Detroit Pistons 2017-18 Season Review: Jameer Nelson
A total of 22 different players laced them up for the Detroit Pistons this season. But it was Jameer Nelson who arguably had the most puzzling 2017-18 campaign.
One day before he turned 36, Jameer Nelson was reunited with an old friend.
Stan Van Gundy, who coached Nelson for five years in Orlando, traded for the veteran point guard on Feb. 8. The Pistons sent Willie Reed and a 2022 second-round draft pick to Chicago in exchange for Nelson.
All of that for the 36-year-old to play a total of seven games.
Nelson averaged 3.7 points, 3.3 assists and 1.1 rebounds this season in Detroit. Even though he only played 16.6 minutes per game, he shot 28 percent from the floor. Oh, and seven percent from beyond the arc.
To be fair, the move made (some) sense at the time.
Reggie Jackson was still out with a Grade 3 right ankle sprain. Ish Smith had been serving as the starting point guard since late December. Dwight Buycks showed some promise (7.4 points on 41 percent shooting) during his tenure as the backup. Heck, even Detroit-native Kay Felder appeared in two games.
But Van Gundy wasn’t satisfied, apparently. And once Nelson arrived, he quickly took Buycks’ place in the rotation.
It backfired.
In his first five games with the Pistons, Nelson averaged 4.4 points and 3.2 assists in 14.6 minutes per contest. His highest scoring game was during the a 118-103 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Feb. 12.
While he showed flashes of his former self, such as finding open teammates off the dribble, he settled for too many jump shots. Nelson finished with 12 points on 5-for-12 shooting against his former team. But he went 1-for-6 from the 3-point line.
After that night, Nelson would play only five more games the rest of the year. His last appearance came on March 13 in a 110-79 loss to the Utah Jazz. He went 0-for-5 after playing 25 minutes.
According to Basketball Reference, Nelson wasn’t even with the team in Chicago for the regular season finale on April 11. A Twitter search yielded no information as to why that was.
But that seems fitting: a strange end to an even stranger tenure.
Nelson will be a free agent this summer.