View Roster<\/a><\/p>\nPotential Free Agents (5)<\/p>\n
Jamal Cain (unrestricted – team option)
Jevon Carter (unrestricted)
Colin Castleton (restricted – two-way)
Jett Howard (unrestricted)
Moritz Wagner (unrestricted)<\/p>\n
Dead Cap (0)<\/p>\n
None<\/p>\n
Projected Signing Exceptions<\/p>\n
Taxpayer MLE ($6.1 million)<\/p>\n
Notable Trade Exceptions<\/p>\n
Tyus Jones ($7.0 million)<\/p>\n
First Round Draft Pick<\/p>\n
None<\/p>\n
Notable Extension Candidates<\/p>\n
Desmond Bane (veteran extension as of July 8)
Goga Bitadze (veteran extension)
Anthony Black (rookie scale extension)<\/p>\n
Analysis<\/p>\n
On one hand, the Orlando Magic have established themselves as a playoff team. That\u2019s the positive side.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the Orlando Magic haven\u2019t advanced past the first round in three consecutive playoff appearances. That\u2019s the negative side.<\/p>\n
That means that this core (Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs and Desmond Bane) is under real pressure for the first time. If they don\u2019t make a real playoff run, the Magic won\u2019t be able to run it back with this same foursome a year from now.<\/p>\n
This summer, at president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman\u2019s own admission, is probably going to be fairly quiet. Orlando already made their big move for this offseason by replacing Jamahl Mosley with Sean Sweeney as head coach. Sweeney was viewed as a rising star in coaching circles. The Magic hope that move will help the team take the elusive next step of winning in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Orlando is also going to bank on better health. Both Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs missed considerable time again. For the Magic to be at their best, they need Wagner and Suggs on the floor more often. Wagner has suffered some fluky injuries, and self-admitted to rushing back to play at times last season. Suggs\u2019 all-out style of play is a contributing factor to his injuries. It\u2019s probably time for Orlando to start to protect him from himself by lessening his minutes and encouraging him to tone it down at times.<\/p>\n
One reason Orlando can lessen Suggs\u2019 minutes is the breakout of Anthony Black. In his third NBA season, Black turned potential into production. He was one of the Magic\u2019s most consistent players throughout the season. The jumper remains a work in progress, but there\u2019s enough other good things that Black does that he\u2019s ready for a bigger role, even when everyone else is healthy.<\/p>\n
While we\u2019re talking about Black, let\u2019s talk his extension. The Magic under Weltman have been aggressive about locking up their own players. There was no hesitation in giving Wagner or Paolo Banchero a max deal. Suggs got a non-max, but plenty big deal of his own. Orlando extended Wendell Carter Jr. and almost doubled his pay. And it wasn\u2019t an extension, but the Magic took on near-max money when they traded for Desmond Bane.<\/p>\n
That leaves the question: How much is left for Anthony Black? When an extension would start for Black with the 2027-28 season, the Magic have nearly $181 million on the books for the quintet of Banchero, Wagner, Bane, Suggs and Carter. That leaves roughly $30 million under the projected luxury tax line of $211 million for 10 more players. If you add in recent draftees Tristan da Silva, Jase Richardson and Noah Penda, then the team is at nearly $193 million.<\/p>\n
So, what can the Magic afford to pay Black against what he\u2019s earned (factoring in production and still-untapped potential)? That\u2019s the real question. Something in the range of $80 million over four years feels about right. For Black, that might be a little too low. He may feel like with another leap that a bigger deal awaits. For Orlando, they really can\u2019t go much higher, unless the plan is to move off another contract or two.<\/p>\n
An extension for Black is probably the most important business Orlando has to take care of this summer, but they have other moves to make. As it stands, to open the offseason, Orlando is $9.3 million over the first apron and about $3.6 million under the second apron. That\u2019s far too expensive, and transaction-restricted, for where the Magic are currently at.<\/p>\n
The easiest path for Orlando to free up flexibility is to part ways with Jonathan Isaac. This move was forecasted when the Magic and Isaac amended his contract last season. Isaac is guaranteed $8 million for next season, unless he\u2019s waived by June 28 under the amended terms of his deal.<\/p>\n
The Magic will look to trade Isaac first, which would remove the full financial obligations from their books. If a trade can\u2019t be found, look for Orlando to waive-and-stretch Isaac. Because he has two fully non-guaranteed seasons left on his deal beyond the upcoming one, the Magic would be able to stretch Isaac\u2019s dead money cap hit over seven seasons. That\u2019d put about $1.1 million in dead money on the books for the next seven years, but that\u2019s not such a big figure that it would be hard to work around.<\/p>\n
If the Magic make this move, they\u2019ll be about $5.3 million under the first apron. That gives the team enough room to re-sign players like Jevon Carter and Moe Wagner for depth. Carter played well for Orlando and he\u2019s an ideal stay-ready third point guard. Wagner is a big part of the team\u2019s frontcourt and locker room.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re also factoring in that Jamal Cain will be back, as his team option hits the cap at only slightly more than the veteran minimum amount. He was pretty solid when pressed into service at various points last season.<\/p>\n
The Orlando Magic have played their first card in the \u201cbig changes\u201d process by bringing in Sean Sweeney as the new head coach. There\u2019s not likely to be another big move this summer. This offseason will be about rebalancing the cap sheet a little bit. If next season ends in a first-round playoff loss, then we\u2019ll start talking about the next big change coming from Orlando. Until then, the Magic are banking on a new coach getting this talented core to live up to their considerable potential.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Offseason Approach One more year for this core to make it work, but with a new coach Actual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[5268,14894,115,139,141,129141,140,4176,7352,46792],"class_list":["post-309588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-analysis","tag-contract","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-magic-2026-offseason-preview","tag-orlando-news","tag-report","tag-research","tag-spotrac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309588","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=309588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}