Magic's Jalen Suggs Hopeful for Return as Injury Recovery Restarts

ORLANDO, Fla. – Jalen Suggs' left leg sported a white compression sleeve that covered his foot, transparent enough to reveal patterned kinesio tape surrounding his kneecap.

He wore no shoes, down to only an adidas sock on his right foot, and carried a basketball that featured a 2025 NBA Finals logo on it. While the Orlando Magic returned to practice on Saturday morning at AdventHealth Training Center, he was a mere bystander.

Suggs was diagnosed Friday with a trochlea cartilage injury in his left knee, ruling him out indefinitely with only 21 games remaining in the Magic's regular season. Having missed the month due to a left quad contusion, Suggs felt discomfort in his ramp-up process which led to additional evaluation and imaging.

The fourth-year guard, who is averaging a career-best 16.4 points, 4.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.5 steals but has played a career-low 35 games, is expected to make a full recovery. Speaking with reporters mid-day Saturday, he expressed a desire to return this season.

"My goal is to come back and play and help impact as we get to the postseason and get into the playoffs," Suggs said Saturday. "That's my goal. I think if you don't have a personal goal, it gets kind of hard to get through day-to-day work because you're not seeing a bigger picture.

"Everything is aligned with that so far. Obviously, things may change as the process goes on, but as of right now, that's my goal. That's where the timeline is at. I feel confident in my strength, the strength, training and conditioning staff, and my God having my back to make that happen."

Having completed an MRI Friday, the Magic are assessing possible treatment plans, which could include rest, physical therapy, anti-inflammatory medicines or arthroscopic surgery to remove loose cartilage.

"It's just tough to restart, because I was making such good progress," Suggs said.

New complications arose this past week ahead of the Magic's Tuesday matchup with Cleveland, which prompted Orlando to seek out the additional MRI.

"I had a great workout, playing defense, getting in my stance, closing out, conditioning, shooting, playing 2's – really was progressing really well," Suggs said. "I was close, and that's the hardest part. Because I felt like I had gotten over that hump, I had hit almost the last checkpoint to playing, and then this arises.

"Can't do anything about it [besides] literally just resetting the clock and getting back to work. I had done a great job, we'd all done a great job ... Everybody's helped take care of me. We were in a great place. God just threw another wrinkle in the way."

"My heart hurt for him," Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said Saturday. "You feel for a young man that continues to work, how much a part of this team he is, how much he's needed. On his journey and what he's been through – the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs – those things, they hit the young man first more than it is about the basketball side of it.

Mosley had previously referred to the injury as "tricky" in nature, much like the core muscle injuries Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner that cost them 34- and 20-game absences respectively, or the sporadic injuries others have experienced. In what's become a turbulent season following last year's trip to the playoffs, the Banchero-Wagner-Suggs trio has seen the floor just six times in 61 chances. They've won four of those games.

In total, Orlando players have missed 184 total contests due to injury or illness this season before Sunday's matchup with Toronto, and 26 belong to Suggs – the last 14 coming consecutively since first suffering the left leg injury January 25.

If there's a silver lining, Mosley said, ruling Suggs out indefinitely provided some longed-for clarity on the issue he'd dealt with the past month.

"There was a level of uncertainty of what was going on, when's he going to be back, how long is [before] he's going to be back. Everybody wondered and everybody wanted to know," Mosley said. "I think the players for the most part even want to understand when they're going to have their brother back on the court.

"Now, we can dive into exactly how we need to approach these 21 games."

Asked about when he felt his recovery process wasn't going as smoothly as hoped for, Suggs said: "The whole time it was rough. Bruises are weird things, especially the position of [this one]. None of it was going according to my plan, at least. My plan, I would've been playing fresh off the [All-Star] break, but God doesn't always work on my timing.

"I was literally not too far off from coming back and getting games in. That's just how life works sometimes. My ways aren't His ways, and I'm learning that and experiencing that first-hand right now."

Suggs described his current day-to-day process as being in "slow-motion." He and the Magic are preparing to take the next steps and have conversations with doctors, but he's eager to get back to work. For the entire eight-minute question-and-answer session, Suggs never let the basketball free from his right hand's grasp.

"Take a day or two to continue to process this and get myself in the mental space to restart and start from ground zero," Suggs said. "I'm cool with it because it's a challenge I get to take on. I'd love for that challenge to be coming out and winning games, but again, life doesn't always work how you want it to.

"I'm just ready to start taking this head on, start to stack my days up as 'Kelle (Markelle Fultz) would say, and get to work."

But the Magic won't wait for him to be green-lit to embrace the heart and soul of their team.

"They rally around him," Mosley said. "I think we've had this obviously more times this year than we've liked to ... When you have guys go down, you understand what it is they're going through and you want to wrap your arms around them, let them know it's going to be okay, we're supporting you, and we're going to be right here helping you along the way.

"That's the same sentiment that it is for Jalen."

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