Jameer Nelson’s Veteran Leadership Missed
Throughout NBA history, the idea of keeping a mentor around for younger players has been a model young teams have clung to with great success. Cutting ties with long-time point guard Jameer Nelson has caused a deficit of veteran leadership the team can’t seem to overcome.
It is a tricky thing to play GM. The last two drafts would have yielded a traded-down for Trey Burke and Nerlens Noel if I were playing Rob Hennigan. Everyone can second guess decisions and no one knows how things would turn out if you did anything different.
Letting the veterans — Jameer Nelson and Arron Afflalo — walk this summer and turning the team over to the young players was a necessary move but one that sacrificed strong leadership.
The matter at hand is whether or not keeping Jameer Nelson could have saved this team. It is whether his savvy leadership could have added stability and focus to a young team currently playing disorganized almost playground-like basketball.
The Orlando Magic have shown an ineptitude offensively that is hard to reconcile. For all Elfrid Payton has been at times, rookie point guards do not guide teams to playoff berths.
It just does not happen.
Even in the past, when the Magic selected Anfernee Hardaway, Scott Skiles was left intact to ease the transition of the young superstar.
Yet, Payton has been thrown directly into the fire. This just is not a model that has yielded great success in the past.
The San Antonio Spurs have groomed George Hill and are now molding Patty Mills. But Tony Parker was there to start. And Parker learned from Avery Johnson before him.
The Los Angeles Clippers were responsible for both Eric Bledsoe and the revival of Darren Collison behind Chris Paul. The Phoenix Suns are developing Isaiah Thomas off the bench behind Goran Dragic. All throughout the NBA, teams are grooming their young backups into attractive starters.
But the Magic did not keep Nelson aboard to start in front of Payton or work with Oladipo, and the young guards really could have used Nelson’s tutelage and consistency.
Sure, Payton has shown flashes like his near-triple double in the Brooklyn Nets affair. In the fourth quarter, he was nearly unstoppable. That is what he can be, but he is not that all the time.
At this point, the only consistent thing seems to be his defense, and his one-on-one coverage of shot chuckers like Kemba Walker calls into question whether he is as good as billed or not. It is early, but his greatest attribute has been rushing passing lanes and deflecting pick and rolls. He has shown enough flashes to keep developing him and pencil him as the team’s point guard of the future.
That is surely two excellent features of a defender. But more has to become of Payton before he can be labeled the next Tony Allen or Avery Bradley.
Live Feed
Nugg Love
That is not to say No. 14 would have been a defensive mentor. Nelson mostly made his fame as a shooting point guard who was capable of putting up numbers quickly. He also greatly accented a young Dwight Howard, frequently connecting on perfectly executed lobs. He knew his center so well that he could intentionally alter his misses to fall into Howard’s hands for easy put-backs, essentially unrecorded assists.
These subtle plays are sometimes lost in the quest for statistical impact, but Payton has to find his own manner of influencing games — whether it be deflecting passes, trapping guards before teams can get into an offensive set or even splitting defensive pick and rolls to initiate transition.
These types of plays are things Payton could be performing with Nikola Vucevic, a nearly equally as dominant rebounder as Howard was. While perhaps that is hyperbole, Payton really thus far has only had mild success with Vucevic in pick and rolls. His mid-range jumper is not respected by opposing defenses, and he cannot expect to get to the rim every play.
At Louisiana-Lafayette, he could. Payton had one of the highest usage rates of all D-1 point guards in the NCAA, but he is not playing mid-major basketball anymore, and the Magic are not benefitting from his sometimes overly ball-dominant play.
This is a team with Victor Oladipo, Tobias Harris and Vucevic all needing the ball to make plays more often. Harris’ efficiency alone dictates an increase in shot attempts is imperative. Oladipo is the only player bringing top-flight energy on a nightly basis. And Vucevic is the only Magic player capable of attracting double teams on the block.
But Payton has not found his calling card within the offense.
He picks up his dimes, but it seems he could have far more. In the third quarter of the Hornets game, he made a drive to the baseline and flipped it over his shoulder for a nifty assist with style, but style does not count for extra points, nor does shaking a defender with an ankle breaker that results in a missed floater.
In other words, the flashes do not match the numbers. He is greatly enhancing Orlando defensively, but is not quite ready to run a team. Nelson still is, and he could have been allowing Payton (and to some extent Oladipo) to learn these issues at a much more palatable pace.
The team would be winning more games, and that really is the goal, despite the detractors’ desire for a higher draft pick.
At this point, there is enough talent on the team that the Draft should become a secondary method of improving the roster. Internal improvement should be the focus, and a veteran leader in the backcourt would give this opportunity. At a certain point individual growth and development is being held back by the poor team growth and development.
That does not fall completely on the young point guard, but lacking a veteran leader there (or anywhere on this roster) has hurt the team in these last games.
Is trading for Nelson at the deadline out of the question?
The Boston Celtics cannot necessarily make the most of his services (although Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley could use his veteran expertise too, I guess), and he became expendable for the Dallas Mavericks as soon as Danny Ainge made it known he would allow the Mavs to make their push for Rajon Rondo. That liberation of Nelson means that the Magic could make a run to reunite the team with an on-floor coach.
GMs do not often like to admit mistakes by trading for a guy that was just released, but it is not unheard of, nor is it a bad idea in this case.
Nelson likely is not coming back. But a player like Nelson — a veteran who can be on the court late in games and hold players accountable by garnering their respect — is something this team appears to need to continue its growth.