The 2024 games were supposed to be the start of something special in Orlando. The Magic had drafted Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero in three straight sweepstakes and pushed Donovan Mitchell and the Cavaliers to just seven games. They were young, talented, and when they all went in the Desmond Bane trade last summer, almost everyone officially pegged them as an Eastern Conference contender.
Unfortunately, we’ve never fully explored what this team could be, and it’s starting to look like we never want to. Injuries continue to hit them as hard as any team in the NBA. Two games into the 2026-27 season, Banchero reportedly asked for a four-to-six week hiatus after suffering a high ankle sprain in Orlando’s loss to the Timberwolves on Friday.
Magic just can’t catch a break. In the last two seasons, the trio of Banchero-Wagner-Suggs managed to play in just 25 games together. Last year, Wagner and Suggs left a combined 73 games injured. The year before that, Banchero and Wagner only managed 40 games together.
They suffered the same injury that year. Banchero tore his hamstring in the first week of the season, missing 34 games, and just as he was aiming to return, Wagner tore his hamstring and missed the next six weeks.
It’s all the more frustrating to look at the actual magic data we’ve seen from this team at full strength. The Pistons dropped a 1-2 seed in the first round last year until Wagner, of course, dropped the final three games of the series with a calf strain and forced Detroit to win the series.
This time it was figured out either he hopedso that the needle of injury was finally thrown in their favor by fortune. But here it goes again with Bancher, who was off to a roaring start this year with 35 points in the opener and another 14 through the first half Friday. He was shooting nearly 70% from the field. He made three of four pointers against Atlanta.
Injuries aside, there have been real questions as to whether Banchero and Wagner can ultimately fit in as a duo given their shooting inconsistency. At the same time, we need to see them at longer distances to see if they can do it, or if they can improve on Bancher’s arrows. The basketball gods just don’t allow the experiment to get off the ground for some real time.
It’s too bad he cooks with Banchero, he’s as lethal a prostitute as there is in the league. The Magic can create a lot of upside mismatches with Bancher and Wagner’s ability to handle the ball and initiate offense at 6-footers. Orlando’s defense was chosen; He had Detroit in a straitjacket for much of that last year’s series. The parties are there.
But these Banchero injuries are sealing the fate of this season before it even begins. That sounds premature, but the Magic are already 0-2, and without Banchero in power for a month and a half, it’s very likely they’re going to have to dig themselves out of another deep hole to even think about a game-by-game spot in the deep East. It is true, if by chance they were delayed, they were engaged in a hard battle.
Now all they can do is hold on tight and pray to the basketball gods that no one else gets hurt before Bancher arrives. The same basketball gods who seem to curse teams that could be nearing their end never really had a chance to begin.
Again, that sounds dramatic. But this feels like a year to make for the Banchero-Wagner duo. Magic lacks future equity to make another big move. Moving one of these two is the only true shakeup available. The Magic tried to change coaches, but this is not the best way to send Banchero or Wagner and does not want to stay healthy. This was the last shot to really see if these two can work, and it couldn’t have turned out at a worse start.