Paolo Banchero's MRI Confirms a Low-Grade Right High Ankle Sprain — the Magic's Star Is Out, and the Typical Clock Is 4-to-6 Weeks

The Orlando Magic got the answer Saturday, and it is the one their 0-2 start could least afford. An MRI confirmed that Paolo Banchero has a low-grade right high ankle sprain, the team announced — an injury suffered in Friday night’s 115-93 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Banchero will undergo further testing and evaluation, and Orlando put no timetable on his return. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that this diagnosis typically carries a timetable of four to six weeks — the typical clock for the injury, not a date the Magic have set.

How a first-quarter scare became weeks on the shelf

Banchero knew something was wrong in the first quarter. Desmond Bane fell into him and rolled up on the ankle, tweaking it to the inside — the opposite direction from every sprain he has had before. “Most of all my ankle sprains have always been to the outside, so this is kind of foreign to me,” he told the Orlando Sentinel’s Jason Beede. “So a little scary in that way.”

He played on anyway. He came out of halftime, jumped on a play in the third quarter, felt it again and asked out. He came back in nearly four minutes later, missed all four of his shots, felt it once more — and that was his night. He sat the entire fourth quarter and finished with 14 points, six rebounds and five assists in 27 minutes.

It changes the read on Friday’s game. Previously’s wrap of the 115-93 rout was about Anthony Edwards shooting 5-for-23 and the Timberwolves winning anyway. The other story inside that game was Orlando’s franchise player gutting through three quarters on a bad ankle. The Magic did not just lose a home game Friday. They lost the player the whole offense runs through.

Game Center: Timberwolves 115, Magic 93 — the full picture from Friday night · More from the NBA hub

What Orlando loses

Through two games, Banchero leads the Magic in scoring at 24.5 points per game and in assists at 7.5, and he is shooting 69.6 percent from the floor. In Wednesday’s opener against Atlanta he put up 35 points, seven rebounds and 10 assists on just 12 shots — the kind of line that made Orlando’s season feel like a launch. Two nights later, the launch is on hold.

The burden shifts to Franz Wagner, who scored 18 points Friday before fouling out, and to Bane, whose shot has not arrived yet in a Magic uniform. Tristan da Silva, the third-year forward, is the likely replacement in the starting lineup. The timing is worse because Orlando is already thin: guard Anthony Black is sidelined with a sprained ankle of his own, though he is nearing a return.

They have lived this before

If any team knows how to survive this, it is Orlando — because it keeps having to. A torn oblique five games into the 2024-25 season cost Banchero more than two months. Over the last two seasons, injuries cost Banchero 46 games, Wagner 70 and Jalen Suggs 72 — and the Magic reached the playoffs both years. When the core four of Banchero, Wagner, Suggs and Wendell Carter Jr. actually share the floor, Orlando is 40-26 over the last three regular seasons. Last season Banchero played 72 games and averaged 22.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 5.2 assists. The Magic’s problem has never been the plan. It is getting all of the plan on the court at the same time.

The road from here

There is no soft landing spot on the schedule. Orlando leaves Sunday for a three-game road trip that starts against the defending champion New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden and continues with two games in Toronto. If the typical four-to-six-week clock for this diagnosis holds — and Orlando has committed to nothing — Banchero’s absence runs toward Thanksgiving, and an 0-2 start gets very little room to breathe.

The Magic built this roster to stop being a nice story and start being a problem in the East. For the next month or so, that project runs without its centerpiece — again.

By the Numbers

• 35 — Banchero’s points in the season opener against Atlanta, with 10 assists and seven rebounds on 12 shots.
• 14, 6, 5 — his points, rebounds and assists Friday against Minnesota, in 27 minutes on the injured ankle.
• 24.5 & 7.5 — his team-leading scoring and assist averages through two games, on 69.6 percent shooting.
• 0-2 — Orlando’s start, with the two losses coming by a combined 29 points.
• 4-6 weeks — the typical timetable for this diagnosis (Shams Charania, ESPN). Orlando has set no return date.
• 40-26 — the Magic’s record over the last three seasons when Banchero, Wagner, Suggs and Carter Jr. all play.