This has Magic fans PISSED...

This has Magic fans turned up. A report dropped ranking Paulo Banqueiro as one of the most overrated players in the league, and you'd be surprised to see where he landed. Is there any truth to these wild claims, or is this just offseason clickbait? We'll break it all down on this episode of Magic Digest. What's good? It's your big uncle Eric back again. LeBron, watch the late decision. 2026 is officially over. The rest of the offseason can continue as there are some really disappointed fan bases of teams he didn't go to. There's also some disappointed fan bases or angry fan bases based on this bleacher report that dropped with the top 10 most overrated players in the league, and we'll get to that in a second. Before we do, I want to bring you this word from my good friends over at Otis Edge. Emotion loses, data wins, and that's why we use Otis Edge Analytics where passion meets data. Their team of 30-year Vegas pros and next-gen analysts deliver daily expert picks across your favorite leagues powered by real numbers, not hunches. Take a smarter approach this season and build your bankroll the smart way. Download the Otis Edge app today and see why their quick-growing community is getting ahead of the game because that's the Otis Edge. I'll leave a link to them down below in the comments, but I got a question for you. I want to go ahead and ask you now that the late decision is over, and I'll be honest, I'm probably going to do a podcast where we talk about the East and we get deep into some of these other teams and where the Magic sit. I would love to know what you think about going into the next season. Where do you see the Magic ranking? Do you see them as a contender, like a top three seed? Do you see a more middle of the pack, like fighting for fourth and fifth seed like they were doing the majority of last season before fluctuating? Or do you see them play inbound? A lot of people see the Magic not making a lot of changes, not really doing a lot of things to the roster, seeing other teams bringing in a lot of names, and the Magic kind of staying the same, banking on coming back with the same squad and a new coach, but people see a play-in push. But I'd like you to let me know what you think down below in the comments. So do you see them as a contender, middle of the pack, or play inbound? I'm very interested, very interested. And I also want to give you another word from our good friends over at Prize Picks. Prize Picks is America's number one sports picks app and one of the easiest ways to get in on the action. So if you want to join in with $5 and get 50 instantly, use the code digest when you sign up, it does a lot to help the channel. I'll be back later in the episode with some actual picks going into WNBA All-Star weekend. We're going to be seeing who getting them buckets up at the All-Star game, but let's just go ahead and jump into this right here. We have a report by the Bleacher Report, Zach Buckley. And I'll just, I must tell you this personally, as I know that he's a long time affiliate or writer covering the heat. We all know the bad blood between the heat and the magic. I personally really don't give too much to what he's saying, but could he be making some points? I'll leave it up to you. Let's go ahead and get into it. He says among the 65 players to handle a 25 plus usage percentage since Ben Carroll entered the league, he ranked 62nd in effective field goal percentage. And this is on a list where they rank the top 10 most overrated players in the league. And they had your boy Paolo sitting at number three. That's third in the league. To say I was flabbergasted was very interesting because I'm going to be the first to tell you, I've talked about it my whole time doing this podcast. I think Paolo has a lot of growing to do to be the guy that he is projected to be. You drink them, you draft them. Number one, he goes out and wins rookie of the year. He puts up numbers, he gets the big contract, but there hasn't been that growth that magic fans and nation that national pundits had hoped to see going in the year for coming up on his fifth season in the league. He's still very young, 24, 20, 24 in that range. This is the time fifth year to 26, 27 age, depending on the player is when a lot of guys go into their so-called prime. Now I'll be honest. I think that he's been a little bit hated on nationally. And Oh, I think, you know, he's our guy. We tie, we tend to protect our people. You know, I think magic fans overall have been protective of him, but not everybody, because if you get on a Reddit, if you get in the group chats, there's a lot of people questioning Paolo and his overall production and overall growth. And we go back to this article. They make the point where they say specifically about his usage for as much as office as he handles, you'd want a wider gap between this assist 5.2 and turnovers 3.1 for as many shots as he takes. You want a better connection rate than 45.9, 30.5 and 77.5 shooting slash for his physical tools. You'd want more defensive play-making than his 1.3 stocks. So basically you're looking at Paolo and saying, Hey, we want to see you for somebody who controls the ball as much as you do have more assist and less turnovers. We also want to see you have better shooting splits. We want to see you hit the three better. We want to see you finishing better inside the lane. And we also want to see you with a better percentage at the free throw line. And then on the defensive end, we want to see more from you as numbers go, as far as stocks, you know, saying rebounds blocks and steals or rebound blocks and steals mainly, but rebounds as well. We just want to see you develop it to be a more well-rounded as a number one option. When you're talking about guys who are number one options, they do something amazing. Either they're just impossible to stop scoring wise. That means they're going out, giving you near 30 a game or they're all around monsters. They're giving you the points, the rebounds, the shooting, you know, plus their defensive monsters. And it's just like, if you look at Paolo right now, what is his best feature? Like what does he do? That is just unstoppable. And there's some questions there. There are some real questions there. In fact, off the top of my head, if I had to think about the three things that would help the magic improve next year, this could be saved for a whole different pot. First and foremost, we got to see either a leap from AB or a significant improvement from Suggs as playmakers talking about as playing with a higher usage rate and creating for others. I know they can do that. And I know they're going to split that time as lead guard between the two, but I need one of them to just step it up and be more consistent as playmakers and less erratic at, you know, giving the ball up. Number two, we just need to see a healthy France. We need to see a healthy France, some France that plays 70 plus games next year, because when he's in the lineup, the advanced analytics kind of show favor him as being the top player on the team. And it was showing in the playoffs. France was healthy. Three, one lead on Detroit. France gets injured. We all know how that goes. And then number three, you just got to see an improvement from Paolo overall. We got to see him take that leap to become that true number one option. That is just undeniable. In fact, he's been doing some talking, everything looks good. We saw him working out with KD where big perk had some things to say about why KD wasn't doing that with his own teammate. But we did see Paolo go sit down with Stephen A. Smith. And he said a lot of interesting things, but the one thing I really want to focus on is conditioning. He said he had this to say. The biggest thing is just to be in elite shape. Over the last two seasons, I've dealt with a few injuries. So being in elite shape and making sure my body is ready for the grind of the season is key. I want to be ready to go to distance challenging my mind with workouts and conditioning to be almost bulletproof if I can. And we got to be honest. I had this conversation with my brother, man. We talk about a lot of magic and we got to be honest, man, especially this season. I thought Paolo looked somewhat out of shape, almost soft. And this is to say from a guy who's massive jacked an athlete. This is a, you know, these guys are in great regular people condition, but I wanted to see him in that next level elite NBA conditioning. It almost felt, and I'm going to say a name. And when I say this, please don't go off, but he was giving me almost Zion vibes to where he was in shape. But it's like, okay, just because you're physically gifted, you can go out there and do what you need to do. Now we saw a rookie Paolo come in and look like a specimen and we just like, oh, he's going to grow into his body. And he still does, but he just almost looks a little soft around the edges. It's almost like blurry where you want to see that jacked ripped frame where he's just going out and, you know, attacking in speed wise leaping ability. We know that he has it. He's shown it flashes in the past, but I would love to see this season, him going in and just being a complete physical specimen combined with those other leaps that we talked about. But I would love to know what do you guys think is Paolo overrated? I know the fact that we paid him. That has been, yeah, man, the magic went from middling to get into the playoffs three season in a row, but there were a lot of expectations on that as well. And they just haven't fit the bill. We're not going to relive the last three seasons, but I would love to know what do you guys think about Paolo? Is he overrated? Is he underrated or is he rated about where he's at? I know the national media pretty much has soured on the magic. Like just be y'all. I keep telling you guys with everything that has happened in the Eastern conference so far in the off season, just be prepared when they start doing their rankings and their list for the magic to be pretty low on those because we didn't make a lot of, we didn't make any changes other than bringing in an older center and changing our head coach. So the national media, you know, there might be a few savvy guys, a few smart guys who try to think outside of the box, but the national media is not going to have the magic ranked very high in many of their projections. And we're going to talk about it here on magic digest. I'm going to get up out of here, but before we do, man, I got some picks for you. Prize picks the WNBA all-star game is this weekend. And man, I think if you're a basketball fan and you haven't been watching the W you need to stop right now and check it out for yourself. Three, three players who I think are going to be, who are already amazing. Let's just, just be honest, but like are worth watching alone. So we got Aja Wilson. This is a gimme at 9.5 for the all-star game. Aja Wilson. Come on now. Like other than unless she just goes out there and doesn't want to play and just having a good time. I can't see that. So I'm gonna pick the more on Asia Wilson. That's free money. Olivia miles with 13.5 points only because I think she's going to be showing off more of her magic Johnson magic miles, the spectacle. I think she'll be showing off more of her passing ability and to make fancy plays. So I'm going to take the less at 13.5 points and page Beckers. She's going to be coming out for blood. I think if she touches the ball is going up. So I'm going to put the more on 15.5 points for her. But anyway, that's what prize picks man. Play five, get 50 instantly using the code digest. It'll be down below in the comments. I'm going to get up out of here. It is your big Eric. Let me know what you think, man. Go ahead and let me know. We're going to talk about it on the next episode of magic digest.