Moments after Royce O’Neale had hit another game-winning shot, this time against the defending champion Warriors in San Francisco, Nic Claxton was asked about his teammate. His reply was unintentionally comedic, but everybody who heard it understood implicitly.
“He’s got big balls,” Claxton said of a teammate who has made a string of clutch plays for the Nets this season. “He steps up in crunch time.”
The praise was more about O’Neale’s clutch gene than any other body part. It’s a winning DNA and central to the glue-guy game the Nets traded for this past offseason. It has turned out to be one of the shrewder deals of the summer.
If availability is one of the most important abilities, O’Neale has brought underrated gifts to Brooklyn. He’s logged by far the most total minutes on the team — and behind only Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving on a per-game basis — having made himself too invaluable for Jacque Vaughn to take off the floor.
