Jamahl Mosley spent his Tuesday trying to prepare his Orlando Magic for their upcoming Play-In game against the Philadelphia 76ers.

The team was going to be playing this game anyway. The shocking loss to a Boston Celtics team missing its top seven players only added to the pressure heaped upon a team that was already deemed one of this season’s bigger disappointments.

Mosley, usually full of energy, was a bit gruffer and sullen as he spoke to the media following the team’s practice session. A lot is riding on the result of this game for him and his team. And perhaps even more.

Even someone so focused on supporting his team and trying to make them better likely cannot hide from the storm surrounding this Magic team right now. A storm that was only growing throughout the day on Tuesday, thanks to various reports.

Jake Fischer of Bleacher/Report probably reads the situation best: It may not matter whether the Magic win this game on Wednesday. It may not even matter if they get out of the first round. Mosley’s days with the team are almost certainly numbered:

“Orlando with Jamahl Mosley is almost certainly going to be making a coaching change no matter how the Magic’s Play-In appearance starting with their game at Philadelphia on Wednesday, no matter if they make it into the Playoffs, there is a healthy amount of thought around the league that Jamahl Mosley will no longer be coaching the Orlando Magic next season,” Fischer said on his live stream Tuesday.

This observation — one that is not too difficult to make with how disappointing the team was with its eighth-place finish in the Eastern Conference and 45-37 record following the blockbuster acquisition of Desmond Bane — follows an incendiary report from a Ringer podcast producer claiming greater turmoil in the locker room.

Sunday’s loss to the Celtics certainly capped a frustrating season in Orlando. But so too did devastating losses to the Toronto Raptors and Atlanta Hawks, by 52 and 29 points respectively, in the last month, while the Orlando Magic were fighting for playoff positioning. Orlando finished a game behind both teams in the final standings.

Things have not been right in the Magic Kingdom all year long. And a coaching change has felt inevitable for several months.

Fall from grace

Jamahl Mosley was hired ahead of the 2022 season to guide the Orlando Magic through a rebuild after tearing things down to get a fresh start after a decade-long failed rebuild.

It is hard to call what Mosley did anything but a success.

He quickly established the team’s identity as a team that outworked everyone in front of them. They established a defensive identity that nobody wanted to deal with.

The Magic made a shrewd draft pick with Franz Wagner and got the No. 1 pick to set their foundation with Paolo Banchero. They made their Playoff breakthrough in 2024 and made the Playoffs again in 2025 despite an injury-marred season that featured both their young stars suffering odd oblique injuries.

The trade for Desmond Bane seemed to set them up to break into the top half of the Eastern Conference playoff picture and advance out of the first round.

While Bane had a stellar season for the Magic and the Magic featured three 20.0 points-per-game scorers for the first time in franchise history, things were off from the start this season.

Injuries plagued the team again — first a strained groin for Banchero that cost him a month in November and then a high ankle sprain that kept Wagner out from early December until April 1, except for four games when he tried to return.

The team also never quite found its defensive identity.

After finishing second in the league in defensive rating in 2024, the team slipped to 13th this year. The offense made meager gains, but the team continued to struggle to generate clean looks or make open threes.

The pressure fell on Mosley to find fixes, and he never could. The tension was clearly present.

Reports throughout the year suggested that Banchero was dissatisfied with the Magic’s offensive style and some of the changes made to it. He has had an up-and-down season that was under intense scrutiny.

There was a back-and-forth that went public between the star and the coach pointing fingers at why the team struggled so much, particularly in third quarters, following a home loss to the Detroit Pistons.

It has not been a happy season. Players have been left trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces and things have never come together, leaving the team in the Play-In Tournament for a second straight year.

Candidates emerge

The Orlando Magic still have a postseason to play out and see how far they can get. But considering the team is not pointing to a championship as they imagined they would, the team will be urgently looking for a coach who can get them deeper into the Playoffs.

The Magic job should be one of the most attractive jobs in what is expected to be a busy coaching market.

Orlando has been to the postseason in each of the last three seasons. The team still has a young core that features a former Rookie of the Year and All-Star in Paolo Banchero and a likely future All-Star in Franz Wagner. The Magic still have a strong defensive reputation.

When their opening night starting lineup of Jalen Suggs, Desmond Bane, Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner and Wendell Carter have played together, it has a +11.6 net rating (117.3 offensive rating/105.7 defensive rating). Among lineups that have played at least 150 minutes, it ranks ninth in the league.

The problem this year is that the group played only 19 games and 182 minutes together. Even in the Play-In Tournament, the group will be limited as Wagner continues to recover from his injury.

There are the bones of a good team for a coach to work with.

Already, some names are emerging, with Fischer suggesting the Orlando Magic could be interested in Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan if Donovan does not wish to return to Chicago.

Donovan once spurned the Magic in 2007 after winning back-to-back championships at Florida. Since coming to the NBA, Donovan has made six playoff appearances in 11 seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Chicago Bulls. He has only won two playoff series though, leading the Thunder to the Western Conference Finals in his first season in 2016.

Fischer also suggests former Memphis Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins could also get a lot of interest around the league, citing him as a potential candidate with the Milwaukee Bucks, who parted ways with Doc Rivers on Monday.

Regardless, it seems the Magic are at a crossroads after a difficult season. Everyone expects them to move on quickly once their season ends.

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