Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
NBA Report Cards: Magic Makes the Grade?
The Orlando Magic may not have aced this NBA season as the team finds itself on the couch this postseason, but there is a lot of promise for the young team in central Florida.
Bleacher Report dished out end-of-season grades for all 30 teams in the league, and gave the Magic a 'B.'
"A 5-20 start pretty much doomed any hopes the Orlando Magic may have had of getting into the postseason, but they've quietly been a solid to straight-up good team since then," Bleacher Report writes. "And a number of individual players have been better than expected (a big part of why Orlando smashed its preseason over/under). Markelle Fultz suddenly looks like a floor-raising point guar who can make teammates better and get to the paint at will. Despite abysmal shooting marks, Paolo Banchero has shown No. 1 scorer upside. And Wendell Carter Jr. looks like an ideal gap-filling center who can defend and space the floor."
The Magic started the season at 5-20 before going 29-28 to finish the year. A win percentage earlier in the season that mirrors its finish could have brought them to within striking distance of a postseason berth.
Though young, the Magic possesses immense talent and promising upside. Markelle Fultz has come into his own in a campaign where he's averaged career marks across the board.
Paolo Banchero has lived up to the hype of being a No. 1 pick, finishing the year averaging 20.0 points per game and showing off playmaking abilities with 3.7 nightly assists.
Surrounding the two are teammates Franz Wagner, Wendell Carter Jr., Jalen Suggs and Cole Anthony to name a few, who all bring skill sets to the table that in many cases go against the grain of what players of their sizes can do.
As a team, the Magic failed to rank in the top-10 across the Association in any of the five major statistical categories, neither did the team do so in any of the efficiency categories, showing that there's still needed room for improvement in the execution department.
Impressively, Orlando secured major victories against the Boston Celtics, Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, Denver Nuggets, New York Knicks and Los Angeles Clippers in 2022-23 -- all of which are playoff-bound teams.
All in all, Orlando achieved one thing if nothing else -- the cultivation of its young talent. Coach Jamahl Mosley found a way to structure the rotation in which his players were put in the best position to develop their games.
Now the next challenge will be further nurturing their maturation and putting it all together in hopes for a playoff push next season.
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