The Case for the Over

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They won 34 games last year and have a roster full of young players that should improve. The top six players in minutes last season that are returning are all 24 years old or younger. Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero could take a leap into legitimate All-Stars. 
 

They have enough talent that they may not care too much about tanking, similar to how they approached last year. Even if they are out of the playoff hunt, they may not care about resting players near the end of the season just to move up a spot two in the mid to late lottery.
 

Although Bol Bol was a fun story early on in the year, he has some flaws and hasn’t really proven to contribute to winning, and replacing the 1,500 minutes with other players could help them in the win column.
 

Joe Ingles was a good addition, adding some shooting and passing. He should be a good complementary veteran to supplement this young talent.
 

They could get something from Jonathan Isaac, who only played 124 minutes across 11 games last season, which was his first minutes since the ’19-’20 season. 

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The Case for the Under

 

They went 20-23 in the last 43 games of the ’22-’23 season after starting out 14-25. While there’s a chance that improvement was true to real development and improvement, it’s also possible that they just were able to take advantage of teams that were either in tank mode or resting for the playoffs. There are a lot of “fake games” in March and April in the NBA, so you never want to put too much weight on late-season records. 
 

To beat this over, they probably after to make significant strides offensively, as they were 26th in offense last season. Joe Ingles should help that some, but other than that they are simply relying on internal development. They could really use another great shooter or two. 
 

I like Anthony Black as a prospect, but I don’t expect him to contribute to winning as a rookie. If he gets significant minutes, I would expect the Magic to struggle when he’s on the court, even if Black shows some real promise. Same with fellow lottery pick Jett Howard.     

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Conclusion

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The Magic feel about a year away from a line like this. Picking the over here means they are probably in the play-in race, and I’m not quite there with them. The statistical models also are pretty low on them. I think this line is pretty close, so I don’t feel great about it but I’m leaning under.