Over the last three years, Paolo Banchero has followed a pretty well-worn path: top-ranked recruit to Duke to first overall pick to Rookie of the Year to All-Star, each year representing a leveling up from the previous one. Last month, Jordan Brand unveiled a personal logo for Paolo Banchero, while he co-headlined a promotional tour through China. A few weeks before that, USA Basketball chairman Grant Hill said that he envisions Banchero as one of the tentpole players on the 2028 Olympic team. He’s been featured in ads for crypto currency and racing movies and entire million dollar enterprises are ready to coalesce him. At this point, the only thing standing between Banchero and global superstardom is himself.
The first and most notable part of Banchero’s game is that he’s an outrageous athlete. At 6’10, 250 pounds, Banchero is big and agile enough that, even if he were bad at basketball, he’d be able to grind out a career as an enforcer. And since he isn’t bad at basketball, his overall offensive package is too expansive for any single defender to contain. In the regular season, he led the Orlando Magic to the playoffs, averaging 22.6 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game. Against the Cavs in the first round, he was even better, bumping his scoring to 27.0 points per game and knocking down 40 percent of his threes.
Beyond his individual Adonis-dom, Banchero lays the groundwork for the Magic’s signature physicality. The team has shaped itself into a brawling, overpowering outfit, predicated on long arms and short fuses. Coming off their best season in a decade, the Magic are a uniquely massive team because Banchero’s nimble, dextrous play means they don’t have to sacrifice size for skill.
The second most notable thing about Banchero’s game is that he doesn’t always play like he’s an outrageous athlete. At his best, he’s a rampaging, dunking monster. Too often, though, he seems to wish that he were DeMar DeRozan. Despite being one of the most imposing forces in the league, he’s often preoccupied by midrange flights of fancy: he was born to kill, but lives to dance. Last season, midrange jumpers comprised 43 percent of Banchero’s shot diet and he made just 39 percent of them. As a result, comparatively shrimpy guards like Terry Rozier and Darius Garland shot better percentages on two-pointers than Banchero.
Within the Magic’s current set-up, Banchero’s greatest strength actually feeds his greatest weakness. By enabling Orlando to play bigger lineups, Banchero actually makes it harder for himself to score. Banchero’s inefficient shooting, in turn, begets even more inefficiency. It’s a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle: Banchero is an inefficient scorer, so Orlando can’t put together a well-spaced floor. Orlando can’t space the floor, so defenses prioritize defending the paint. Defenses prioritize defending the paint, so he can’t get to the rim. He can’t get to the rim, so he becomes an inefficient scorer.
As such, he is an inherently limiting player, despite the seeming limitlessness of his skillset. Banchero’s efficiency undercuts the impressiveness of his raw point totals—of the 50 players who averaged more than 20 points per game last year, he had the lowest True Shooting percentage. Similarly, the bleeding-edge nerd stats like EPM and DARKO rate him as an above-average offensive player, rather than the bucket-getting supernova that his reputation would suggest. With Banchero on the court, the Magic’s offense is actually 2.6 points per 100 possessions worse than when he’s on the bench.
This current iteration of the Magic has a very definite ceiling—no matter how athletic or how spunky they may be, Orlando doesn’t have the firepower to contend with the East’s top teams. The easiest fix, of course, would be if Banchero became a reliable threat from deep. But this isn’t particularly insightful or even useful—every basketball player would benefit from becoming a better shooter.
Barring Banchero suddenly becoming an entirely different and better player, the Magic must reckon with the fact that bigger isn’t, in fact, better. By downsizing their lineup, they can upsize their ambition. In the scant minutes when Banchero played center, the Magic outscored opponents by 3 points per 100 possessions; for comparison’s sake, Orlando had a net rating of -0.2 with Banchero at power forward.
At this point in his career, Banchero isn’t a forward with the size of a big, but rather a big with the skills of a forward. His floor game is only special insofar that it complements his physical dominance. It makes no more sense to ask Banchero to be his team’s primary ball-handler than it would be to ask Luka Doncic to be a rim-rolling lob threat. Just because Banchero has the sufficient skills to be a heliocentric scorer doesn’t mean he has the necessary ones.
By asking Banchero to be their main creator, the Magic are doing him a disservice. As a play-finisher, he'd be nudged towards his unstoppable strengths (downhill drives) and away from his very stoppable weaknesses (self-indulgent hero ball). In order for him to live up to the world’s lofty expectations, Banchero must get used to being the center of attention.
More from our The Realest Series
• Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics
• Jaylen Williams and the Oklahoma City Thunder
• Tyrese Maxey and the Philadelphia 76ers
• Julius Randle and the New York Knicks
• Michael Porter Jr. and the Denver Nuggets
• Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks
• Rob Dillingham and the Minnesota Timberwolves
• Doc Rivers and the Milwaukee Bucks
• Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns
• Jonathan Kuminga and the Golden State Warriors
• D'Angelo Russell and the Los Angeles Lakers
• Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies
• Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat
• Evan Mobley and the Cleveland Cavaliers