Time is running out for Jamahl Mosley

Taking over at the outset of the 2021-22 season, Mosley’s reign has coincided with the Magic’s acquisition of their core young talent, including Franz Wagner, Paolo Banchero, Jalen Suggs, Anthony Black and Tristan da Silva.

From an initial 22-win season, Mosley oversaw an improvement to 47 wins in just three seasons. Last campaign, the Magic slipped to 41 wins, though with mitigation of Banchero, Wagner and Suggs all missing significant time with injury.

Last offseason, a young, talented and still developing roster was augmented by the addition – at great expense – of guard Desmond Bane, in a signal of intent from the Magic front office. With expectations high, Orlando has struggled, playing barely .500 basketball since a promising 10-4 start.

The Magic sit ninth in the East, though assured of a play-in berth at a minimum thanks to the decrepit basement of their conference (the gap between 10^th placed Miami and 11^th placed Milwaukee is 10 games).

The basis of Mosley’s Magic has been a suffocating defense augmented by just enough one-on-one creation by Banchero and Wagner. Bane’s shooting and playmaking was supposed to bolster that offensive production and, theoretically, vault Orlando into the upper reaches of the East. While Orlando looks set to break a 13-year run among the NBA’s bottom 10 offenses, a ranking of 18^th (114.8) is hardly what the Magic brass anticipated. In addition, that vaunted defense has fallen into the middle of the pack, also rating at 114.8, ranking 14^th.

 The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed that the above numbers give the Magic a net rating of exactly 0.0. In other words: average. But that isn’t a fair assessment. Putting the Raptors anomaly aside, Orlando rarely gets truly blown out, nor does it run the opposition off the court. The Magic play a lot of tight games and that is where the trouble starts. Despite their talent, they lack late game execution at both ends of the floor.

Their defensive struggles were epitomized in a late collapse to the Los Angeles Lakers in March. Firstly, Suggs and Wagner blow a straightforward switch, allowing LeBron James acres of space under the bucket before Banchero recovered to foul him. Later, Banchero peels off Luke Kennard to follow James, even though Bane has him covered. That leaves Kennard, only one of the best shooters on the planet, with enough time to learn a language before firing off the game winning three.

Offensively, while the Magic are running more than ever this season, when restricted to half court execution, they remain poor. 

In that same Lakers game, the Magic committed a pair of 24-second violations and were forced to settle for a contested Bane step-back three as the shot clock expired, all while holding a three-point lead. That has been indicative of the Magic’s struggles to generate good looks in the half court throughout Mosely’s reign.

Complicating matters is an apparent rift with Banchero. The star forward stated in a press conference recently that his team fails to make adjustments, in what can only be seen as a slight at his coach. In response, Mosely called out his team for not playing hard enough. A dig at the lackadaisical stylings of Banchero, perhaps?

While it is late for a coaching change, the precedent has been set through Michael Malone and Taylor Jenkins. This doesn’t bode well for Mosley. As Charles Barkley said recently on "The Dan Patrick Show," "I see that the coach and Paolo Banchero are not getting along. The coach can start packing his stuff up."

With a potential cap crunch on the horizon, the Magic will want to see exactly what they have in this current group. If Mosley isn’t the man to maximize that view, expect the Magic front office to break its usual conservatism, making a late season swing on the sidelines.