Magic Waive Malaki Branham, JD Davison, Kevin Knox

Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel first reported the news (Twitter link).

Branham (San Antonio, Washington) and Davison (Boston, Houston) have both spent most of the last four years in the NBA after hearing their names called in the 2022 draft. Former Ohio State guard Branham was selected 20th overall, while ex-Alabama guard Davison went 53rd.

Knox, meanwhile, is a seven-year NBA veteran who was a lottery pick (ninth overall) back in 2018. While the 27-year-old holds a good deal of experience, he has largely been out of the league the past two years — in fact, he played exclusively in the NBAGL in 2025/26, averaging 21.4 points, 7.7 rebounds and 2.1 assists on .464/.414/.836 shooting in 39 appearances for the Windy City Bulls (32.4 minutes per contest).

Each of the three players appeared in all four of Orlando’s preseason games this fall, though none played a ton — Branham saw the most action at 11.0 MPG, followed by Knox (9.9 MPG) and Davison (7.8 MPG).

While there’s technically nothing preventing Orlando from opening the season with a full 15-man standard roster, that doesn’t appear to be in the cards. The Magic are just $2.5MM away from the second tax apron and would’ve moved to within about $47K of that threshold if they had retained one of Branham, Davison or Knox.