve out a role for him and create a scenario and a situation for him where he is taking five, six catch and shoot spot up threes per game, I think he’s someone that could shoot above 40% on those shots with the kind of talent the Magic have on this game. I’m actually really really high on what Jaylen Suggs can do now that you’ve turned him into sort of the fourth option on offense. He’s not going to be the third option anymore. You don’t need him to take over games. you need him to be a floor spacer and when they close out attack and and and read from there. And so I I I’m actually really excited to, you know, obviously health is the first thing. He had a a weird knee injury. Um he had a surgery that I don’t think any of us I’ve never heard of this thing troleia or something the top it’s the cavity your knee sits in that that your kneebone sits that your femur sits in. And the surgery he had, it was called a mosaic plasty, is not like your typical surgery. Like it was initially described to us as like, oh, he’s just getting a scope. And it’s like a scope is like pretty routine. A mosaic plasty is a little bit more intense. And look, he’s back on the court. He’s doing stuff. I don’t know if he’s playing contact yet, but like he’s he’s working out and and able to do things on the court. They posted some photos. He’s not even wearing like a brace on the knee or anything like that. So, all indications are he’ll be ready for camp, but I’m really intrigued to see. Okay. We know what you can do on defense. We we the Magic Expect that energy and intensity on defense. Bring, you know, scale back this the lever a little bit on offense and be a pure spot-up shooter. It could be a real breakout offensive season for Jaylen Suggs in my opinion. Just just the numbers would tell me that the role that that he could potentially play in is one he’s already experienced success that isn’t really there in the full the full numbers that in his career. You are a smart man, Phil. So you may already know this, but do you know how many minutes that France, Paulo, and Suggs played together last season. 97 minutes over six games. Thank you very much. Unbelievable. You are absolutely bang on. 97 minutes. That is a ridiculously low number. So people will look at this and they’ll look at Suggs’ output from last season. If you’re looking fantasy wise, you see he had a 28 usage. It’s not happening. This might be the player in the NBA who has the largest drop in usage of any player that’s a rotation guy. I I would think that he is hitting under 20% usage. He’s going from the number one guy for most of the season to the number four player for this season. It it is going to be an incredible drop now. But but I would argue that his his like counting stats are going to be about the same. Like he’ll average his efficiency is going up because if you look again in those 97 minutes, which is nothing, he had an effective field goal percentage of 63%. Okay, that’s unbelievable. That is ridiculously efficient and it’s obviously small sample size. But also, Phil, he took 29 three-point attempts and 12 twos. He just bombed threes. They went in great. He played off. He’s the only guy making threes early in the season. I looked that up, too. He He was definitely doing that. And he’s one of those guys, again, people know this, I talk about all the time on this show, is I I love a player that scales. He’s like, “All right, everyone’s down. All right, it’s me. Like, I’m running everything here. I am taking all the shots. They’re going to be bad. They’re not going to go in. You want me to do other stuff where I just hound the out of the opponents and get steals and bring my usage back down? Cool. I’ll do that as well. I am the leader, the mascot, the whatever it is, he’ll do all these things.” So again, the numbers are going to be different. They might be similar, but they’ll be achieved in a different way because there’s no other real way to do that. I guess this part also just for a couple of minutes here brings me to talk about the other point guard. So there’s bring in Ty Stones, but whatever. Ty Stones is a very solid backup point guard. It was to me pretty obvious he’s not a starter before last season. I think everyone is now on my side of that line. But what I want to know is what what does this mean for Anthony Black? Because is he I I don’t think he’s a point guard. I don’t he’s not a shooting guard cuz he can’t shoot. Like they they were playing Cory Joseph as the starting point guard over him last season. Where are they at with him? Like where does he fit in on this team? I honestly I struggle to sort of figure it out. I I I mean I think everyone struggles to figure out where Anthony Black fits in or or what his ultimate future is. I mean like it’s it’s like I I’ve been starting to preview this a little bit. He’s extension eligible next summer. Like I don’t want to be Jeff Welman trying to figure out what I pay that kid. And and look a like when Anthony Black was good last year, he was really good. Like I think in wins in wins he shot like 38 39% from three. In losses he was like 21%. And so you just you know obviously they’re 41 and 41. So it’s about that was like 36 wins and 39 losses with Anthony Black. Um you just don’t know what you’re going to get from them. And obviously entering year three you need some consistency. Um, I don’t think the Magic Well, first off, like like we said earlier, the Magic don’t really believe in positions. Um, like there’s no like one true role for anyone. They want everyone to do everything. So, is Anthony Black going to be the point guard? Um, like he’ll play with Taius Jones a lot. He’ll play with Jaylen Suggs a lot. He’ll play with Desmond Bane a lot, I think. Um, you know, he’ll he’ll be kind of a a secondary creator, a secondary ball handler, a second ball handler in a lot of the lineups they have. Um, you know, I think the magic, you know, Jaylen Suggs was good at one thing and Anthony Black’s good at this, too, is picking up the pace, trying to get the team up court quicker. Uh, you know, by the same token, like Anthony Black is an excellent defender. The Magic love his defense and love his defensive versatility, especially for a young player. He is he is an he is an incredible defender. And now it’s just about how do you get him more consistent. That means he’s got to make threes. He’s obviously not creating off the dribble and he doesn’t, you know, he doesn’t take a lot of mid-range jumpers or pull-up jumpers. He’s got to make spot up threes if he’s going to be really really effective and and the way the Magic are constructed. I think they’re betting on Anthony Black playing a big role. You know, especially until Mo Vagner comes back, you know, who’s scoring off that bench. You know, you look at the Magic Tristan. Yeah, Tristan Dilva is the other guy I think the Magic are betting a lot on to be like a solid spot up shooter. So like I I think rotation-wise the Magic are going to make sure they have one of their big four and that’s Paulo, France, Bane, and Suggs. At least one of those big four will be on the floor at all times. When healthy, I think two of the four will be on the floor for almost every minute. Um and that should stabilize the offense a little bit because, you know, there aren’t, you know, there isn’t a Cole Anthony on the bench anymore who, you know, for as inefficient as Cole Anthony was, he is he he has a mindset of a primary score. Yes. um you know Mo Vagner when he’s healthy and obviously I don’t think he’s I don’t think he’ll be back and it’ll probably take him a while to get really up to speed. The joke around the Magic is Mo Vagner falls out of bed with 10 points. Um you know he is someone that they can rely on to give them some bench scoring. Uh the fun stat as well this is the other fun stat from the Magic before Mo Vagner’s injury in December the Magic were fifth in the league in bench scoring. After Mo Vagner’s injury they were 23rd. Yeah. like a difference of seven points, but it was a huge like the like the bench was a huge factor for the Magic, especially because France Vagner plays a lot with those second units. Uh, and so I think they are betting a lot on Anthony Black being just a bit more consistent, just giving them just a little bit more offense and a little bit more something. He was what, like, eight, nine points per game last year. I think they want him above at around 10, maybe like 11 points per game to really and then be efficient from three on top of that to to really get where they want to go. you bring up some numbers that I feel that that are you know of course you always bring the goods but like it made me delve into this what he did in wins versus losses which and honestly like it’s actually bizarre. So like yes he played in 39 wins and he played in 39 losses. He started only one of the wins and he started nine of the losses. He shot 41% in the starts and 22% from three in the losses. He had a plus minus of plus 15.3 in the wins and negative 17.4 in the losses. So, I’m not here to tell you that Anthony Black is the driving force when he’s cuz he’s inconsistent. If he has a good game, they’re going to win. If he has a bad game, they’re going to lose. It does seem that way, though. Like, it just does seem that like if he’s just like out there and the thing is the difference between he’s good and he’s bad is so wide. Like, if he shoots the bed, everything fell apart. And that’s look these nothing went in. They got cooked when he was out there. When he played well and he locked in defensively and the shots went in, then they were really hard to beat. That’s really intriguing to think for a guy that we don’t really look at as that sort of an influential player, but that is just a wild sort of a split to see that like stark difference between like him being such a driver of success or or failure honestly. Not or indicator at least there’s there’s a there’s a correlation. It may not be causation, but there’s a there was a correlation throughout the year about that. Yeah. Like he was a part of those wins and a huge part of the losses. And was he causing it? I don’t know. Uh it is definitely interesting. I think like the the context matters there too and again this is some you know like the Magic last year were just so injured like like I I think a lot of people look at them and they’re like 41 and 41 seven seed. Who are they really? And and and it was like well no like they’re still they’re 41 and 41 despite all the injuries. They were six wins worse when they were the five seed two years ago. If Paulo and Fron get through the season healthy they’re fighting with Milwaukee, Indiana, Detroit for the four seed. like they’re they’re they’re in that they were very clearly in that group last year. And so something like those numbers with with Anthony Black, it really says like with Palo and Fran were going to do their thing. Like you know, Powell had a bad January coming back from the injury. Like Fran was Fran was, you know, his shot was inconsistent after the injury, but they really needed a third guy just to just to give them that little kick, that little push over the edge to really play well. And you know at the end of the season like contemp shot I think 46% from three over the last 18 games of last season and like that they were 12 and six over their last 18 games to get to 500. That was like the little push they needed to just get over the edge. And so I think like the theory of the case for the magic is like Paulo and France are going to do what Paulo and Fron are going to do. You add in a Desmond Bane, you bring back a Jaylen Suggs, and suddenly that ball is is rolling a little faster downhill for you. And hopefully it ends the other the other big number for the Magic where they haven’t been outside the bottom 10 in offensive rating since 2012. It is one of the most interesting teams to watch, especially in the Eastern Conference. Big changes. They’re pushing chips in. They’re making the moves. And Phil, you’re going to cover it all for us over on Locked on Magic. Thanks again for these insights, these remarkable stats that you’re bringing forward for us as well. And this team is going to be intriguing. Thanks again for coming on. Absolutely, Josh. Always a pleasure to be on. And that is the Orlando Magic again. Jaylen Suggs, he’s going to be good. Just throw out everything that you saw last season. I don’t know that there’ll be a bigger usage drop of any player in the NBA from what Suggs did. And I and I love him. But expect it expect it to drop. Guys, you know what to do. I would like your subscriptions. We are always in uh search of the elusive 100k sub mark on YouTube. We might get there, probably not. About 15,000 16,000 to go hopefully. And we only get there with you. Only you can prevent me not getting 100,000 subs. Guys, we’re done here. Maybe wrapped us tomorrow. Thank you so much for listening everyone. See you.

NBA Fantasy Basketball: Orlando Magic Season Preview

The Orlando Magic are making big moves this season — and the fantasy basketball world should be watching closely.

Roster Shakeup: How Desmond Bane’s arrival impacts Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner.

Franz Wagner’s Recovery: Shooting struggles post-injury, improved mechanics spotted at EuroBasket, and what it means for Orlando’s offense.

Wendell Carter Jr.: Why he’s locked in as starting center over Goga Bitadze and how his defensive role shapes the Magic’s strategy.

Jalen Suggs: Transitioning into a spot-up shooter, catch-and-shoot efficiency, and his fit next to Bane.

Anthony Black: Inconsistent play, stark performance differences in wins vs losses, and whether he can tap into his potential.

Team Outlook: How these changes shape Orlando’s playoff push and fantasy basketball value.

With: Josh Lloyd & Philip Rossman-Reich @LockedOnMagic

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0:00 Orlando Magic expectations
3:06 Desmond Bane’s impact
6:47 Franz Wagner’s shooting struggles
12:40 Wendell Carter Jr. as starter
18:20 Jalen Suggs’ role
24:32 Limited playing time together
26:40 Anthony Black’s future
31:12 Magic’s injury struggles
33:09 Outro and subscription request