Paolo Banchero diary: We realize that this is a tough stretch

ORLANDO – Orlando Magic star Paolo Banchero and his two best friends sat in the back of an open-air vehicle for a guided tour of a 110-acre African savanna with lions, giraffes and 28 other species at Disney World Animal Kingdom on Feb. 26. As entertaining as it was to see all the animals, the banter and trash talk between the three Seattle natives — Banchero, Davonte Allen and Dezjay Perkins — was even more entertaining than the 18-minute expedition.

“They have to have some gators in here?” Perkins asked at the beginning of the tour.

Said Allen: “We ain’t got no food to feed them?”

Said Banchero: “You’re asking for it. You’re the type that would try to feed them and be screaming when they come close.”

Banchero met Perkins in the eighth grade when they played on the AAU Seattle Rotary and later at Seattle O’Dea High School together. Banchero met Allen in elementary school in Seattle and they played in high school together as well. Banchero’s trusted business confidante Nicole Beatty – LIFT vice president and head of talent strategy, who guides his off-court endeavors – was also along for the ride.

Allen, Perkins and Banchero are all 22 years old and born within days of each other. Allen and Perkins live with Banchero in Orlando, aid him with his daily needs off the court and offer an honest and protective buffer.

“Those guys know me,” Banchero said. “Just as well, I’m their brother. They are both my brothers. Their family is like my family and my family is like their family…

“They got my back through thick and thin. So, I just keep them around me. They’re honest with me about everything. They don’t sugar coat anything. They’re not, ‘Yes men.’ They tell me the real every time. I never take them for granted.”

Said Perkins: “All he should be focused on is the court. Whatever else he has going on off the court, that should be for us to be looking out for and making sure it is going the right way.”

Said Allen on Banchero: “If somebody says something to him or if something is going on, it’s like, ‘Hold on.’ He don’t try to harm nobody. He doesn’t do anything towards nobody. So, you can’t even put him in that conversation.”

Like the safari ride, Banchero and the injury-plagued Magic’s season has been windy and bumpy.

Days after a career-high 50-point outburst, the 2024 NBA All-Star was sidelined for nearly two months after suffering an oblique tear on Oct. 30. Since then, Magic forward Franz Wagner was also sidelined with an oblique injury and center Mo Wagner was lost to a season-ending left knee injury. On Tuesday, the Magic announced that starting guard Jalen Suggs had season-ending arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. After making the playoffs last season, Banchero and the Magic are fighting for a playoff berth that could have to come from the Play-In.

During the 2024-25 NBA season, Banchero is sharing insight into his life with the Magic in his monthly diary on Andscape. Draymond Green, Vince Carter, Trae Young, CJ McCollum, Fred VanVleet, De’Aaron Fox, Cade Cunningham, James Wiseman, Josh Jackson and, most recently, Phoenix Suns guard Bradley Beal, have participated in diaries.

Below is Banchero’s fifth diary taking place on Feb. 26 after his safari ride where he talks about Disney World’s impact on Orlando, the fight for a playoff spot amid struggle and injury, Suggs, the importance of his two best friends and Beatty, the rescinded trade of Charlotte Hornets center Mark Williams to the Los Angeles Lakers, his NBA All-Star break to the Bahamas and much more.

[Disney World] is the first thing you think about in Orlando. It was one of the main things I knew. When I got drafted, one of the first things I wanted to do is go to Disney World and enjoy it. My rookie year I went twice… It pretty much keeps Orlando running with all the people coming in and out of the city year-round staying at Disney, Universal and all the time.

The lions or the leopards are the most ferocious animals that you’ll see in the Kingdom. They don’t really have much personality in the safari, but if you see them in the wild … Growing up, I used to watch Animal Planet, National Geographic, stuff like that. Me and my little sister, Mia, we used to love watching animal documentaries. So, those are always fun. It’s good to see those type of animals up close.

My two best friends. My road dogs, man. You know, we both go back, or all three of us go back pretty far, you know, I met Davonte in elementary school playing the rotary in the Boys & Girls Club growing up. I’ve known Dezjay my whole life playing against him in football and basketball, and then he actually came and joined our basketball team in eighth grade. We became best friends as soon as he joined the team. Then all three of us end up going high school together. And, man we had a fun time in high school, had a blast.

COVID [the coronavirus pandemic] kind of killed our back half of the [high school] junior year and our senior year [with basketball]. But really honestly it made us become closer. We started spending a lot of time together throughout those days and during COVID when there wasn’t school and everything was online.

Not having ‘Yes people’ around you is important because I never grew up in that fashion. My parents weren’t that way. My coaches weren’t that way. That wasn’t ever the environment I was in. That’s not the environment that they were in. I grew up in environments where people told you about yourself, whether it was good or bad.

And so, we kind of carry on that old school, new school mentality where we just we call it how we see it. I let them know when they’re messing up or they’re doing something I don’t like and they do the same in all aspects. It could be sports related or off the court, but one thing we do is we never take it personal. We always take what each other says with a grain of salt. We all got a lot of respect for each other. And honestly, all three of us are different. But we’ve grown up and kind of been down the same paths in all our respective ways. We’re all young and trying to find our way. And they are two guys who I know I can count on for anything.

So, we’re all the same age. Born in the same year, same month within a 10-day [span]. I’m the 12th of November. Dezjay is the eighth of November and DeVante is the third in November.

They do literally anything I ask of them. And it’s always tricky because when you have your two best friends, you don’t want to feel like you’re asking too much. But at the same time, they always remind me that it’s never a big deal to them or they’re never upset to do anything. Taking care of my family when my family in town or rebounding when we go to the gym, working out with me if I need someone to work out with, running with me when we are back in Seattle. We go run this hill every summer. And so, they run it with me. They run it a lot slower than I do, but they run it with me.

And we just have fun when we get our work in. That’s one thing, they’re not lazy. They get up, they make sure I get up, they make sure I’m in the gym early morning and they’re ready to go and know they always have a great mentality, attitude. And they’re just great energy to be around. And so, I think you are who you hang around, whoever you surround yourself with, that’s what’s going to rub off on you. I just try to keep my circle small.

Nicole is my manager, but I think she’s a lot more than that. Me and her are talking pretty much every day. She just keeps me up to date on anything I got going on. And over the course of us building that relationship, I think we became really great friends and partners where I feel like I can go to her for advice, getting her opinion on certain things. She’s really smart and I take the stuff she says really seriously.

One thing I remember ‘Coach K’ [former Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski] told me when I was at Duke was that, ‘You got to have good women in your life. You want to listen to the women in your life.’ When I think of my mom, my grandmother, my auntie, those are all three people, three women that I really respect. And I take their opinions with a lot of value. And so, I would say that Nicole is in that mix. She’s a woman who I really respect and I listened to.

Her going to [the University of] North Carolina was something that I wasn’t so sure about at first. She really had to earn my trust and get in my good graces. When I heard she was a Tar Heel, it made me look at her a little differently. But she’s from North Carolina. I have some family that’s from North Carolina that were also Tar Heel fans. So being from the state, I feel like you get a pass to go.

(Note: The Magic owned a 29-31 record when this interview was recorded on Feb. 27)

We are laser-focused. I’m just really trying to do the best I can to help me and help my team be in the best position at the end of these 22 games. Whatever it takes. Control what I can control in terms of just my effort on the court, my preparation and my attitude towards my teammates, too. I’m constantly trying to encourage [the team].

We realize that this is a tough stretch. We’re losing. It’s not fun, but we still are the seventh seed. We still have a chance to be in the postseason. We can still achieve our goals. It’s not completely out of hand. And so, we’re just keeping that perspective and trying to work every day to get there.

I’ve always just naturally put a lot of pressure on myself. I have a lot of goals and a lot of expectations of myself as a player, as a person. And so, it can be really frustrating when you’re losing and stuff is not going the way you thought it would or it’s not going how you would want it to. Just naturally being a winner, it kind of makes you a little bit of a sore loser, even though you don’t really realize it. I want to win. I’m used to winning. So, when I’m not winning, I’m not thinking about nothing else other than how can that change. How can we not be on the losing end?

I’ve got to work on that — where even though it is a tough loss or a tough patch, I have to be able to keep myself in the right headspace because it’s important to everyone. It’s important to the team for me to do that. And even though we’re losing, we’re under .500, we’re still right there in the standings and we still have a chance to make a run here. So, we have to stay focused and try and make that happen.

We miss Jalen so immensely. He’s the heart and soul of what we do defensively. He applies constant ball pressure. He’s flying around the court making stuff so much easier on the rest of us because we’re able to use his defense to create offense. Whether it’s his steals, chasing guys down, blocking shots or him just forcing guys in the bad shots, it ignites our offense. So not having him out there, it’s been tough. And honestly, we’ll never be as good of a team as we can be unless he’s out there.

We know that we have to hold it down. And he’s been great just being vocal, still being a leader, trying to encourage guys throughout the time he has been out. But we miss him a lot. Just that one game he played before he got hurt, against Detroit, you could feel the difference he made. And just his energy and his enthusiasm and just his toughness and everything he brings on the court, you know, takes our team to another level.

(Note: The Lakers rescinded their trade to acquire Williams from Charlotte because the center failed his physical on Feb. 8. Banchero and Williams were teammates at Duke).

For that to happen and then it gets rescinded, I know that’s probably tough on him, especially the way it got put out about his physical and everything. Mark is a is a great player and a great person. And I know he does a lot to keep his body right. I don’t know the situation on how that got taken back or his physical got failed, but I do know he went and saw some other people and they passed his physical. I never saw that happen in a trade.

The only time I heard of a trade being rescinded was when Chris Paul was supposed to go to the Lakers from New Orleans. It looks like Lakers have had some tough ones with trades being rescinded. I’m sure he’s going to get back in the mix in Charlotte. He’s a great player. So, he’s gonna make an impact whether he’s in Charlotte or anywhere else. That’s my guy, though. We talk all the time, every week. Still keep in touch with a lot of guys from my Duke team.

My No. 1 compliment coming back from All-Star break was my tan. I got away, got a nice little getaway out in the Bahamas. [It’s] Not too far of a flight from Orlando, so, it was nice and easy. And then I was just out there enjoying the sun, still working on my game and just really relaxing. And I got disconnected a little bit. Honestly, it was great. I really enjoyed it.

The best thing I did was sit on the beach for hours, drink ice water, and enjoy my time there. Get in the ocean water, feel that breeze, dunk your head under there. When you’re out there in a place like that, it kind of feels like you’re in a whole other world. So, I really did try to use those five days to disconnect, self-reflect, enjoy time with my friends and just get ready for the final push of the back half of the season.