The Reality For The Orlando Magic Following Paolo Banchero's Well Deserved Max Extension Is The Latest Example Of Why The NBA's New CBA Is Complete Bullshit

G Fiume. Getty Images.

Imagine you're a team like the Orlando Magic. Outside of your early years in the league, you haven't really been "contenders". This is a franchise that has been around for 36 years, has just 2 Finals appearances to ther name (1994-95, 2008-09) and in total has only been out of the 1st Round of the playoffs 5 times in their entire history. 

In fact, since 2009-10, so for the last 15+ years the Magic have either lost in the 1st Round or missed the playoffs entirely. During that span, the Magic won under 30 games a total of 6 different times (not counting the shortened Covid year). That's nearly half of the time! 

After years and years of futility while also not really being a free agent destination since the Dwight Howard era way back when, the Magic have had to rebuild their team the long and hard way. When you're a team in their position, it requires good drafting, patience, and a whole lot of luck. You hope that through internal development and an influx of good young talent that eventually, you can turn things around. For this iteration of the Magic, in my opinion, the rebuild began right around the 2020-21 season.

That team finished a dogshit 21-51, which resulted in the Magic having the 5th pick in the 2021 Draft. With that pick, they selected a guy who many considered to be their point guard of the future, Jalen Suggs. A few spots later, with a pick from the Bulls, they landed their wing of the future in Franz Wagner.

In 2021-22, the Magic were once again mostly dogshit, finishing 22-60, which resulted in them having the #1 pick. With that pick, they selected a guy who many considered to be the face of their franchise in Paolo Banchero.

Suddenly, their roster went from pretty terrible to pretty intriguing. You had those 3 young cornerstone pieces mixed in with guys like Wendell Carter Jr, Jonathan Isaac, Mo Wagner etc. They were formidable and slowly but surely on the rise. 

In 2022-23, they jumped from 22 wins to 34. In 2023-24, they jumped from 34 to 47 wins. Last year, they were ravaged by injuries to all their best players and still won 41 games. They made the climb from a Lottery team without a bright future to a team that many considered one of the best up-and-coming young groups in the East. During this time, we saw those young cornerstone players flourish and pan out exactly as every Magic fan hoped. To put it simply, they were draft "hits".

As a Magic fan, this roster and situation are probably something you've been waiting for since the Howard days, so call it 15 years. In just 5 years, you've gone from a 21-win team to a team that now has the expectations of being at least a top 3-4 seed in the East this year if healthy. Through good drafting and good trades, you've had about as close to a dream rebuild as you could possibly have. 

Well, now imagine that after this 15-year wait and a 5-year rebuild, you only get to enjoy this current window for just 3 more years if you're lucky. 

How could that be if all of their players are young as shit? Easy. Math.

Paying Paolo the max is what I would call, a no brainer. He's one of those players, and that's one of those extensions that you don't even think about. You hand it over and move on with your day. The issue, of course, is that we now live in this new CBA world where deals like this officially start your clock. You'll remember, the Magic last summer threw out big extensions for Franz ($224M)/Suggs ($150M)/ Isaac ($84M)/ WCJ ($59M), which is exactly what teams should do if their young players turn out to be hits. It's not like free agents were flocking to the Magic, so you pay your own talent that's all on the same timeline.

Advertisement

So what's the problem? Like I said, math. 

As you can see, I imagine the Magic are now rooting pretty hard that Paolo doesn't make an All NBA team, all because of the new rules of this CBA. As things stand right now, using Paolo's lower salary number, the Magic are still a 2nd apron team starting in the 2026-27 season. Once that happens, your clock starts, and you get about 2 years before it's time to start selling off the pieces around your core. 

As it stands today, the Magic will be $13M over the 2nd apron starting next year. If Paolo makes All-NBA this season (he should if he hits 65 games), that number balloons to $21M over the 2nd apron since his extension will turn into a 30% max instead of a 25% max. Now that this extension exists, the Magic have officially entered the 3 year window where they need to win.

If you believe that Suggs/Wagner/Paolo is your core, that means players like Bane, Isaac, WCJ etc are most likely going to be the cuts when that time comes, and it's not as if the Magic have a ton of ways to replace those players. This is the bullshit that the new CBA is enforcing and no team is going to be able to avoid. If your young players end up being awesome, it's only a matter of time before you have to get rid of talent. That's just the way it is, and every contending team is going to have to go through this.

Just think of what this potentially means. In 3 years, the Magic will have Franz, Paolo, and Suggs all in their NBA prime years. That's in theory, when they'll be at the height of their powers. Their window should be WIDE OPEN right? The Magic's reward? Being forced to sell off important rotation pieces once those seasons arrive. What a great system!

Advertisement

Basically, the Magic have done everything right here. They drafted well. They developed their young players. They made savvy front office moves like bringing in Bane this summer, all for what? Just 3 swings at winning a title before it's time to sell? Fans who have waited 15 years for this team to be good again, finally hit on the rebuild picks, and might have to see someone go because of some apron bullshit? As I said, this is coming for everyone. OKC is going to be in this exact same spot once the Chet/JDub extensions hit now that SGA has his supermax, but at least they got their title. The Cavs are 1 year away from dealing with this, as are the Wolves. 

This idea that the new CBA is intended to prevent big markets from doing what GS did when they brought in KD, I think that now that we're seeing this thing in action, the league has missed the plot entirely. Teams should not be penalized for drafting well. Teams shouldn't have to root against their own players to not make All NBA all so they could save some money to help avoid the aprons. Young teams that are finally ready to contend should not have their window capped at 2 years. They spend 5 developing that talent only to get 2-3 seasons with it as contenders? How the hell is that a good idea? 

Part of me thinks the players' side did not fully understand what this CBA was going to do when they agreed to it a few summers ago. Either that or they didn't care. But now that it's in action? I don't know how you could think it isn't a complete and total disaster. Everyone talks about parity and how much better that will be, well what happens when these small markets are forced to sell off pieces and they can't replace them with equal talent, and they go right back to struggling? If your young core is all on max or close to max extensions, it's not like you have a ton of room to reload before going back over the 2nd apron, and the basketball penalties associated with the aprons make things even harder.

I'm not sure how they solve this, maybe they revise things to adjust what percentage of a salary goes against the cap or something, but the fact that we now live in a world where you can spend almost 2 decades waiting to get good, then you finally get good and you only get a handful of seasons before it's time to blow it up is complete bullshit and is something that is doing WAY more harm than good.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.