Scouting one-pager: Orlando Magic (ORL)
2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,244 FGA. Auto-generated by scouting/build_onepager.py from public data; every number traceable to a gated pipeline in this repo. Shot pricing uses the 2023-24 shot-quality model, whose season-out transfer was validated in the backtest; shot-making is empirical-Bayes shrunk before it is allowed to drive a conclusion.
Terms
- PPS: Points per shot: total points on field-goal attempts divided by attempts. Free throws excluded.
- xPPS: Expected points per shot - the model's fair price of a shot diet: what an average shooter would score on the same attempts, judged from location and shot type alone, before knowing what went in.
- shot-making: Actual minus expected points per 100 shots: conversion above or below what the shot diet itself explains. Positive means making shots the model prices as hard.
- EB making: A player's shot-making after empirical-Bayes shrinkage: the observed number pulled toward the league mean in proportion to its sampling noise. The number to trust for projection.
- FGA: Field-goal attempts.
- RAPM: Regularized adjusted plus-minus: a ridge regression crediting each player with net points per 100 possessions while adjusting for the other nine players on the floor.
- net_100: Net points per 100 possessions: 100 x plus-minus / possessions; sits on the same scale as the NBA's published net rating.
- rush: Shots in the final four seconds of a period - the desperation window where both shot selection and execution collapse.
- empirical Bayes: Estimate the spread of true skill across the league from the data, then pull each individual's noisy estimate toward the league mean in proportion to its noise.
- shrinkage weight: The fraction of an observed number that survives empirical-Bayes regression: 1 means fully trusted, 0 means replaced by the league mean.
- CI: Confidence interval.
- corner three: A three-pointer from the corner, where the NBA line is roughly 3 ft closer than the arc - the geometry discount that makes it the cheapest three.
Keys
- They hunt corner threes: 28.5% of their threes come from the corners (league 25.9%). Run shooters off the corner line first.
- Rim-pressure offense: 31.3% of attempts at the rim vs league 28.4%. Wall building beats switching small.
- Desmond Bane is a genuine shot-maker: +6.3 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
- Best shot diet: Wendell Carter Jr. (1.17 xPPS on 637 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
- Their most-used five that wins its minutes: W. Carter Jr. - D. Bane - F. Wagner - J. Suggs - P. Banchero (+10.8/100 over 415 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
| ORL | League | Δ |
|---|
| PPS (points per shot) | 1.061 | 1.091 | -0.030 |
| xPPS, the shot-diet price* | 1.093 | 1.097 | -0.004 |
| Shot-making, pts/100 vs model | -3.1 | -0.5 | -2.6 |
| Rim share | 31.3% | 28.4% | +2.9 pp |
| Mid-range share | 10.0% | 10.0% | -0.0 pp |
| Three share | 38.6% | 41.5% | -2.9 pp |
| Corner share of threes | 28.5% | 25.9% | +2.6 pp |
| Final-4s (rush) shot share | 1.8% | 1.8% | -0.1 pp |
* xPPS prices where they shoot from, independent of whether shots fell: the stable, scoutable part of the profile (year-over-year r ≈ .9).
Personnel (top 8 by volume)
| Player | FGA | PPS | xPPS (diet) | Making/100 | EB making | RAPM/100 |
|---|
| Desmond Bane | 1,205 | 1.106 | 1.027 | +7.9 | +6.3 | +1.7 |
| Paolo Banchero | 1,152 | 0.991 | 1.065 | -7.4 | -6.2 | -1.0 |
| Anthony Black | 772 | 1.023 | 1.120 | -9.6 | -7.3 | -0.3 |
| Jalen Suggs | 649 | 1.057 | 1.071 | -1.4 | -1.1 | +2.5 |
| Wendell Carter Jr. | 637 | 1.137 | 1.173 | -3.7 | -2.8 | +0.6 |
| Tristan da Silva | 620 | 1.094 | 1.105 | -1.1 | -0.9 | +1.3 |
| Franz Wagner | 507 | 1.057 | 1.055 | +0.3 | -0.0 | +0.9 |
| Jett Howard | 251 | 1.052 | 1.104 | -5.2 | -2.6 | -1.1 |
EB making = shot-making regressed to league mean by reliability: the number to trust. RAPM from the opponent-adjusted 2025-26 lineup model (±≈3/100 CI at a season of minutes; treat as descriptive).
Most-used lineups
| Lineup | Min | Poss | Net/100 |
|---|
| W. Carter Jr. - D. Bane - J. Suggs - P. Banchero - T. da Silva | 259 | 554 | +10.6 |
| W. Carter Jr. - D. Bane - J. Suggs - P. Banchero - A. Black | 238 | 523 | +8.0 |
| W. Carter Jr. - D. Bane - F. Wagner - J. Suggs - P. Banchero | 182 | 415 | +10.8 |