Nelson, Magic confident offseason moves will swing karma their way

As important as Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis were in navigating Orlando to the Finals last season, the Magic may not have even been in position to run through the Eastern Conference were it not for Jameer Nelson

After four seasons of promising, but inconsistent, play the Magic point guard put together an All-Star season last year, averaging a career-high 16.7 points per game while dishing 5.4 assists. Equally important, Nelson connected on 45.3 percent of his three-point attempts, helping expand a Magic offense that began the season 36-11. Less than two weeks before joining Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and friends in Phoenix, however, Nelson separated a shoulder, sidelining him until the Finals. The rust he had accumulated during rehab, and a Lakers team that won 65 games last year, sent Nelson and his teammates home on a losing note.

Next season, Nelson will direct a new-look Magic featuring recent additions Vince Carter, Matt Barnes and Brandon Bass. The Magic face the challenge staying atop the East with a retooled Cleveland and a healthy Boston breathing down their neck. Still in the midst of the offseason, Nelson took a few moments to assess the season that was and the possibilities of the campaign to come with SI.com.

SI.com: What did you and the Magic learn from last season's Finals run?

Jameer Nelson: That you have to believe to achieve. You can't go out there and do something if you really don't believe you can. No one thought we were going to make it past the Sixers when we went down in the series. No one believed we could beat Cleveland. And if you look at the Lakers series, you've got two plays -- one in which I didn't close out on Derek Fisher and the one where Courtney Lee missed the alley-oop -- that would have made a different series. If those plays would have been turned around, the series would have been 3-1 us.

It takes a big commitment on and off the court. People don't understand that we go through the same things the normal human being goes through off the court.

SI.com: Many of us in the media debated whether or not coach Stan Van Gundy should have played you coming off of an injury or Rafer Alston. How did you deal with the constant speculation?

JN: It didn't bother me at all. I don't listen to the media. That's not a knock, but they are not why I am playing basketball. I'm playing to win a championship, to win a lot of championships. Playing time and who gets shots that's not up to me. If coach puts me in for 30 minutes I play 30 minutes; if he puts me in for three minutes I play three minutes. I can guarantee you I'm not going to come out of the game complaining about any one minute that I didn't play.

SI.com: What was the hardest part of coming back from the injury in the Finals? The stage, the competition, something else?

JN: Mentally, when you're injured and they tell you you're out for the year, you sort of check out. Physically, I look at myself as an elite athlete, a guy who can pretty much do anything, so athletically I was fine. Basketball-wise, I just had to get my mind prepared. I knew I wasn't going to be the guy who made the All-Star team. You just have to face reality and do what you can. I don't think I played badly; I think I did what I could do under the circumstances.