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@@@ Magic rookie Elfrid Payton s attempted alley-oop pass becomes banked-in 3 in loss to Hornets (Video)By By | , and he raises you.
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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 鈥?just like head coach Jacque Vaughn drew it up, naturally 鈥?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 . While it didn't have quite the ending that the 20-year-old might have liked 鈥?his attempt at a game-tying floater in the closing seconds was by Charlotte center Al Jefferson, preserving a 鈥?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 , 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 :
"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 on 3-point shooting before acquisition Channing Frye sprained his , any made long ball will do.
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