For Jameer Nelson, the moment arrived before Jacque Vaughn had coached a game.

Nelson, then the Orlando point guard, was working out in Pennsylvania in 2012 shortly after his Magic announced the 37-year-old Vaughn would be their new head coach. Vaughn, just three years after his final game as a player, felt a need to sit down with a veteran he saw as a leader, so they grabbed dinner in Philadelphia.

“He said, ‘Look, I’m going to lean on you,’ ” Nelson relayed over the phone Thursday. “ ‘I want you to be involved. I want you to help me. I want you to help the team.’ And I was like, ‘OK.’

“It was just genuine.”

It took Arron Afflalo another year before he realized exactly how much he would appreciate playing for Vaughn. In the first game of the 2013-14 season, Vaughn approached the veteran guard.

“‘Arron, whatever shots you take is good enough for me,’” Vaughn told him, according to Afflalo, who proceeded to average a career-best 18.2 points per game. “And maybe that was because I was the best player on a young team at that time, but I think he just trusted my judgment. And I’ll never forget that.

“I ended up having probably my best statistical year that year. … I’m always thankful to him because he damn near created an All-Star out of me that year.”

Vaughn, according to a few of his former players, is a players’ coach who is skilled at communicating and relating to people of all types. The Nets — who certainly have all types of people — stripped the “interim” label from Vaughn on Wednesday and named the bearded 47-year-old their new head coach.

Vaughn joked he was a “write-in candidate” for the Nets, who reportedly had focused on suspended Celtics coach Ime Udoka before giving their interim coach the reins.

The biggest knock against Vaughn, who had been an assistant with the Nets for seven years before the promotion, is his record. In three seasons in Orlando, where Vaughn replaced Stan Van Gundy in the post-Dwight Howard era, Vaughn went 58-158 without sniffing the postseason before he was fired.

“A lot of the guys who were on our team at the time were just too young and not talented enough or not as experienced enough to help win,” said Nelson, who is a 76ers scout and assistant GM for their G-League team, the Delaware Blue Coats.

Afflalo was more direct.

“We weren’t a good team at all,” said Afflalo, who retired in 2018 after 11 NBA seasons.

But both felt the team’s effort was not an issue. A young squad kept playing hard and kept getting frustrated with losses. A younger Vaughn would turn his cap around and jump into drills, showing players exactly how they were to be done, which is a rarity.

Seven years after Vaughn was fired, he has received a second chance in a near opposite situation. In succeeding Steve Nash, sure, Vaughn must win — but he also must figure out a way to keep Kevin Durant happy; to figure out how to understand and work with Kyrie Irving, currently suspended amid an Anti-semitism controversy; to figure out how to coax the best out of mercurial Ben Simmons.

Vaughn is best for the job, Nelson said, because he is “a real person.” He is an authority figure who does not feel like one.

“There were times as a player, I would be like, ‘I don’t know if that works.’ And we had open communication,” said Nelson, who played from 2004-18. “And we had these conversations about different things about the game plan. … He’s a point guard. He has a good way of getting his message across and getting people to buy in.”

Durant publicly supported Vaughn on Wednesday.

“I think he has the experience to know how to deal with each of those players individually,” said Afflalo, a Knick in 2015-16. “And I would say in my experience, with good superstar players, you want to have that connectivity and that relatability and hope that those players don’t take advantage of that connection.

“He’s not going to be that type of demanding, yelling coach. So I just hope the players are mature enough to respect that and do right by him.”

So far, so good. Vaughn earned the job in part because the Nets have flourished, particularly defensively, since he took over. In five games with Vaughn as interim or official head coach, the Nets have won three and allowed fewer than 100 points in four straight.

Nelson, in his current role with the 76ers, can see something has changed in Brooklyn.

“You can tell the guys — just watching from afar or when I’m on the road scouting, or watching games on TV — you see the guys really vibe with him,” Nelson said. “They have a good trust level with Jacque.

“He’s a caring person, and it shows how these guys now are playing for him.”