{"id":420613,"date":"2026-10-06T21:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T21:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/420613\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T21:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T21:38:09","slug":"orlando-magic-travel-to-memphis-grizzlies-to-open-preseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/420613\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Magic travel to Memphis Grizzlies to open preseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Magic<\/a> travel for their preseason opener at Memphis<\/a> on Wednesday night, the exhibition will mark the first time Desmond Bane<\/a> returns to the city since he was acquired by Orlando<\/a> more than a year ago.<\/p>\n

Bane, who spent the first five seasons of his NBA<\/a> career with the Grizzlies, didn\u2019t get the chance to return to the area last season because Orlando and Memphis met twice overseas in Europe.<\/p>\n

While the matchup is just a preseason game, he\u2019s looking forward to the opportunity to play inside FedExForum again.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be fun to get back,\u201d Bane said inside the AdventHealth Training Center. \u201cIt\u2019ll be my first time back since the trade. I\u2019m excited to see some familiar faces and play in the old hometown arena. I\u2019m definitely looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also ready to showcase what they\u2019ve learned so far against an opponent, rather than themselves, on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys are ready to play against someone else,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cThey\u2019ve done a really good job with what we\u2019ve asked them to do so far. You can tell that they\u2019re ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added forward Franz Wagner: \u201cWe 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\u2019s important to get better as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those areas the team is aiming to improve upon from last season is its half-court offense. While Orlando\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Wagner said the team is still learning Sweeney\u2019s terminology of their half-court offense and making sure the team is on the same page when they do get in those situations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019ll be good to see that in a game situation where you don\u2019t have an endless amount of time to set it up,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be good to see and will help us get better to figure out some of those processes before the play starts.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how many minutes Orlando\u2019s starters will get to play Wednesday, but Sweeney said they\u2019ll monitor minutes as needed.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout the course of the four games, we\u2019ll do a good job of making sure that we manage guys\u2019 minutes so that they ramp up appropriately and are ready to go once we get going for real,\u201d Sweeney said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

One player who won\u2019t be making the trip is veteran forward Jonathan Isaac, who\u2019s not available due to personal reasons, the Orlando Sentinel was told. Isaac wasn\u2019t seen during the media-viewing portion of practice Monday or Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Regardless of who plays at Memphis and for how many minutes, the Magic have a clear goal in mind for their first preseason game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to learn about ourselves as much as anything,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cIt would be great to execute at the ultimately high level that we want and do everything perfectly, but in reality, we\u2019re going to make some mistakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it\u2019s a good opportunity to see what we did well, see what we needed to do better, and learn from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Up next \u2026<\/p>\n

Magic at Grizzlies, preseason<\/p>\n

When: 8 p.m., Wednesday, FedExForum<\/p>\n

TV: NBA League Pass<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Magic travel for their preseason opener at Memphis on Wednesday night, the exhibition will mark the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420614,"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-420613","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\/420613","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=420613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}