When the Magic travel for their preseason opener at Memphis on Wednesday night, the exhibition will mark the first time Desmond Bane returns to the city since he was acquired by Orlando more than a year ago.
Bane, who spent the first five seasons of his NBA career with the Grizzlies, didn’t get the chance to return to the area last season because Orlando and Memphis met twice overseas in Europe.
While the matchup is just a preseason game, he’s looking forward to the opportunity to play inside FedExForum again.
“It’s going to be fun to get back,” Bane said inside the AdventHealth Training Center. “It’ll be my first time back since the trade. I’m excited to see some familiar faces and play in the old hometown arena. I’m definitely looking forward to it.”
The Magic have described their four preseason games as a continuance of training camp as they continue to learn the offensive and defensive systems of new coach Sean Sweeney.
They’re also ready to showcase what they’ve learned so far against an opponent, rather than themselves, on Wednesday night.
“The guys are ready to play against someone else,” Sweeney said. “They’ve done a really good job with what we’ve asked them to do so far. You can tell that they’re ready to go.”
Added forward Franz Wagner: “We should use it as an extension of practice and working on our stuff, seeing how we match up with some of the other teams. But I think first and foremost, it’s important to get better as a team.”
One of those areas the team is aiming to improve upon from last season is its half-court offense. While Orlando’s success on offense comes in the form of getting stops on defense and scoring easy baskets in transition before opposing teams can get set, the Magic often found themselves stagnant in half-court settings last year.
Wagner said the team is still learning Sweeney’s terminology of their half-court offense and making sure the team is on the same page when they do get in those situations.
“I think that’ll be good to see that in a game situation where you don’t have an endless amount of time to set it up,” Wagner said. “It’ll be good to see and will help us get better to figure out some of those processes before the play starts.”
It’s unclear how many minutes Orlando’s starters will get to play Wednesday, but Sweeney said they’ll monitor minutes as needed.
Rookie second-round pick Izaiyah Nelson continues to work his way back from a fracture in his left ankle he suffered at Las Vegas Summer League.
Meanwhile, Magic guard Anthony Black (ankle) and forward Noah Penda (hamstring) have continued to ramp up in practice the past couple days after they missed time last week in training camp. Both players have said this week they feel better.
“Throughout the course of the four games, we’ll do a good job of making sure that we manage guys’ minutes so that they ramp up appropriately and are ready to go once we get going for real,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney also said Magic guard Jalen Suggs is feeling good but still a little bit under the weather. Suggs was able to get on the court some Tuesday and run around in practice.
One player who won’t be making the trip is veteran forward Jonathan Isaac, who’s not available due to personal reasons, the Orlando Sentinel was told. Isaac wasn’t seen during the media-viewing portion of practice Monday or Tuesday.
Regardless of who plays at Memphis and for how many minutes, the Magic have a clear goal in mind for their first preseason game.
“We want to learn about ourselves as much as anything,” Sweeney said. “It would be great to execute at the ultimately high level that we want and do everything perfectly, but in reality, we’re going to make some mistakes.
“So, it’s a good opportunity to see what we did well, see what we needed to do better, and learn from it.”
Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com
Up next …
Magic at Grizzlies, preseason
When: 8 p.m., Wednesday, FedExForum
TV: NBA League Pass