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The last time Paolo Banchero finished with less than 10 points in a game was the 2021-22 Duke basketball team's win at Virginia in late February. His eight points that night marked only his second single-digit scoring performance for the Blue Devils.

Yes, the former five-star recruit out of Seattle, who went No. 1 overall to the Orlando Magic at the NBA Draft after his one-and-done ACC Rookie of the Year campaign, could probably count on one hand the number of times he's fallen short of 10 points against anyone as a teenager.

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But Banchero, still only 19 years old, added another such game to that total on Monday night.

In the Magic's first preseason contest, a 109-97 road loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, the 6-foot-10, 250-pound forward put up an uncharacteristically ho-hum stat line: eight points, two rebounds, one assist, and four turnovers in 24 minutes.

He shot 2-for-9 from the field, 0-for-2 from downtown, and 4-for-4 from the charity stripe.

Banchero tallied two steals and a block on the other end of the floor. However, he was sometimes left guarding Ja Morant on defense and became the latest in a long, ever-growing line of players to get left in the speedy playmaker's dust:

As he detailed after facing the in-sync artillery of Morant & Co. in his first televised NBA test outside of Summer League, where the Magic shut him down after he averaged 20.0 points, 6.0 assists, and 5.0 rebounds in two games, even he needs at least a brief adjustment period.

"They played fast-paced, for sure," Banchero told the media. "It was a good experience to get out there against a good team and great players and be able to make mistakes but obviously, get to go back, watch film, know what you did wrong, and adjust."

Against Memphis, Banchero often served as Orlando's primary ballhandler. And he noted that the role he often found himself in was quite different from his Duke basketball days when Jeremy Roach, Trevor Keels, or Wendell Moore Jr. would work the pick-and-roll with Mark Williams or Theo John as the primary roller:

"I think for me, [the biggest takeaway] was playing off the pick-and-roll so much, how much I was doing that, either setting the screen or coming off. In college, a lot of it was isolation. So that's what I'm used to making a lot of my reads out of, is just pure isolation...I got to get used to making a lot more reads on the pick-and-roll as the handler and the roller...I felt like I made my reads a lot slower than usual."

Paolo Banchero wasn't the only Duke basketball product who had an off night in the game. Despite his struggles, he outscored the other two: Orlando center Wendell Carter Jr., who finished with five points and shot 1-for-5 from the field, and Memphis point guard Tyus Jones, who finished with six points and shot 1-for-8 from the field.

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Orlando travels to play the San Antonio Spurs at 8 p.m. ET Thursday in the second of its five preseason games. Memphis, now 2-0 in the preseason and on tap for three more tune-ups, next hosts the Miami Heat at 8 p.m. ET Friday.

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