THE SPORT COUNT

If he's healthy, playing Jameer Nelson isn't a risk. It's logical.

Last Friday (Sydney time), before the game, The Sport Count tweeted this:

The likelihood of Jameer playing two games, the Magic losing both, and the media slagging Orlando for messing with their chemistry? 2.5-1.

The odds were way off. It was always going to happen. At least in some quarters.

And it did.

Nelson came back a little out of sorts: despite facilitating three assists in his first three minutes, his offensive game appeared disjointed, like a driver forgetting how to switch gears on a manual after years in an automatic. But he wasn’t that bad. A -19 in 23 minutes certainly isn’t good, but not a single one of his Orlando brothers contributed a positive +/- (the closest was J.J. Redick, with a neutral plus-minus in seven garbage time minutes).

The Magic shot appallingly. Their defense was sub-par. Little of that is on Jameer. He didn’t help the team, but he didn’t destroy them.

But, as the most obvious changed variable on a previously dominant Magic squad, Jameer — and the trainers who okayed his return, and the coach who played him — are copping it.

The Associated Press proclaims that the ‘Magic want chemistry right for Nelson’s return’ (the implication is, of course, that Jameer threw it off in game one).

The Bleacher Report has a letter to Jameer: ‘even if you do play decently, ultimately you will have a negative impact on the team unless you are able to play at a higher level than Rafer Alston and overcome the disruption in team chemistry at this critical juncture.’

Dime Magazine urges Jameer to stay benched.

It’s all too obvious. Chemistry is important in basketball, without a doubt, but it’s more about personality than Xs and Os. You want guys desperate for a win, in it together, looking out for each other, hustling hard. Fitting an old piece — in the case of Jameer, a guy who has played in Orlando for five years — back into the jigsaw isn’t difficult to plan for. The team has practiced with him for hundreds of hours. He’s been on the bench, sporting street clothes, cheering his healthy teammates, listening in on huddles. Dwight Howard still knows how to run a pick and roll with him. Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu know to expect kick-out passes from him. It’s not rocket science.

Dealing with the mid-season addition of Rafer Alston — a point guard who quietly covets the jumpshot — is a much tougher ask than re-integrating a high-level point man like Jameer Nelson.

So, forget the myth of chemistry. If Nelson is healthy, and Orlando’s training staff say he is, you play him. You realise that, yes, he wasn’t having the best night… but no one on the Magic was. It was an off night for a team seemingly taken surprised by the Lakers’ strong rebounding, apparently stunned by their inside-out attack.

Nelson is too good to risk not playing. He can attack the basket, with his scorching footspeed, tight handle, and subtle ability to drop the (apparently uninjured) shoulder into bigger men. He spreads the floor, opens the wings. He’s developed into an eagle-eyed passer. He can drain threes. Before he was injured, he was everything Rafer Alston isn’t: consistent, an orchestrator of the offense, and a shooter.

If anything, Jameer should be applauded for taking it slow. He didn’t force shots. He made smart passes. He didn’t do much, but he didn’t do too much. Perhaps Stan Van Gundy shouldn’t have played him for the entire second quarter — Van Gundy recently said as much, saying he’d limit Nelson to 7-minute spurts for the rest of the series — but as coaching moves go, it wasn’t the worst. Far from it.

It was perfectly understandable. When you have a point guard as effective as Jameer Nelson available, you use him. The myth of chemistry be damned.

Posted By: Anton