Believe in the Osceola Magic in November

The Orlando Magic joined Osceola Heritage Park officials Tuesday in announcing the franchise’s team in the G League, the NBA’s official minor-league organization, will move from Lakeland to Kissimmee’s Silver Spurs Arena in November, in time for the 2023-24 G League season.

This winter, locals will be able to root for the Osceola Magic. Tickets for the upcoming season will soon be available, team officials said, at OsceolaMagic.com, which currently still points to the Lakeland website.

The G League is the NBA’s official developmental minor league. NBA teams will designate some players as “two-way” players, who are “retained” on the NBA roster and can play in the G League to log playing minutes, then be called up to the NBA team at any time. Players who prove themselves during their time under a two-way contract can then be given a full-scale contract for the rest of the season. Teams also use the G League to bring back players returning from injury back up to “pro-game” speed. The Magic feature guard Jay Scrubb and small forward Kevan Harris, who played 34 games with Orlando this past season.

R.J. Hampton, Caleb Houstan, Jonathan Isaac, Chuma Okeke and Admiral Schofield each played in Lakeland and appeared with the Magic this season.

“We don’t just try to find diamonds in rough,” Orlando Magic Director of Basketball Operations Jeff Weltman said. “We want to produce a solid team with veterans with high character, and develop our guys, so this is a really important venture for us.

“And, I promise you, we’ll have a lot of Orlando Magic players here attending the games. They all are organizational teammates.”

“We want to thank the DeVos family, who has made a significant commitment to this organization,” said Magic CEO Alex Martins. “I’m extremely excited for this opportunity in Osceola County. We’ve known Robb (Larson, OHP/ASM Global general manager) and Don (Fisher, county manager) for a long time.”

Martins noted the Osceola Magic will train at the Amway Center in Orlando, but his drive time from there to the Silver Spurs on Tuesday was 21 minutes; it can take an hour and a half to get to Lakeland. The move puts the G League team in the three-county region surrounding Orlando for the first time.

He said that with the lease ending with the RP Funding Center that OHP became “the right place,” and the franchise didn't look at any other locations to move to.

“We knew this would be the right place for us to be for the future,” he said. “And this is a booming place, just look across the street at what’s happening with the semiconductor industry (at NeoCity). The timing was right for this to happen.”

The Magic and OHP were in talks to become the team’s G League home in 2017, when the Magic were looking to relocate the Erie BayHawks from Pennsylvania. The choice ultimately came down to Kissimmee and Lakeland, which was chosen, and the team played at the RP Funding Center for six seasons.

“Days like these don’t happen often, it’s one I’ll never forget. This is a chapter-changing day for those of us in this room,” said Larson, a basketball junkie to those who know him.

He noted the Magic’s commitment to the local community. Its charitable organization has already made $150,000 in contributions this year to the Osceola Council on Aging and Education Foundation Osceola County.

Lakeland won the league championship in the 2020-21 season, which was shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic and played exclusively in the “bubble” at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports.

The Silver Spurs and OHP have previously hosted basketball events like a early-season college basketball tournament in 2019, the Great Florida Shootout high school event, and the Sunshine State Conference Division II postseason tournament.