{"id":412266,"date":"2026-09-27T20:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T20:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/412266\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T20:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T20:40:08","slug":"magics-franz-wagner-talks-sweeney-health-ahead-of-nba-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/412266\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic’s Franz Wagner talks Sweeney, health ahead of NBA camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this summer, Magic<\/a> forward Franz Wagner<\/a> served as a camp counselor at an Adidas Eurocamp in Treviso, Italy.<\/p>\n

On Sunday morning, Wagner ran his own youth basketball camp a bit closer to downtown Orlando<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The German forward, in partnership with FlexWork Sports, hosted around 100 children at the Game Point Events Center, where he had the chance to work with the youngsters on and off the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important,\u201d Wagner said about hosting a camp in Orlando. \u201cObviously, I\u2019ve been here awhile now so I want to connect with the community in that way. Sometimes at games you don\u2019t get that time with a lot of these kids. So, it\u2019s a really cool thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wagner has been back in Central Florida for almost a month while ramping up for the start of the Magic training camp Tuesday at the AdventHealth Training Center.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a busy summer for Wagner, who spent a lot of time in his home country of Germany while seeing friends and family.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s gotten to know new Magic coach Sean Sweeney<\/a>, who was officially hired at the start of June after the franchise fired Jamahl Mosley<\/a>. For Wagner and a number of teammates, including Paolo Banchero<\/a>, Sweeney will be the second NBA head coach they\u2019ve played for after five years with Mosley.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was in Europe, (Sweeney) called me like every week, which I thought was awesome, just to chop it up really,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cHe had certain things he wanted to talk about. The first thing is, he\u2019s very direct (with) communication. He\u2019s very honest (and) says what he feels. It\u2019s going to be a lot of changes from how we do things. All good stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I\u2019m really excited to see what this new staff brings to the table,\u201d Wagner added. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be interesting how we react to it as a group. Obviously, we had the same coach for the last five years. It\u2019s going to be some change and some adjustments for us, how we\u2019re being coached, and that\u2019s where growth comes in. So, I\u2019m excited for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wagner also spent the offseason getting healthy again. He exited Game 4 of Orlando\u2019s first-round playoff series against Detroit because of a right calf strain and didn\u2019t return to the court because of it. His absence shifted the series. After the Magic took a 3-1 lead over the Pistons, they lost three straight games without Wagner.<\/p>\n

Prior to the right calf strain, Wagner had missed a combined 48 games because of a left high ankle sprain that required multiple attempts to return.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was honestly still rehabbing the other injury, so I think that was just a consequence of my first injury,\u201d he said of the calf strain.<\/p>\n

Wagner took an additional two-three weeks to rehab the calf strain after the season ended before taking some time off to decompress. He said it was \u201csix weeks probably\u201d after Orlando was eliminated before he was really moving fast on the court.<\/p>\n

There was a mental toll from the season as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t understand sometimes as much as it\u2019s physical, sometimes mental stress and just the season and everything that comes with it, can hinder some of those processes,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cSo, it was really good for me to not have that (and) decompress for a little bit. That made the healing process for my body a lot easier as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MagicMagic forward Franz Wagner leans down to talk to a young camper at the Game Point Events Center on Sunday morning in Orlando. (Jason Beede\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

Healthy again and ready to start a new season, Wagner took time to reflect on his first five years in the league.<\/p>\n

This upcoming season will be his first as a pro not playing alongside older brother Moe, who signed with the Brooklyn Nets this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that in of itself is going to be a lot,\u201d Wagner said about no longer having his brother as a teammate. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of fun, too, though. I\u2019ve changed a lot and grown a lot in my time here. It\u2019s kind of crazy to look back on it now; it\u2019s already been five years going onto six. I\u2019m really happy I\u2019ve gotten the opportunity to develop like that here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith all that being said, though, we\u2019ve got a new opportunity here,\u201d Wagner added. \u201cThat upwards momentum with the new staff, I\u2019m really excited to hopefully turn another page and find some new levels as a group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this summer, Magic forward Franz Wagner served as a camp counselor at an Adidas Eurocamp in Treviso,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412267,"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-412266","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\/412266","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=412266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}