Magic rookie Elfrid Payton’s attempted alley-oop pass becomes banked-in 3 in loss to Hornets (Video)
Elfrid Payton sees you, Anderson Varejao, and he raises you.
[Yahoo Sports Fantasy Basketball: Sign up and join a league today!]
During the first quarter of a Monday night preseason visit to North Carolina to take on the Charlotte Hornets, the Orlando Magic’s rookie point guard ran down a loose ball tapped back far beyond the 3-point line. As the Hornets scrambled to find their defensive marks, they left Payton’s fellow 2014 first-rounder, forward Aaron Gordon, all alone in the left corner, just begging for the former Arizona star to back-cut to the basket against the napping defense. Payton saw the play unfolding and tried to make it, but his pass was juuuuuuust a bit off … and fortuitously so for the Magic:
The banged-in banker from 32 feet away — just like head coach Jacque Vaughn drew it up, naturally — was Payton’s only “3-point attempt” of the night. Way to keep those percentages up, rook. (The absence of play-by-play call, meaning we only get the dispassionate public address announcer’s robotic rendering of the visiting team’s basket, makes it all the better.)
The Louisiana-Lafayette product could only shake his head and laugh as he headed back down court after a pretty memorable opening to his first pro start. While it didn’t have quite the ending that the 20-year-old might have liked — his attempt at a game-tying floater in the closing seconds was rejected by Charlotte center Al Jefferson, preserving a 99-97 Hornets win — the evening did see its fair share of positives, with the 2014 draft’s 10th overall pick scoring 14 points (albeit on 6-for-15 shooting) to go with six rebounds, five assists and a steal (albeit with five turnovers) in 31 minutes of work.
With the Magic’s guard rotation up in the air a bit while second-year man Victor Oladipo works his way back from a sprained medial collateral ligament in his right knee, Vaughn could consider slotting the rookie into the starting five to open the season, and the coach sounded pleased by what he saw in Payton’s first start, according to Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel:
“He did some great things,” Vaughn said. “It’s preseason so he can learn from them.” […]
“I was confident,” Payton said. “We got some pretty good looks.”
Including some that might not necessarily have been intentional. But hey, for a Magic team that looked dreadfully short on 3-point shooting before free-agent acquisition Channing Frye sprained his left MCL, any made long ball will do.
– – – – – – –
Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
Stay connected with Ball Don’t Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL, “Like” BDL on Facebook and follow BDL’s Tumblr for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.
