Orlando Magic offseason: Winners and losers, so far

While Sweeney wasn't victorious in the 2026 NBA Finals with the San Antonio Spurs, he now becomes a head coach for the first time in his career. That's always a win, and he now has the task of steering the Magic in the right direction after they blew a 3-1 lead to the Detroit Pistons in the first round.

The defensive-minded head coach has three of the league's 40-ish best players in Desmond Bane, Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, at his disposal. He'll also have Anthony Black, Jalen Suggs and Wendell Carter Jr. That's not a bad crop of talent, on the surface, should they stay healthy.

Loser: Jonathan Isaac

It was widely expected heading into the summer that Jonathan Isaac was going to be waived. He was on the hook for $15 million with $8 million guaranteed. Evidently, he was waived before the start of free agency, but re-signed with the Magic for a one-year minimum.

As a result, that's $11.5 million in total cash. That's a life-changing sum of money, especially for any of us, but that's $3.5 million less than what he could have made. Isaac wasn't going to get more than the minimum on the open market regardless of where he ended up, but that's still an unfortunate sequence of events.

Winner: Goga Bitadze

Bitadze, who reportedly drew interest at the trade deadline, was an easy "cap casualty" candidate if the Magic were looking to dump salary to create some extra flexibility. Though, similarly to the trade deadline, Orlando nipped that possibility in the bud.

Additionally, he'll assume the backup big role vacated by Moe Wagner, who signed a two-year deal with the Brooklyn Nets. It's clear the Magic value him a lot, so expect him to be an integral part of Sweeney's rotation off the bench.

Winner: Magic core

If you thought the Magic would break up their core, think again!

By all accounts, barring a completely unforeseen trade, Orlando is going to run it back with Banchero, Wagner, Bane and Suggs manning the ship. That quartet only played 25 games together last season with an outstanding 11.4 NET Rating, according to PBP Stats.

Loser: Change

The Toronto Raptors, Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76ers and Miami Heat, who just acquired Giannis Antetokounmpo, all got better. Those teams were the Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 10 seeds, respectively. Orlando finished tied with Philadelphia at 45-37.

Pending what happens with Jalen Duren, the Pistons also got better with the addition of Isaiah Joe and drafting Ebuka Okorie. The Boston Celtics (traded Jaylen Brown) got worse, as did the New York Knicks, who lost Mitchell Robinson to the aforementioned Celtics.

For all intents and purposes, Orlando has stayed the same, minus the loss of Wagner. We'll see if that works out for them, but while everyone else in the East improved, they didn't, outside of the head coach.

Hopefully, the injury bug will be kinder to them this year after it tormented them each of the last two seasons.