With the 19th overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, the Orlando Magic selected a post player from St Bonaventure. After a stretch of Austin Rivers, Meyers Leonard, Jeremy Lamb, Kendall Marshall, John Henson, Mo Harkless, Royce White, Tyler Zeller and Terrence Jones, they selected Andrew Nicholson – a 6’9, 250lb big man who was somewhere between a power forward and a center, yet who would have benefitted greatly from being born 15 years earlier – who would go on to spend four years with the team in a sort of Othella Harrington-esque role
Nicholson did not have the best NBA career. Then again, neither did the rest of the players selected after him in that first round; after the solid career of Evan Fournier and the brief success of Jared Sullinger came Fab Melo, John Jenkins, Jared Cunningham, Tony Wroten, Miles Plumlee, Arnett Moultrie, Perry Jones III, Marquis Teague and Festus Ezeli, none of whom moved the needle.
That said, Draymond Green, Khris Middleton and Jae Crowder were all drafted early in the second round, all of whom have run rings around Nicholson as NBA contributors. In amongst a sea of blown picks, then, the Magic unmistakably blew theirs too. But to Nicholson’s credit, he continues to play quality basketball more than a decade later, even if he had to go to the other side of the world to do it.
Nicholson’s NBA Career
Nicholson played five NBA seasons from 2012 through 2017, appearing in 285 regular-season games and starting 36 of them. He entered the league after a four-year college career at St. Bonaventure, where he finished as the programâs second all-time leading scorer with 2,103 points, through a well-honed set of post footwork that quickly became outmoded in the NBA.
During his first four seasons with Orlando, Nicholson averaged 6.5 points and 3.2 rebounds per game while playing 15.1 minutes per contest. His most productive season was his first, when he appeared in 75 games, averaged 7.8 points and 3.4 rebounds per game, and shot 52.7% from the field. That season represented his peak usage and scoring output in the NBA. But to make it as a scoring big man – which his limited athleticism and resultant capped defensive impact necessitated he would have to be – Nicholson had to adjust.
After not attempting a three-pointer as a rookie, Nicholson thereafter developed somewhat as an outside shooter, and over his NBA career, he shot 32.1% from three-point range, albeit on relatively low volume. Offensively, most of his production came via spot-up jumpers, post-ups against second units and pick-and-pop situations. But Nicholson’s foray into the NBA came at a time when every power forward was casting up outside jumpers, and others could do it better than him.
Or at least, they could at the time.
Reborn Across The Globe
In 2016, Nicholson signed with the Washington Wizards to a four-year, $26 million as a part of the ludicrous 2016 NBA-wide overspend. And the Wizards quickly regretted the deal.
Nicholson appeared in only 28 games for Washington, averaging 2.5 points per game in under 10 minutes a night, and was later traded to the Brooklyn Nets in a salary-dump deal (and later waived after a retrade to the Portland Trail Blazers, with his contract stretched across multiple seasons under the NBAâs stretch provision). Nicholson did not appear in another NBA game after the 2017-18 season and was out of the league by the age of 28 – he may have signed for four more years, but he only ever played in one.
Following his NBA tenure, however, Nicholson has continued his professional career overseas. And in Asia, he has has a resurgence. Following the path of Sullinger above – another post-based player who became an elite shooter and rebirthed himself in China – Nicholson moved east, assumed primary scoring roles and logged significantly heavier minutes than he had in the NBA, and has become one of the best players in Korea.
Defensively, Nicholsonâs NBA impact was limited. He averaged 0.4 blocks and 0.5 steals per game across his career, and his defensive metrics placed him below league average for frontcourt players. His lack of lateral quickness restricted his defensive versatility, which contributed to his role remaining primarily offensive in nature; as the league increasingly prioritized switchability and rim protection at the power forward and center positions, Nicholsonâs defensive limitations reduced his line-up viability.
In Korea, though, he is matched up against other Andrew Nicholson types – Sullinger, former Dallas Mavericks big Jameel Warney, etc – and does not have to cover the ground he did in the NBA. Instead, Nicholson can dominate the offence and unleash the jumper. And the jumper is much better than it was. On the KBL season to date, Nicholson has averaged 19.6 points and 7.0 rebounds in only 24.5 minutes per game, shooting 44.1% from three-point range; in the nine seasons since he moved east, he has shot above 40% from three in eight of them.
Due to their own perennial shortage of size, the east Asian leagues of China, Japan and Korea are always on the hunt for import center or de facto center talent. The pay is competitive with any other non-NBA league, the work more consistent than the more volatile nature of much of the European market, and the repeat business is usually there for those who seek it. Nicholson has a lot of mileage on his passport over the past decade, but he has been able to settle in as one of the better players in the nation. And it turns out that he has also become one of the game’s best stretch fives.
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