Jameer Nelson on limited minutes: 'It's hard to be out there and be who I am'

Well, that didn't take long.

Less than a month after being acquired by the Boston Celtics, Jameer Nelson sounds unhappy with his minor role on an upstart team. He understands, but a drop from 25.4 minutes on a contender to 20.2 minutes on a rebuilding squad appears to be getting to him.

As Nelson explained, as reported by Jay King of MassLive, on Tuesday:

Obviously you want guys to be comfortable in the role that they play on the team, to get that experience, especially the young guys. But also the veterans. I mean, I’ve never been on a team where I’ve played 14 or 15 minutes. To be honest, it’s hard to go out there and be who I am with 14 minutes.

But I’m not going to complain about it. I’m not going to go to coach and tell him I need more minutes or anything like that because my job is to play the minutes he’s going to give me. And I’ve always been that way. Any player that’s competitive and wants to win, and wants to play, thinks he should play 48 minutes. If you … have a guy on your team that (doesn't think) like that, he shouldn’t be on your team anyway. I think I should play all the minutes. But that’s not my job to say. My job is to play the minutes given to me and play them hard.

Nelson's sentiment is probably a common one from veterans on young teams, but it's hard to see his words falling on willing ears. The Celtics are experimenting with Evan Turner as a point guard and have to devote development time to rookie Marcus Smart, leaving head coach Brad Stevens with a lot of hypothetical mouths to feed. 

Nelson is low on that food chain but may not have to suffer for long. The Celtics will almost surely explore dealing Nelson before the trade deadline, though that may not happen until the day before the deadline, when he becomes eligible to be packaged with other players. Failing that, the sides could negotiate a post-deadline buyout, or Nelson could simply decline his $2.9-million option for next season this summer.

In six games with Boston, Nelson is averaging 4.8 points and 5.5 assists but is shooting 22 percent from the floor. In 680 career games over 11 seasons with three teams, he's averaged 12.3 points, 3.1 rebounds and 5.3 assists in 29 minutes. At age 32, he may still be attractive to a contender in need of steady backup guard play.