Magic's Franz Wagner Gaining Invaluable Experience During FIBA World Cup
Orlando Magic forward Franz Wagner has had an incredible start to his young career. He's played two seasons with the team and is heading in to a huge third season.
A way to track the 6-9 forward's progress is to watch him play in FIBA alongside his brother -- and teammate -- Moe Wagner. Not only is the FIBA World Cup a great benchmark to track Wagner's progress as a player, but he thoroughly enjoys it, as he's said in the past.
Outside of the Wagner brothers, Paolo Banchero, Joe Ingles and Goga Bitadze are a few other Magic players that are competing in the World Cup.
For Magic fans, the World Cup viewing is fun for the fact that they have plenty of teams to track and follow, but also that the young talent is soaking up invaluable experience.
Wagner took a leap from his first season to his second, averaging 18.6 points per while shooting 36 percent from beyond the arc last season. His play is going to continue and be great alongside Banchero, but playing with Germany allows Wagner to step into the primary scorer role which will help him expand his game.
Playing with Germany, Wagner plays on a team that's the underdog in the tournament, but the team is talented enough to make a run to win the whole thing. This will emulate a similar season that the Magic have coming up.
As a team, the Magic will be able to make a playoff push, but it'll be an uphill battle and they'll be taking on teams arguably better than them in the playoff race. If the team is being run by players with experience doing so, they'll be in a more primed position to take advantage of the opportunity.
Competitive basketball is here and, ultimately, Wagner will benefit from the play despite the final results from the tournament.
You can follow Kade Kimble on Twitter @KadeKimble.
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