Out since November 7 due to a sore ankle, Paolo Banchero is about to return. The Magic nugget is actually preparing to face the Sixers this Friday, with the aim of picking up where he left off.
He stopped on two performances with at least 30 points, symbolic of an exceptional start to the season for a rookie: 11 games played, 23.5 pawns on average, 8.3 rebounds, 3.6 assists, all at 46. % shooting success. Very very serious figures which even allowed the first choice of the last Draft to dust off the history books.
Except here, there was this glitch in the left ankle synonymous with a prolonged stay in the infirmary : seven missed games in a row, we call that a real setback. And if the Magic did not do too badly without him with three victories in the lot (namely one more than with Banchero on the ground), we imagine that Paolo now has ants in his legs. Especially since at the same time a certain Bennedict Mathurin chained the big perfs off the bench in Indiana and that Jaden Ivey is warming up quite seriously with the Pistons. Suffice to say that in the race for Rookie of the Year, there are not too many gifts at the start of the season.
If of course health comes first, Paolo Banchero will quickly want to set the record straight in this distance duel with Mathurin and to a lesser degree Jaden Ivey. For tonight’s game against the Sixers, his name is not on the injury report, meaning his return is imminent after returning to practice on Wednesday. The opportunity to immediately release a big perf story to send a message to its competitors?
Magic – Sixers, it’s tonight at 1am and it will therefore be an opportunity to see Mister Banchero in uniform again. He will probably need a little time to find the rhythm he had before his injury, but clearly we can’t wait to see him again given what he has already been able to offer us so far.