Paolo Banchero and Desmond Bane combined for 62 points against Washington on Tuesday, which looks like the kind of performance a team builds around. But the Orlando Magic are 32-28 and sitting seventh in the East, roughly the same position they were in before trading for Bane and his $197 million contract.
The combined scoring has been there all season. The winning that is supposed to come with it has not, and the underlying numbers suggest the problem is structural rather than a matter of time.
Banchero’s counting stats are at a career high but his on-court net rating since January is negative
Banchero is averaging 21.8 points per game on a career-high 55.8% true shooting percentage, which sounds like progress until you look at the context. That true shooting mark is league average for a player in his role, not the kind of efficiency you expect from a franchise cornerstone who is supposed to be taking a leap.
Since Jan. 1, Orlando has a -0.7 net rating with Banchero on the floor. The team was significantly worse without him earlier in the season — a -5.5 net rating when he sat — but the gap has narrowed to the point where his presence is no longer moving the needle the way a No. 1 option should.
His field goal attempts are at a career low of 15.6 per game, which is the part that has drawn the most criticism. Kendrick Perkins called Banchero the biggest disappointment in the NBA this season on ESPN, saying that instead of taking the next leap he has taken steps backward. John Hollinger noted in The Athletic that Banchero is shooting less while Bane and Anthony Black have absorbed larger offensive roles, and that the reduced volume has not helped Banchero’s efficiency at all.
The Bane trade added elite shooting but created a half-court hierarchy problem Orlando has not solved
The issue is not that Bane is bad. He is averaging 20.3 points on a 24.8% usage rate and has a slightly positive on-court net rating of +0.2. The issue is that Bane, Banchero, and Franz Wagner all function best as players who need the ball in their hands to create.
Adding Bane’s shooting was supposed to space the floor and open driving lanes for Banchero. Instead, the shot distribution has shifted in a way that has reduced Banchero’s aggressiveness without making the offense more efficient overall.
Bane defended the pairing recently, saying that every time Banchero is on the floor he creates an advantage. That may be true in isolation — Banchero’s size and passing from the forward position do generate open looks — but Orlando’s record does not reflect a team that is capitalizing on those advantages consistently.
A 32-28 record with a pair of 20-point scorers and a roster built to win now is not a disaster, but it is not what the Magic envisioned when they committed nearly $200 million to Bane.
The remaining 22 games will determine whether Orlando can climb into the top six or get stuck in the play-in, and the answer will depend on whether the coaching staff can establish a clearer offensive hierarchy. Right now, the Magic have enough talent to put up points but not enough structure to turn those points into the kind of consistent winning that justifies the investment. The scoring looks impressive on the box score. The standings say it has not been enough.