On Monday evening, the Orlando Magic dropped to 1-3 on the 2025 NBA season with a disappointing road loss against the Philadelphia 76ers. The loss was another puzzlingly bad defensive performance from a Magic team that was supposed to be among the league's elites in that department this year.
Not helping the cause has been Paolo Banchero, who has gotten off to a rough shooting start to the season and recently took a startlingly bad shot attempt late in a close game against the Atlanta Hawks.
Recently, NBA analyst Kirk Goldsberry stopped by The Ringer's Zach Lowe's podcast and made a comparison to a former NBA power forward.
“I’m going to raise the red flag over Paolo Banchero Island. This is such a key moment for him, and I hesitate to admit this — but at times, he reminds me of Josh Smith,” said Goldsberry, per MrBuckBuck on X, formerly Twitter. “He’s made just five of his 27 jump shots this year, and I’m not cherry-picking. I love Paolo — he’s a huge part of the future of American basketball — but last season, among the 62 most active jump shooters in the NBA, he ranked 60th in efficiency.”
“He has a jump-shooting problem, and as the team’s most active scorer, that’s an issue,” he concluded.
Josh Smith similarly was a supremely talented player for the Atlanta Hawks in the 2000s and early 2010s but struggled to shoot the ball from outside, to the point where fans in attendance would actively groan when he got ready to launch one up.
A rough start for the Magic
Coming into this year, the Magic were expected to compete for one of the top seeds in the East after trading for Desmond Bane in the offseason. While four games is far too small a sample size to make any big declarations, the Magic have not looked great so far, particularly on defense, surrendering a 136-point effort to the 76ers on Monday.
Things will likely improve as this new-look roster continues to gel, so it's too early for any fans to hit the panic button. However, if this is the version of Banchero that Orlando is going to get this year, there will be a hard ceiling on just how good they can be.
