{"id":71723,"date":"2025-12-04T23:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T23:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/71723\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T23:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T23:06:07","slug":"orlando-magic-upgrade-paolo-banchero-on-nba-injury-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/71723\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Magic upgrade Paolo Banchero on NBA injury report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Magic<\/a> have upgraded All-Star forward Paolo Banchero<\/a> to questionable for Friday\u2019s game against the Heat, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.<\/p>\n

Banchero, who last played Nov. 12 at New York, has missed the last 10 games because of a left groin strain.<\/p>\n

The day after suffering his injury against the Knicks, an MRI confirmed Banchero\u2019s left groin strain and Orlando<\/a> said at the time his return would depend on how he responded to treatment.<\/p>\n

More than three weeks later, Banchero has a chance to return to the court when Orlando hosts in-state rival Miami<\/a> inside Kia Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Magic (13-9) have made it clear they not only need Banchero back to sustain long-term success but they\u2019re also not worried about reinserting him into the team\u2019s starting lineup.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe miss him, there\u2019s no mistakes about that one,\u201d Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said Wednesday morning<\/a> before Orlando fell late to San Antonio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Added teammate Jalen Suggs last week at Philadelphia<\/a>: \u201cHe\u2019ll come back into the fold and gel in well with us because that\u2019s our brother. Regardless of how we\u2019ve been playing while he\u2019s been off, we want him on the court. We\u2019re better when he\u2019s on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Banchero was averaging 21.7 points, 8.7 rebounds and 4.1 assists through the first 12 games before his injury.<\/p>\n

If he returns Friday against Miami, the Magic would have gone 7-3 without him.<\/p>\n

Banchero also would only be able to miss seven more games across the final 59 regular season contests in order to qualify for major NBA awards, including Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year and All-NBA honors.<\/p>\n

If Banchero can\u2019t meet the league minimum number of games required to be eligible for All-NBA accolades (65 games, or 80% of the season), he\u2019d miss out on an extra 5% of Orlando\u2019s salary cap across the five years of the rookie max contract extension he signed with the franchise over the summer.<\/a><\/p>\n

Banchero is already set to earn 25% of the team\u2019s salary cap each season of his max rookie extension (which begins in the 2026-27 season and will run through the 2030-31 season) but he could qualify to earn 30% if he gets voted to an All-NBA team (or if he wins NBA MVP or the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award) this season.<\/p>\n

If Banchero can\u2019t play Friday against the Heat, his next chance to return to the court would be Sunday at New York, the same opponent he last faced in November.<\/p>\n

Banchero told the Orlando Sentinel at Boston<\/a> on Nov. 23 that he was \u201cdefinitely, pretty close,\u201d to returning.<\/p>\n

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Magic have upgraded All-Star forward Paolo Banchero to questionable for Friday\u2019s game against the Heat, the Orlando…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,2295,139,141,1239,140,109,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-71723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-orlando","11":"tag-orlando-headlines","12":"tag-orlando-magic","13":"tag-orlando-news","14":"tag-social","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71723","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=71723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}