Noah Penda Lasted 141 Seconds Before Tearing His Hamstring. Orlando’s Depth Plan Is Already Broken.

Noah Penda suffered a partially torn right hamstring in Orlando’s preseason finale against Miami on Friday and is expected to miss significant time, Jason Beede of the Orlando Sentinel reported Saturday. There is no timetable. His return depends on how he responds to treatment.

He was on the floor for two minutes and 21 seconds before he walked off.

That is the cruelest part. Penda had a right hamstring problem at the start of training camp, in a different part of the muscle, and that one had fully healed. He got back on the court, played barely two minutes of a meaningless exhibition, and tore the other side of it.

Orlando Was Counting On Him More Than People Realize

Penda is 21. Orlando took him 32nd overall in the 2025 draft and he is making $2.15 million this season. As a rookie he appeared in 59 games and averaged 3.8 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 12.8 minutes, shooting 40.4 percent from the floor and 32.3 percent from three.

Those numbers look modest, and that undersells what he was in line to do. Penda is a long, switchable forward, and second-year leaps from late first-round defenders are how good teams fill out a rotation without spending money. Orlando needed one of those this year.

Instead the Magic open the regular season against Atlanta at Kia Center with a list of problems. Franz Wagner left the same Miami game midway through the third quarter with right shoulder soreness and did not return, finishing with 11 points, six rebounds and six assists in just under 20 minutes. Coach Sean Sweeney had no update beyond saying Wagner would be reevaluated.

Rookie guard Jase Richardson was ruled out of the second half of that game with lower back soreness and has been listed as day-to-day. Anthony Black warmed up Friday morning and then sat the finale with an ankle issue, and his availability for the opener is unclear.

The Depth Problem Just Became a Real Problem

Orlando beat Miami 136-115 in that game, which tells you how little the scoreboard matters in October. The Magic walked out of their final tune-up with four players in various stages of uncertainty and only one of them, Penda, with a diagnosis attached.

Here is why this one stings most. Wagner’s shoulder soreness and Richardson’s back and Black’s ankle are the kind of things that resolve in days. A partial hamstring tear is weeks, and hamstrings are the injury most likely to come back if a player is rushed. Penda already came back from one hamstring issue this fall and immediately broke down again. Orlando has every reason to be conservative now, which means significant time is probably the optimistic version of this.

The Magic have been through enough of this. Injuries to rotation players have scrambled their last several seasons, and the roster they built this summer is deep enough that one absence should not matter much. That depth is about to get tested in week one, which is not when anybody wanted to find out.

Penda will be fine long term. He is 21, the money is guaranteed, and nobody loses a career to a partial hamstring tear. But the window where a 32nd pick establishes himself in a crowded rotation is narrow, and he just lost the front end of it before the season started.