Magic decline Moe Wagner's team option. Is finding a point guard next for Orlando?
The Orlando Magic on Sunday declined their $11 million team option on center Moe Wagner and their $2.1 million team option on Caleb Houstan for the 2025-26 season, setting the stage for team officials to pursue perimeter help when the league's free-agency period opens fully at 6 p.m. ET on Monday.
Wagner, 28, had emerged as an NBA Sixth Man of the Year candidate last season before he tore his left knee's ACL in late December and underwent season-ending surgery. Houstan, 22, was one of Orlando's most reliable long-range shooters last season.
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Wagner and Houstan become unrestricted free agents — unrestricted free agents who will be eligible to re-sign with the Magic. The team retains its Bird rights to both players.
Precedent indicates that Wagner could return to Orlando. Last summer, the Magic declined their $8 million team option on him for the 2024-25 season; later in the offseason, Wagner and the team agreed to a two-year, $22 million contract that included a team option for the 2025-26 season. Wagner went on to average a career-high 12.9 points per game before his ACL tear.
The Magic already have two centers under contract: Wendell Carter Jr. and Goga Bitadze. Carter and Bitadze are considered by league scouts as better defenders and rim protectors than Wagner is, but Wagner is a better scorer and 3-point shooter.
Even after Orlando traded for Desmond Bane earlier this month, team officials are painfully aware that they need to make further moves to improve their 3-point shooting and upgrade their depth at point guard.
The list of unrestricted free-agent point guards includes Chris Paul, Ty Jerome, Dennis Schröder, Malcolm Brogdon and Spencer Dinwiddie. But the potential target who might make the most sense — and whose contract may be the most affordable — for the cap-strapped Magic is Tyus Jones, 29.
The Magic inquired about Jones' availability prior to the 2023-24 season's trade deadline when Jones played for the Washington Wizards on an expiring contract, league sources told The Athletic.
Jones shot 41 percent from 3-point range during the 2023-24 season with the Wizards and shot an identical 41 percent from 3-point range last season as a member of the Phoenix Suns.
Jones also is surehanded, regularly finishing among the league leaders in assist-to-turnover ratio.
If Orlando is interested in Jones, and if he is interested in Orlando, he would provide the team with a more traditional point guard — and a contrast to incumbents Jalen Suggs and Anthony Black, who are elite defenders who on offense appear more comfortable at this stage of their careers as spot-up shooters (with 3-point shooting strokes that need to become much more consistent, especially in Black's case). Jones is comfortable as a pick-and-roll ballhandler, and he has one of the league's more lethal floaters.
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Where Jones struggles is on defense. At 6-foot-1, he does not have the positional size that Magic officials prefer.
Still, after the Magic's first-round playoff exit, president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman said, including in an interview with The Athletic, that he and his colleagues in the front office would consider sacrificing some of the team's defense for offense.
In recent weeks, Orlando declined its team option on third-string point guard Cory Joseph, a reliable, if unspectacular, NBA veteran who became a starter late in the regular season and during the playoffs after Suggs underwent season-ending surgery to repair torn knee cartilage.
Even when Suggs was healthy, forward Paolo Banchero and swingman Franz Wagner tended to be the Magic's lead ballhandlers and shot creators. Those responsibilities for Banchero and Wanger ramped up after Suggs was lost for the remainder of the season, leading to a relatively unimaginative offense that was predicated on recognizing — and attempting to exploit — favorable matchups. Three-point shooting was a severe problem for the Magic all season; the team finished last in the NBA in 3s made per game and last in 3-point shooting percentage.
After the 2024 postseason, Banchero told reporters in Orlando that he hoped the Magic would find someone who could reduce the burden on himself and on Franz Wagner by serving as a table-setter on offense.
Magic officials value Bane as a secondary playmaker and as an initiator in pick-and-rolls. But as this season's NBA Finals teams proved, title contenders can never have too many capable ballhandlers or too many 3-point shooters.
That's why someone like Jones could be of value to Orlando.
From a salary-cap perspective, declining the team options for Moe Wagner and Houstan should help the Magic add to their ballhandling and shooting depth. The downside of having such a promising nucleus of Banchero, Franz Wagner, Suggs and Bane is that promising players tend to receive high-level salaries. Orlando's quartet is no exception. Suggs, Bane and Franz Wagner each will earn salaries of $35 million-$38.7 million in 2025-26, putting Orlando perilously close to the league's first-apron threshold. Banchero is eligible this offseason to agree to a five-year, maximum-salary deal worth a total of approximately $247 million.
Last season with Phoenix, Jones earned $2.1 million. Even if he can secure a raise this offseason, his asking price may be a price Orlando could afford.
(Top photo of Moe Wagner: Nathan Ray Seebeck / Imagn Images)
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