There’s the eye test, and there’s the numbers, and in between, there’s a whole lot of argument.
It’s a common tale, in the NBA and elsewhere: A player looks the part of a bona fide star, and maybe even produces admirably in certain statistical categories, but lagging performance in other, more holistic and perhaps finer-tuned metrics leaves open the question of just how much that player “contributes to” or “drives” winning. (“If he’s a good hitter, why doesn’t he hit good?”)
That, to some degree, has been the rap on Paolo Banchero through two pro seasons that traced a very familiar path on the star map. No. 1 pick in the 2022 NBA draft. Instant-offense 20-point scorer and no-doubt-about-it selection as Rookie of the Year. Across-the-board offensive upticks in his sophomore season, resulting in an All-Star nod and his first playoff appearance, driving the Orlando Magic back to the postseason after a three-year drought.
But as impressive as the 6-foot-10, 250-pound Duke product’s raw production was, his means of arriving at it — midrange and 3-point jumpers accounting for more than 60% of his field goal attempts, despite him making fewer than 40% of them — earned Banchero that most divisive of tags among players vying for modern stardom: inefficient.
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The Magic finished bottom-10 in points scored per possession in Banchero’s first two seasons despite his bucket-getting, and actually scored more effectively with him off the floor last season. Among 65 qualifying players to use at least 25% of their teams’ offensive possessions over the past two seasons, Banchero was tied for 62nd in effective field goal percentage, which accounts for 3-pointers being worth more than 2-pointers. (Right alongside him? Russell Westbrook.) That goes a long way toward explaining why so many advanced metrics — estimated plus-minus, LEBRON, DARKO, value over replacement player, win shares per 48 minutes, you name it — have pegged Paolo more as “pretty OK” than “premier operator,” despite box-score stat lines that put him on par with the likes of young Michael, LeBron and Luka.
Sometimes, though, the space between the eye test and the numbers disappears, and when they start saying the same thing, there’s no room for argument or misinterpretation; what’s left is the truth, or something like it. And holy hell, was Paolo Banchero ever the truth on Monday night:
Banchero bulldozed the Pacers with panache and precision, scoring a career-high 50 points — the first 50-ball of this still toddling 2024-25 NBA season — on 16-for-26 shooting to lead Orlando to a 119-115 win. He contributed to winning elsewhere, too, pulling down a game-high 13 rebounds and dishing nine assists in 40 minutes on his way to multiple entries in the history books.
With his 37-point blitz through two quarters, Banchero became just the third player in the last 27 years to put up 35 points, five rebounds and five assists in a half, and tied Tracy McGrady for the highest-scoring half in Magic history, according to Justin Kubatko at Statitudes. By the time he’d finished, Banchero had become just the fourth Magic player ever to score 50, and only the fourth player ever to go for 50 and 10 before turning 22.
Even applying the stat-buff that is Playing Against the Pacers’ Defense, Banchero’s performance was breathtaking. It’s not just that he scored 19 points on nine shots in the first quarter, added 18 more on eight attempts in the second, and bounced back from a slow third with nine more on just three shots in the tell-tale fourth. It was, if you’ll forgive some repetition, his means of arriving at it.
How Banchero Juggernauted through Pascal Siakam, Obi Toppin, Isaiah Jackson, Aaron Nesmith, Ben Sheppard and whoever else Rick Carlisle could think to send after him, those sledgehammer shoulders powering through all resistance without losing any momentum, always steaming forward. How he played off the drive with the pull-up, eating up the space that résumé and results afforded him by locking into a shot-making rhythm.
How he leveraged the extra help that Indiana sent, insufficiently and unsuccessfully, by making the easy pass to deliver nine assists, with seven producing 3-pointers, layups or dunks. How confidently he exerted control over the proceedings, drawing 13 fouls (his final tally would’ve been even more eye-popping if not for seven missed free throws), creating a whopping 81 points and driving to demand the attention that created the killshot …
… to seal another win for a Magic team that, as my colleague Morten Stig Jensen noted Monday, has opened the season brandishing an improved offense to go with last season’s second-ranked defense.
Through four games, Orlando sits fourth in the NBA in points scored per possession outside of garbage time, according to Cleaning the Glass. That’s a gigantic improvement over last season, one fueled in part by shifting a large chunk of its shot attempts away from the midrange … a change that, not coincidentally, has been reflected in the shot selection of its All-Star in the early going.
The more the Magic launch from long range, the more space it should open up on the interior for what was already one of the league’s most paint-pounding teams. In a related story, Banchero is taking a career-high share of his shots at the rim, and drawing shooting fouls on more than a quarter of his shot attempts. The more he attacks the basket and the more help he draws, the more kickout feeds it opens up for Orlando’s shooters — and while we probably can’t expect Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs, Anthony Black, Gary Harris and Mo Wagner to all keep shooting better than 40% from 3-point range, some uptick in Orlando’s overall shooting accuracy should help turn a bottom-10 offense into, at least, an average one, helmed by a Blake Griffin-sized freight train who can give it to you however you want it.
“I think people are still learning about him, which is mind-boggling to me,” Magic teammate Cole Anthony told reporters earlier this year. “… He’s going to be a household name.”
Hanging half-a-hundred one time doesn’t guarantee that. (Shouts out to Malachi Flynn, Saddiq Bey, Terrence Ross and Corey Brewer, among others.) But if the Magic can pair this offensive improvement with that elite defense, they’ve got a recipe that could go beyond just making the playoffs to making some real noise once they arrive. The dudes who lead teams like that wind up shining an order of magnitude brighter, replacing old eye-test-vs.-the-numbers arguments with newfound agreement that a new superstar is born.