Fuelled by a physical transformation and the sting of playoff collapse, Orlando's cornerstone looks to shed inconsistency and embrace the superstar mantle to elevate the Magic's ceiling.
After three straight years of being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, the Orlando Magic have a lot to prove. They are set to face some obstacles along the way, including a make-or-break year for their star Paolo Banchero.
Full Court Magic Host and Roundtable contributor Don Strouble recently discussed the trends of Orlando Magic's superstar and his growth RJ Saunders of 1010XL Magic. Here is what he had to say:
On Paolo Banchero's physical transformation and superstar expectations:
All-Star has to be the floor—that's the bare minimum here. This is someone who had comparisons to LeBron James just in the way that he would play at the peak of his young powers, and some of the plays that he made when he came into the league as a leaner kind of power forward style player. He was drawing comparisons to LeBron. Now, I wrote about this recently, too: nobody is LeBron. The type of longevity that he has put forward over nearly a generation's worth of time of playing NBA basketball may never get replicated again.
Paolo can do his best to try and recapture some of those comparisons. By slimming down and building muscle, it's hard to stop a 6'10" frame of his skill caliber when he's at his best. There were times last year where he looked slow and indecisive. The good thing about Paolo is he acknowledged all of his shortcomings—he acknowledged why he didn't become an All-Star, and he acknowledged when he played poorly in that first play-in tournament game against the Philadelphia 76ers. He is doing the intangible things right that great players need to do, and now he's putting things together tangibly off the court in the weight room and in his private practice sessions. Now we are going to see it come all together. But All-Star—he has to get back to that point, because if he doesn't hit that potential that he is more than capable of, then this team is not going to go as far as it wants to.
On using the Game 6 playoff collapse against Detroit as motivation:
In concrete terms, that's all it can be: a source of motivation. We're talking about one of the great collapses in NBA history. It was absolutely egregious what that second half of Game 6 turned into—I believe they only scored 17 points, missed 23 or 24 shots in a row, and went 45 minutes of real time without hitting a shot. It was just an absolute epic collapse, and at the end of that series, we saw great games from Paolo Banchero in Games 5 and 7—that was the type of superstar he could be—but it wasn't enough.
He was very candid in that Game 7 postgame session after they were eliminated, basically talking about how 'we're not good enough right now.' In his offseason media appearances, like with Stephen A. Smith a couple months ago, he talked about the work he's putting into his body, trying to become more durable so he can be there for his team. But he also talked about not getting complacent, and how when he first made the playoffs as a young player, he was just thankful to be there.
This team has passed that point. Three years in a row, they have shown that they can be a postseason participant, but that is all they have been—they have been knocked out all three times in the first round. This is a franchise that has not won a playoff series since 2010. So this fan base is hungry, and this team is hungry because they do have the pieces, and Paolo can be the guy. This team together, when it's at its best, we saw what it can do: it can push around the number one seed in the East. Things are going to have to play in their favor, health first and foremost. But more than that, I hope that Game 6 has fueled all of these guys to push it a little harder in workouts, do the things that maybe they don't want to do, and cut that vacation short—whatever it has to be to make sure that they can reach the heights that they want to. I hope that the sting and the pain from that game served as motivation to be as committed as possible.
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