ORLANDO, Fla. — To some players, sky-high expectations feel like a burden.
But not to Paolo Banchero.
When the Orlando Magic drafted him first overall three years ago, he joined one of the NBA’s worst teams. Now, following a blockbuster offseason trade for Desmond Bane and the signing of Tyus Jones, the Magic expect to contend in the Eastern Conference.
“Honestly, that’s like music to my ears,” Banchero said Friday during an interview with The Athletic. “Let’s just say I’m very relieved to have some real expectations for our team and for myself. I think, just as a competitor, as a winner, as a player, you want to be expected to be great.”
To Banchero, the 2025 offseason resembled a roller-coaster ride, starting with a heartbreaking family low and ending on dizzying career highs. Not long after the Magic lost their first-round playoff series to the Boston Celtics, Banchero learned that his beloved great-aunt on his mom’s side, Sharon Pepe, had been diagnosed with terminal lymphoma.
In June, with his family reeling over his great-aunt’s sudden illness, the Magic made the first of their personnel changes. Banchero was in Paris to attend the wedding of his manager, Nicole Beatty, when a notification sounded on a friend’s phone shortly after 5 p.m. Orlando had traded the 16th pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, three future first-round picks, a first-round pick swap in 2029, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Cole Anthony for Bane.
Banchero, 22, said the trade stunned him. He recalled doing a double take.
“I just didn’t believe it,” Banchero said. “I had a feeling we were going to make a trade. But I felt like there were some guys that were kind of up on the list of who we would maybe trade for, at least in my head, and Desmond Bane was not one of them.
“So when I heard that one, I was like, ‘Desmond Bane!’ I was like, ‘S—, he’s a hell of a player.’ I was excited. Obviously, he was in the West, so (we didn’t) play him too much, but every time we played Memphis, man, he’d give it to us. And I just liked his whole demeanor and how he played, shooting the 3.”
Bane should help Orlando improve its most persistent weakness: its 3-point shooting. The Magic finished last season last in the NBA in 3-point percentage, at 31.8 percent, and last in 3-point makes, at 11.2 per game. Those struggles from long range doomed Orlando in its 2024 first-round playoff loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in seven games and its postseason defeat last spring against the Celtics in five games.
Bane, a swingman, is a 41.0 percent career 3-point shooter. A few weeks later, the Magic signed Jones, a traditional point guard who made 41.4 percent of his 3s in each of his past two seasons.
Desmond Bane, who averaged 19.2 points last season with the Grizzlies, should help the Magic’s offense. (Petre Thomas / Imagn Images)
For the last two years, Banchero and fellow forward Franz Wagner drove into the lane and, confronted by multiple defenders, launched difficult shots or passed to the perimeter to wide-open teammates whose shots sailed off-target. But now with Bane and Jones on the floor, Banchero and Wagner should have more space to operate and more shooting threats to pass to beyond the 3-point line.
“I think it’s going to do wonders,” Banchero said. “I think it’s going to do a lot of great things, not only on the court but off the court, just with the way they are as people and how they’re able to kind of control a room. They talk with so much experience that you listen to them. Both of them offensively are just really experienced players, and they just know how to play. They have great feels for the game, feels for the court, when to make plays, when to shoot, when to drive.”
Meanwhile, as the Magic made their roster moves, Pepe’s condition worsened. Banchero visited her in the hospital in their home state of Washington, and despite her illness, she still cracked occasional jokes, still smiled and still spent time asking him the types of questions about his life that she asked when she had been healthy. Banchero said her courage and grace inspired him.
In late June, she died at the age of 75.
“My family obviously knows I love her, and I want to honor her, not only this season but the rest of my career,” Banchero said. “She watched me all the way up. She was there a lot of the time. She and my grandma, they were just so proud of me and the stuff I’ve been able to accomplish up to this point. …
“They raised me. They taught me right from wrong, just how to treat the person next to you, and they’ve taught me a ton of life lessons. Not only me — they raised my siblings, my mom. They were raised by my Auntie Sharon and my grandma. It’s generations. We’re all products of them.”
Almost one week after Sharon Pepe passed away, Banchero signed a five-year, $240 million contract extension that includes a player option for the 2030-31 season. The total value of the contract would rise to approximately $287 million if he wins NBA MVP, NBA Defensive Player of the Year or is named to the All-NBA First Team, Second Team or Third Team for the 2025-26 season.
Given that Orlando could excel this season, an All-NBA nod should be within Banchero’s reach if he can stay healthy and meet the 65-games-played requirement for the league’s major honors.
He now knows that remaining injury-free is guaranteed to no one. In the Magic’s fourth game last season, he scored 50 points in a victory over the Indiana Pacers. One game later, on Oct. 30, he tore his right oblique. The injury forced him to miss the next 2 1/2 months and prevented him from jogging or running for much of that time.
Only now is Banchero describing how much that injury sapped his conditioning and aggressiveness.
Although he scored 34 points in his return game on Jan. 10, he felt like a shell of his old self. His conditioning had deteriorated, and he needed additional time to stop fearing he would reinjure the muscle.
One play stands out in his memory. Teammate Wendell Carter Jr. collected an offensive rebound, and Banchero cut down the center of the lane and received a perfect pass from Carter.
“My legs felt like Jell-O,” he said Friday. “I had zero explosiveness. … Any other time, if I was healthy, I would have dunked the hell out of the ball. It was just a perfect setup for me to just tear the rim off. … And I went up, and I just had zero explosion. I was like, ‘Oh, Lord,’ and I just laid it in, like a little baby layup. I remember thinking in the game: ‘Oh, wow, I don’t have it. I’m out here playing, but I’m not myself.’”
Banchero said it took 15 games, give or take a few, to feel strong again and to overcome concerns about reinjuring himself. A significant portion of his game revolves around force, and for a time, he was afraid to bump into opponents and to twist his body on drives.
In the series against the Celtics, he averaged 29.4 points, 8.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists. But the Magic, playing without injured guard Jalen Suggs and injured sixth man Moe Wagner, did not have enough offense to overcome the defending NBA champs.
“Even though I had a great finish to the season, my body still didn’t feel like it was in great, great shape,” Banchero said. “I wanted to get back to that.”
He hopes to score more efficiently in the season ahead — and be at his best for what could be the Magic’s best season since Dwight Howard led them on a pair of consecutive long playoff runs.
“I think the sky is our limit,” Banchero said. “We’ve had our experiences in the playoffs, losing in the first round for two years. We brought guys in who made deep runs in the playoffs and been on some good teams. So I think we can go as far as we allow ourselves to go. The one thing you don’t want to do is beat yourself. Being a younger team, you have to be able to correct mistakes on the fly and in the moment. …
“I think we should be a deep playoff team. Hopefully, that means Finals. But if it’s anything shorter than that, then Eastern Conference finals. I want to play deep into the playoffs. I think that we have a deep roster. It’s easy to sit here and tell you this right now, but we’ve got to go out there and play the season and win those games when those games come. That’s what I’m excited for. But honestly speaking — seeing our team, seeing the guys so far — it’s early, but I think we have the type of team that can make a run to the Finals.”
(Top photo: Reggie Hildred / Imagn Images)