{"id":263052,"date":"2026-05-08T04:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T04:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/263052\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T04:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T04:53:14","slug":"jeff-weltman-points-to-what-orlando-magic-need-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/263052\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Weltman points to what Orlando Magic need this summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although the Magic<\/a> fired coach Jamahl Mosley<\/a> less than 24 hours after Orlando<\/a>\u2018s season ended in the first round of the NBA playoffs<\/a> for a third consecutive season, Magic president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman<\/a> acknowledged that more will need to be done in order for the franchise to advance in the postseason for the first time since 2010.<\/p>\n

Weltman shared his perspective Monday about what he believes the team needs to address the most this offseason when it comes to roster makeup and how to improve it moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re like all teams \u2014 we want to get shooters,\u201d he said inside the AdventHealth Training Center earlier this week. \u201cWe want to round out the roster with players that can come in and add skill and shooting to the court. I do think that that opens the door to some questions that our front office has to ask of itself this year about roster composition and how we even kind of like, more back end-of-the-bench, supply ourselves with some of those things. We\u2019re very compressed financially, and we don\u2019t have a whole lot of capital to deal with, but that\u2019s going to be our challenge this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that we did take a step forward this year, which I think showed up in the playoffs,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd Desmond (Bane) made a huge difference. Our starting lineup took a leap.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Weltman\u2019s point, Orlando\u2019s opening night starting five of Bane, Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner, Paolo Banchero<\/a> and Wendell Carter Jr. finished the regular season 20th in net rating (plus-11.6) among the 79 five-man lineups that played at least 100 minutes together, according to NBA.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That same Magic lineup\u00a0was also available for the first four games of its first-round series with top-seeded Detroit<\/a> that saw Orlando take a 3-1 series lead. The Pistons<\/a>, however, won the next three games to become the 15th team in NBA history to overcome a 3-1 deficit.<\/p>\n

Of the nine five-man lineups that played at least 60 minutes together in the first round of the playoffs, Orlando\u2019s starting group posted the third-best net rating (plus-14.7), behind only Detroit\u2019s starting lineup (plus-17.3) and Cleveland\u2019s first five (plus-20.7), according to NBA.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Noteworthy for the Magic, of course, was the fact that Wagner missed the last three games of the series against the Pistons because of a right calf strain.<\/p>\n

Even without the German forward, however, Orlando had multiple chances to still win the series, including in Game 6 at Kia Center. That night, the Pistons overcame a 22-point halftime deficit to force Game 7 back at Detroit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to be taken away from that,\u201d Weltman said of Orlando\u2019s series versus Detroit. \u201cI don\u2019t want to overreact to the second half of Game 6, the same way I don\u2019t want to overreact to the first half of Game 6 when we were up 22 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our job to step back and look at the big picture of what works, what doesn\u2019t work and to not throw the baby out with the bath water,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Improving the roster won\u2019t be easy. Such moves could require difficult decisions, given that Orlando is already projected to sit above the league\u2019s luxury tax threshold before any moves are even made this summer.<\/p>\n

Weltman acknowledged that the franchise is prepared to pay the luxury tax for the first time since 2012 next season \u2014 something the team avoided this season by sending out veteran guard Tyus Jones ahead of the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

In addition to dealing with the financial reality of the roster, not drifting too far away from the team\u2019s identity is something for Weltman to consider as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are our challenges,\u201d he said. \u201cI said last time at the deadline, do we really want to break into this core? Because if we\u2019re going to make a major move, then you\u2019re going to break into the core. So, we have to see what major moves are in front of us. We have to see what smaller nibbles we can take. I will say this, short of acquiring a star player, I do believe that the greatest impact that you can have on a team is to bring in a new coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that we have a lot of different avenues and ways that we need to improve and get better,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019ll kind of tap into all of those and see if we put our guys in the best possible position to succeed, including like rounding out the roster with veteran guys that know how to come in and win and reliable and consistent, that help our main guys facilitate their ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding veteran pieces to Orlando\u2019s bench could go a long way for a roster was the fifth-youngest in the league this season.<\/p>\n

In 2023-24 when the Magic finished fifth in the East, the team\u2019s bench averaged 41.5 points per night, the fourth-most league-wide<\/a>. This year, the bench averaged 32.6 points per night, which ranked 26th in the NBA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always going to be pushing to improve this team,\u201d Weltman said. \u201c\u2026 I think we saw some of what we had hoped to see. So, I don\u2019t want to tear this thing down and dismantle it because of the way it ended and certainly because of one half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although the Magic fired coach Jamahl Mosley less than 24 hours after Orlando\u2018s season ended in the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,2295,139,141,1239,140,109,76046,110],"class_list":["post-263052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nba","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-magic","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}