{"id":131282,"date":"2025-03-28T13:30:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T17:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=131282"},"modified":"2025-03-28T13:35:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T17:35:16","slug":"magic-paolo-banchero-nba-leaderboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/28\/magic-paolo-banchero-nba-leaderboard\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic&#8217;s &#8216;Special Player&#8217; Takes Over NBA Leaderboard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not often that a third-year player has the longest active streak of 30-point games, but Orlando Magic forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/banchpa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paolo Banchero<\/a> isn&#8217;t just anybody.<\/p>\n<h2>Magic&#8217;s Paolo Banchero Takes Over NBA Leaderboard<\/h2>\n<p>Over the past two weeks, Banchero has scored 30 or more points against five different teams, averaging 31.6 points per game in that span. The well-rounded rising star has also contributed 7.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 0.8 steals per game. The Magic have gone 3-2 in those contests, their most impressive win coming against the Los Angeles Lakers. Facing a Lakers team that has a new energy thanks to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/doncilu01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luka Doncic<\/a>&#8216;s arrival, the Magic outscored he and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a>&#8216;s team 60-46\u00a0 in the second half to secure a double-digit victory.<\/p>\n<p>Banchero finished the game with 30 points on 9-17 shooting from the field.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Paolo Banchero now has the longest active streak of 30-point games by any player in the NBA. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Clt3iZkVt6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/Clt3iZkVt6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 StatMamba (@StatMamba) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/StatMamba\/status\/1905438726286606795?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 28, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>After the game, Doncic told reporters that he and tag team partner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wagnefr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Franz Wagne<\/a>r &#8220;are special players.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"zxx\"><a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/q4Q1OaenJH\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/q4Q1OaenJH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Orlando Magic (@OrlandoMagic) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OrlandoMagic\/status\/1904567294249861536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 25, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just trying to stop them is very hard,&#8221; the five-time All-Star admits.<\/p>\n<h3>Rounding Into Form<\/h3>\n<p>When discussing the prototypical modern-day forward, Banchero&#8217;s skillset <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/04\/26\/coach-k-no-1-pick-one-of-the-ultimate-positionless-players\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">aligns with the criteria<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dIhFQQ3hRvQ?si=GH4smLW9_PJ3wIRL\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>For the most part.<\/p>\n<p>A three-level scorer, Banchero&#8217;s biggest weakness at the offensive end is his outside shooting. A career 32.3 percent shooter, he&#8217;s yet to have a season shooting over 34 percent from beyond the arc. This season, he&#8217;s only canned 32.8 percent of his long-balls despite taking a career-high 6.0 three-point attempts per game.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s hope that he can turn it around though.<\/p>\n<p>Since the All-Star Break, Banchero has made 35.3 percent of his 3-pointers. This isn&#8217;t because he&#8217;s caught fire from beyond the arc during his 30-point streak. In fact, his 3-point percentage (34.4) has been lower. With that being said, he&#8217;s long looked comfortable from beyond the arc but if he can make defenders truly respect his 3-ball, it&#8217;ll take his game and team to another level.<\/p>\n<h3>Bully Banchero<\/h3>\n<p>All the same, even if teams might dare him to shoot a 3, it&#8217;s partially because they don&#8217;t want to deal with him doing anything else. Plenty of Banchero&#8217;s post-ups will lead to jumpers, with him taking 80 fadeaway and turnaround jumpers combined this season. However, he&#8217;s converted 43.8 percent of these, it&#8217;s really not a bad shot for him to take.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LRZcHFOaU04?si=V8FrXyRskVdRBIuH\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s not afraid to put his shoulder down and bully his way to the rim either. Actually, that&#8217;s one of the best parts of his game. That isn&#8217;t to say that Banchero should dramatically alter his shot diet. He&#8217;s shooting 44.6 percent from the field when he&#8217;s 10-14 away from the rim this season, his jumpers picturesque. Nevertheless, he&#8217;s shooting 48.3 percent from the field on drives.<\/p>\n<p>The closer he gets to the rim, the better.<\/p>\n<p>To that point, he&#8217;s shooting just 38.2 percent from the field on long twos (15-24 feet away from the rim). If he&#8217;s going to take a two-pointer anyways, he might as well get to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/09\/28\/bucks-giannis-antetokounmpo-trains-with-top-5-draft-prospects\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">his kill spots<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"modal-image-setImageMetadata\">\n<p class=\"ng-binding\">\u00a9 Jeremy Reper-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not often that a third-year player has the longest active streak of 30-point games, but Orlando Magic forward Paolo Banchero isn&#8217;t just anybody. Magic&#8217;s Paolo Banchero Takes Over NBA Leaderboard Over the past two weeks, Banchero has scored 30 or more points against five different teams, averaging 31.6 points per game in that span. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":131291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1608,62,3],"tags":[3823],"class_list":["post-131282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magic","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-paolo-banchero"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131282"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131297,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131282\/revisions\/131297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}