Jameer Nelson Jr. has made a name for himself at Delaware | Mike Jensen

NEWARK, Del. – This hug lingered, nobody letting go … mother, father, son. Jameer Nelson Jr. never saw the man standing close by, waiting to congratulate the starting guard for the Delaware Blue Hens, Colonial Athletic Association champions, a bid to March Madness secured moments before.

The man, who happened to be the governor of Delaware, saw the hug wasn’t ending, how this was a family moment. Delaware Gov. John Carney turned and walked away — let them be.

Nelson Jr. said after practice Tuesday that he knew the governor was at the game, but he hadn’t seen him standing there. “Oh, wow, that’s really cool.”

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The governor was waiting for the son, not the father. Jameer Nelson Jr. has never had the luxury of walking into a gym under the radar. It doesn’t affect him, being Jameer Nelson Jr., he said, “because I’ve been Jameer Jr. my whole life.”

In voice and manner, he sounds like his dad. Looks like him, too. But there we go … especially around the Philadelphia area, the comparisons get baked in. Jameer Jr. taking on Villanova in Friday’s NCAA first round in Pittsburgh is a pretty good little story line. Another reporter walked over to Nelson after the practice: “I covered your dad in high school.”

Is there anybody else in this NCAA tournament who can claim a father who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated while in college? Dad was national player of the year. Jameer Jr. said he doesn’t remember that much from Hawk Hill … He was born when his father was a St. Joseph’s sophomore. When SJU went on its 2003-04 run, taking the city on a ride, Meer-Meer was there, part of the whole crazy scene. Pre-toddler memories just get a little hazy.

“He enjoyed it — he was part of the student section,” Jameer Sr. said Tuesday over the phone. “He was doing the SJU chants at home, playing on his little basket.”

That hug …

“The one thing I told my parents, it took so long for me to finally be able to play free and enjoy the game again,” Nelson said, relating how, in the midst of transferring from George Washington, “I was just down, my parents were just keeping me up, and keeping me grounded. I was so thankful for them, I just wanted to embrace them and thank them.”

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The first time I saw him was 2017 when his father held a camp at Girard College for elite guards from around Philadelphia. Because it was Jameer Nelson, they all showed up. Isaiah Wong, now at Miami. A.J. Hoggard, now at Michigan State. Lynn Greer III, now at St. Joe’s. Donta Scott, now at Maryland. The youngest guard there, this little guy from Coatesville, held his own. Jhamir Brickus is now at La Salle.

Walking in, you wondered if Nelson’s kid belonged. He’d just come off his sophomore year at Haverford School, his first year of varsity. Wait .. the kid belonged, even as a 14-year-old. He was guarding the elite guys, even though baseball had been his sport.

“All of this is a much different path than I thought he would take in his athletic career,” said his father, now assistant general manager of the Delaware Blue Coats, the Sixers’ G-league affiliate. “We were against him putting the bat and ball down. He always wanted to be on the AAU circuit.”

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“I was behind in terms of games,” Jameer Jr. said. “My dad felt like, I can’t get those games back, but I can work out more than them.”

“They might be 100 games ahead,” Jameer Sr. remembers telling his son. “But you’ll be 100 workouts ahead of them.”

The father knew their paths were different, how free time for him involved a ball and a hoop and all the competition you could want around the playgrounds of Chester.

Jameer Jr. remembers his first Division I offer was from Rider. Then La Salle came in with an offer. Personal theory: There was no way Phil Martelli could live with Jameer Nelson, icon of Martelli’s St. Joe’s tenure, spending four years at Tom Gola Arena wearing Explorers gear. St. Joe’s came in with an offer, which Jameer Jr. accepted, the understanding being that he would redshirt as a freshman.

Then Martelli got fired. Jameer Sr. was a candidate for the head coaching job but didn’t get it. Jameer Jr. decommitted, switching to George Washington. Jameer Jr. started as a freshman, and at the beginning of his sophomore year, but the transfer portal had brought in more guards and his minutes got cut. The sport started weighing on him.

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Coach Martin Ingelsby noticed all that when Delaware played GW early in Nelson’s sophomore year.

“We had recruited him [out of high school],” Ingelsby said, mentioning that assistant coach Bill Phillips had played with Jameer Sr. at St. Joe’s, “so we were familiar with him. I told Bill, ‘Hey, it doesn’t look like it’s clicking down there. If he ever puts his name in the portal, we’d love to have him.’ It happened. We got the ball rolling … My biggest selling point to get him here, ‘Get you having fun playing basketball again.’”

His first season, Nelson is leading a balanced Delaware scoring attack with 13.7 points a game. Ingelsby remembers how way back when they first started recruiting him, even they still weren’t sure if he was going to play baseball or basketball.

“He just has such a high ceiling,” Ingelsby said. “Evolution of a basketball player. He’s an elite athlete. Now you see the basketball ability and the IQ and the feel starting to catch up to the kind of gifted athlete that he is. He can change the game, impact the game, at both ends of the floor. On the ball, off the ball. A guy [listed at 6-foot-1] who can rebound like he does, that’s a game-changer.”

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“The biggest thing he did was make the sacrifices to put the work in,” his father said. “Not a lot of guys want to do that.”

Dad will jump in as a workout partner, but said he is not his son’s basketball trainer.

“The main thing I preach, let’s not work hard for two weeks and then fall off the deep end,” Jameer Sr. said.

No pressure, right? Dad started for the Orlando Magic in the 2009 NBA Finals. That Sports Illustrated cover? Where is it at home?

“It’s right in the trophy case,” Jameer Jr. said. “I finally got something in the trophy case, my CAA trophy and my second-team [all-CAA]. It’s already in there.”

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Jameer Sr. said all his children are good athletes, all have a slew of trophies, and his wife gets the credit for getting them all playing all the sports, but he wasn’t putting all those trophies into his primo trophy case, “especially when you’re playing every weekend getting trophies.”

So this one …

“I told him, you made the trophy case,” the father said.

He liked his son’s response: “About time.”