The interior is stunning. The backpack sitting at his feet shakes with the vibrations pouring out of the car door speakers. CD cases rattle in the console under his left elbow. It’s 2011, and Paolo Banchero is driving around in his father’s car on a gloomy Seattle afternoon. They can go to practice, grab a bite to eat, or just run errands. But whatever happens, one constant remains. It’s Jay-Z’s 2006 album, Kingdom come.
The soulful piano keys of ‘Lost One’. “Show me what you got” horns and drum break. Screaming high hats from Oh My God. These are the sounds of Paolo Banchero’s education.
“Jay-Z was one of the first rappers I ever heard in my life,” says Paolo. “That was when I was coming into my own, just as a kid, as a player. So that CD was always on in the car. I’ve listened to it countless times, just going through it, and I just love it.”
SLAM KICKS 27 featuring Paolo Banchero is now available!
A look at Hov’s album cover discography. Then watch Paolo play the game. It’s an eerily similar scene. Dimly lit backdrops and polished rise. A sharp commotion is going on. A Don-like figure stands center stage with thousands of eyes on his every move. In turn, the figure speaks of the eloquent truth. The two words and axes in the post tell the story of one sage who has passed their years.
Paolo Banchero is here. His days as a blue devil are over. That Rookie of the Year award is a long way off. He drops the 30 over his head, digs into defenders’ chests with his shoulder, and leads the Orlando Magic back to the playoffs with the Air Jordan 39 on his feet. A rare opulence.
Paolo may have grown up a Hov student, but the self-proclaimed music connoisseur is an old soul with a new school ear. Soon into February of the 2023-24 season, the All-Star realized he had strayed too far from his roots.
“I just caught myself listening to the same music, kind of getting bored of it,” says Paolo. “And so I was like, Man, I don’t listen to Jay-Z. i was like Why don’t I listen to Jay-Z? I have been hearing all this for months. i’m like Man, I’ve got to go back in.’
He did a little more than just re-enter. Just like he did with the pile of CDs in his pop machine, Paolo was flipping through the legends of his music library looking for that old thread. The returns. The music that fed his soul.
For the final two months of the regular season and all seven games of the Magic’s playoff opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Paolo was passed over by none other than Lil Wayne, Jay, Nas and Jeezy. “I felt it gave me new energy,” she says.
At the end of March, the Pelicans had a triple-double with 20 points. Then in early April there were 32 in a row on the road. Jaylen Duren came as close as humanly possible to contest Paolo’s step-back jumper, but Banchero hit the game-winner back in February. And to cap it off, a 26-point double-double to finish fifth in the Eastern Conference with a sweep against the Milwaukee Bucks in the regular-season finale.
This is no ordinary second season material. His numbers of 22.6 points, 6.9 boards and 5.4 steals per night weren’t just an increase in production from the first year. We all watched as Paolo took that next step in the future superstar’s career. And he did it in year 2. Wayne’s verses, Jay’s tone, and Nas’ cadence all fueled the masterclass that unfolded before our eyes.
In the week of practice leading up to the Magic’s first postseason appearance since 2020, Paolo turned things around. Lil Baby addressed Lil Wayne. The braids that had once been bound on each side of her head were now tightly bound in horns. And the array of Jordan Luka 2 PEs he’s been wearing all season has been replaced by the pair that sits boldly on these pages, the Air Jordan 39 .
In April, those at the AdventHealth Training Center in Orlando got their first look at the smooth upper midsection solution in the wild. For days Paolo couldn’t take them off. The Air Jordan 39’s cushioning is powered by the same magic that powered Eliud Kipchoge’s marathon world record time and Mike’s fifth championship in the Air Jordan XII. Combining full-length ZoomX foam with Air Zoom cushioning, it became addictive.
“Once I put the shoe on, though, then I was like, It’s over. I have to be in them. I told Sam (Druffel, Paolo’s sports marketing representative at Jordan Brand), this 39 is their best work in my opinion. As long as I’ve been with the brand, it’s their best work. It’s a super comfortable shoe, I love wearing it,” says Paolo.
That love eventually translated into us seeing the 39 sooner than even the brand intended. Paolo was digging so much that he asked the team out in Beaverton to see if he could be the model’s debut in Game 1 of the playoffs. With a game that so loosely paralleled the ethos of the sketch, the answer was a definite hell yes.
The 39th edition of Michael Jordan’s signature sneaker began with Mike’s infamous crossover move. From his three dribble rule that forced the offense to create art within simple parameters, to the fluidity of his feet that stuck defenders in the mud, Michael Jordan’s game was rooted in trusting that simplicity. That’s why only nine colors will be released between now and next spring. That’s why the haptic print upper, woven tongue and leather toe box stand out among the sea of hidden premium tech. The Air Jordan 39 is the epitome of refined elegance.
The essence of refined minimalism that permeates around the Air Jordan 39 is precisely why Paolo tops the game shoe price. His moves on the block and in transition are those of a calculated craftsman. A polished spaceship with an attached jet engine.
“How can I get to the basket or make a play without taking seven or eight dribbles? I think in the playoffs that’s what I really honed and figured out,” says Paolo. “That was something I knew going into the playoffs. I had to hit a lot of mid-range shots. I had to shoot catch and shoot threes. I’ve had to take what the defense gives me and basically trim the fat off my game and be as efficient as I can be.”
The triple-white “Sol” colorway, marked by a red dash on the Jumpman logo on the tongue, combined with Paolo for 45 points in the first two games of the series.
“It felt like I was floating. Obviously I’m a big guy. I play with a lot of power, I cut a lot, I jump, and just a lot of power goes into my shoes,” says Paolo. “But those shoes, I don’t feel restricted at all. I feel like I can do any move, any cut. I can put as much force into a shoe as I can and it will hold up. It just performed really well. I think I noticed it right away. Sometimes the shoe feels stiff or the shoe is too tight and things like that. I think there was just a sense of freedom when I was 39 where I felt like I could move around and do anything.”
At 6-10 and 250 pounds, Paolo is a walking force of nature, yet he glides across the hardwood with unmatched fluidity. Being bullied is inevitable. Every team knows that. That’s why they usually pack the paint and force him to operate in the midrange when they get it. But this is where the magic happens.
In that seven-game playoff series, Paolo was spot-hunting. He didn’t take half a shot clock to break down his guy or analyze spins. Everything was an instinctive reaction. If he drove into the paint and saw bodies, he pulled for a layup. If he saw the slightest crack of daylight, he would absorb contact and dish to the open shooter. If they hung above the key, hand down, man down.
He wasn’t worried about statistics, he wasn’t worried about percentages. He “just wanted to do what it took to win and get the job done.”
“That whole series I progressed and learned every game. We lost the first two and everyone thought we weren’t ready, and Cleveland was all under the breath saying we were kids,” Paolo says.
The last thing Paolo Banchero is is a child. Scratch that. It’s not even in the vocabulary. This year we all watched the same ripening. The Magic may have dropped their first two games in the playoffs, but in Game 3? The production that played in the background of car rides with dad began to form in his mind. Back to basics. Surging 31 points in three quarters. Jumps met nylon. The Fadeaways stood unconcerned. Getting around was the mode. The drop-steps were impressive. The Magic led Paolo by more than 30 in the fourth.
Game 5 featured 39 points on 57 percent shooting from three. Game 6 consisted of 27, 10 in the fourth to tie the series at three a piece. “It was just dope to do it in front of the fans, the home crowd, to be able to defend the home field like that,” says Paolo.
From October to early May, sales at the Kia Center have become a common practice. For the first time in a long time, there is a friendly superstar wearing Magic blue. He swings with the old and the new. He is laser focused on his growth. And since the season is over, he’s back in his hometown of Seattle, surrounded by the love, comfort and inspiration that raised him. He’s perfecting his tools, trusting his instincts and improving every day.
“When I first came to Orlando, there weren’t a lot of expectations for the team, and therefore there were a lot of expectations for me. But I wanted to make that impact on the team. I wanted it to be a team success. I wanted people to come back and start coming to the games,” says Paolo. “So it’s just been great to see the fan base grow, obviously the organization is growing, we’re just getting more serious and getting into the playoffs.
“But now I think it’s time to move on, sort of from the initial stage of success and be happy about the success. Now we are trying to be one of the big names in the East and the League. It will not be easy. I know that, we all know that, but I think we’re all ready for it and we’re all excited.”
The 2023-24 season saw Paolo invade the Magic Kingdom, take the throne and chart the path to immediate success for an entire organization. The time to collapse at the end of the tunnel is over. The lights are shining bright, the expectations are thundering, and the hopes of an entire fan base rest on his shoulders.
“I think at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, I’ll look back on my sophomore year, last year, and look at it as the beginning,” Paolo says. “It was the start of something special.”
Portraits by Marcus Stevens. Action photos via Getty Images.
