ORLANDO, Fla. — To some gamers, sky-high expectations really feel like a burden.
However to not Paolo Banchero.
When the Orlando Magic drafted him first general three years in the past, he joined one of many NBA’s worst groups. Now, following a blockbuster offseason commerce for Desmond Bane and the signing of Tyus Jones, the Magic count on to contend within the Jap Convention.
“Actually, that’s like music to my ears,” Banchero mentioned Friday throughout an interview with The Athletic. “Let’s simply say I’m very relieved to have some actual expectations for our workforce and for myself. I feel, simply as a competitor, as a winner, as a participant, you need to be anticipated to be nice.”
To Banchero, the 2025 offseason resembled a roller-coaster journey, beginning with a heartbreaking household low and ending on dizzying profession highs. Not lengthy after the Magic misplaced their first-round playoff collection to the Boston Celtics, Banchero realized that his beloved great-aunt on his mother’s aspect, Sharon Pepe, had been identified with terminal lymphoma.
In June, together with his household reeling over his great-aunt’s sudden sickness, the Magic made the primary of their personnel modifications. Banchero was in Paris to attend the marriage of his supervisor, Nicole Beatty, when a notification sounded on a pal’s cellphone shortly after 5 p.m. Orlando had traded the sixteenth choose within the 2025 NBA Draft, three future first-round picks, a first-round choose swap in 2029, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Cole Anthony for Bane.
Banchero, 22, mentioned the commerce shocked him. He recalled doing a double take.
“I simply didn’t imagine it,” Banchero mentioned. “I had a sense we had been going to make a commerce. However I felt like there have been some guys that had been type of up on the listing of who we’d possibly commerce for, not less than in my head, and Desmond Bane was not one among them.
“So after I heard that one, I used to be like, ‘Desmond Bane!’ I used to be like, ‘S—, he’s a hell of a participant.’ I used to be excited. Clearly, he was within the West, so (we didn’t) play him an excessive amount of, however each time we performed Memphis, man, he’d give it to us. And I simply appreciated his complete demeanor and the way he performed, capturing the three.”
Bane ought to assist Orlando enhance its most persistent weak spot: its 3-point capturing. The Magic completed final season final within the NBA in 3-point proportion, at 31.8 %, and final in 3-point makes, at 11.2 per sport. These struggles from lengthy vary doomed Orlando in its 2024 first-round playoff loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in seven video games and its postseason defeat final spring towards the Celtics in 5 video games.
Bane, a swingman, is a 41.0 % profession 3-point shooter. A couple of weeks later, the Magic signed Jones, a conventional level guard who made 41.4 % of his 3s in every of his previous two seasons.
Desmond Bane, who averaged 19.2 factors final season with the Grizzlies, ought to assist the Magic’s offense. (Petre Thomas / Imagn Photos)
For the final two years, Banchero and fellow ahead Franz Wagner drove into the lane and, confronted by a number of defenders, launched troublesome pictures or handed to the perimeter to wide-open teammates whose pictures sailed off-target. However now with Bane and Jones on the ground, Banchero and Wagner ought to have more room to function and extra capturing threats to go to past the 3-point line.
“I feel it’s going to do wonders,” Banchero mentioned. “I feel it’s going to do a number of nice issues, not solely on the court docket however off the court docket, simply with the way in which they’re as folks and the way they’re capable of type of management a room. They speak with a lot expertise that you simply hearken to them. Each of them offensively are simply actually skilled gamers, they usually simply know methods to play. They’ve nice feels for the sport, feels for the court docket, when to make performs, when to shoot, when to drive.”
In the meantime, because the Magic made their roster strikes, Pepe’s situation worsened. Banchero visited her within the hospital of their dwelling state of Washington, and regardless of her sickness, she nonetheless cracked occasional jokes, nonetheless smiled and nonetheless frolicked asking him the sorts of questions on his life that she requested when she had been wholesome. Banchero mentioned her braveness and beauty impressed him.
In late June, she died on the age of 75.
“My household clearly is aware of I like her, and I need to honor her, not solely this season however the remainder of my profession,” Banchero mentioned. “She watched me all the way in which up. She was there a number of the time. She and my grandma, they had been simply so pleased with me and the stuff I’ve been capable of accomplish up up to now. …
“They raised me. They taught me proper from fallacious, simply methods to deal with the particular person subsequent to you, they usually’ve taught me a ton of life classes. Not solely me — they raised my siblings, my mother. They had been raised by my Auntie Sharon and my grandma. It’s generations. We’re all merchandise of them.”
Nearly one week after Sharon Pepe handed away, Banchero signed a five-year, $240 million contract extension that features a participant choice for the 2030-31 season. The entire worth of the contract would rise to roughly $287 million if he wins NBA MVP, NBA Defensive Participant of the 12 months or is called to the All-NBA First Group, Second Group or Third Group for the 2025-26 season.
On condition that Orlando might excel this season, an All-NBA nod ought to be inside Banchero’s attain if he can keep wholesome and meet the 65-games-played requirement for the league’s main honors.
He now is aware of that remaining injury-free is assured to nobody. Within the Magic’s fourth sport final season, he scored 50 factors in a victory over the Indiana Pacers. One sport later, on Oct. 30, he tore his proper indirect. The damage pressured him to overlook the subsequent 2 1/2 months and prevented him from jogging or working for a lot of that point.
Solely now’s Banchero describing how a lot that damage sapped his conditioning and aggressiveness.
Though he scored 34 factors in his return sport on Jan. 10, he felt like a shell of his previous self. His conditioning had deteriorated, and he wanted further time to cease fearing he would reinjure the muscle.
One play stands out in his reminiscence. Teammate Wendell Carter Jr. collected an offensive rebound, and Banchero minimize down the middle of the lane and acquired an ideal go from Carter.
“My legs felt like Jell-O,” he mentioned Friday. “I had zero explosiveness. … Some other time, if I used to be wholesome, I’d have dunked the hell out of the ball. It was only a excellent setup for me to simply tear the rim off. … And I went up, and I simply had zero explosion. I used to be like, ‘Oh, Lord,’ and I simply laid it in, like a little bit child layup. I bear in mind pondering within the sport: ‘Oh, wow, I don’t have it. I’m out right here taking part in, however I’m not myself.’”
Banchero mentioned it took 15 video games, give or take a couple of, to really feel robust once more and to beat considerations about reinjuring himself. A good portion of his sport revolves round power, and for a time, he was afraid to stumble upon opponents and to twist his physique on drives.
Within the collection towards the Celtics, he averaged 29.4 factors, 8.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists. However the Magic, taking part in with out injured guard Jalen Suggs and injured sixth man Moe Wagner, didn’t have sufficient offense to beat the defending NBA champs.
“Regardless that I had a terrific end to the season, my physique nonetheless didn’t really feel prefer it was in nice, nice form,” Banchero mentioned. “I needed to get again to that.”
He hopes to attain extra effectively within the season forward — and be at his finest for what may very well be the Magic’s finest season since Dwight Howard led them on a pair of consecutive lengthy playoff runs.
“I feel the sky is our restrict,” Banchero mentioned. “We’ve had our experiences within the playoffs, dropping within the first spherical for 2 years. We introduced guys in who made deep runs within the playoffs and been on some good groups. So I feel we are able to go so far as we enable ourselves to go. The one factor you don’t need to do is beat your self. Being a youthful workforce, you may have to have the ability to appropriate errors on the fly and within the second. …
“I feel we ought to be a deep playoff workforce. Hopefully, meaning Finals. But when it’s something shorter than that, then Jap Convention finals. I need to play deep into the playoffs. I feel that now we have a deep roster. It’s simple to take a seat right here and inform you this proper now, however we’ve acquired to go on the market and play the season and win these video games when these video games come. That’s what I’m excited for. However truthfully talking — seeing our workforce, seeing the fellows to this point — it’s early, however I feel now we have the kind of workforce that may make a run to the Finals.”
(High picture: Reggie Hildred / Imagn Photos)
