Elfrid Payton Jr. brings a calm competitiveness to the Magic backcourt

To understand Elfrid Payton Jr., just flash back to the night his Orlando Magic teammates pulled a prank on him.

Before a preseason game, Magic players assembled at their locker room entrance to jog onto the court together. Payton received a signal to go, and he started to trot through a corridor lined with fans. But his teammates stood in the doorway for the next 20 seconds, smiling and giggling.

Payton looked over his shoulder.

Instead of stopping, instead of complaining, instead of showing the slightest ounce of annoyance, Payton just kept jogging. He ran onto Amway Center’s floor, grabbed a ball and made a layup, like nothing had happened.

“It was funny to me,” Payton says now. “I looked back, and nobody was there. So I was like, ‘Well, I’ll just use this time to work on my game. I’m the only one out here, so I can get all the shots.’ “

Nothing seems to faze Payton, a wiry 20-year-old rookie point guard with long, twisting, unkempt hair. Still, even with a good-natured practical joke, he doesn’t allow people to get the best of him. He’s that hard-nosed.

Payton’s combination of being even-keeled but also ultra-competitive just might make him the right point guard at the right time for the Magic. He’ll make his NBA debut Tuesday night when the team opens its 2014-15 regular season against the New Orleans Pelicans near his hometown of Gretna, La.

“He’s very calm,” says the Magic’s Luke Ridnour, a veteran point guard.

“He doesn’t get rattled, and he knows how to interact with people to run a team, if that makes sense. He knows what he’s doing. He understands it. I’ve been very impressed. I think he’s done a great job, and he’s just going to get better and better the more he plays.”

Payton acquired his quiet, cool demeanor from his mom, Danielle Payton.

But the fire that compels him to spend hours in the gym at a time comes from his father, Elfrid Payton Sr.

Elfrid Sr. starred as a pass-rusher at Grambling, where he played for legendary football coach Eddie Robinson. The elder Payton played 14 seasons in the Canadian Football League and compiled 154 quarterback sacks, the second-highest number of sacks in CFL history.

He talked relentlessly on the football field — and he still talks when he plays any game in which he competed against someone else.

Elfrid Sr. loves to win.

It doesn’t matter if it was Connect Four, Monopoly, checkers or chess.

He didn’t take it easy on anyone, not even his son.

“You better be competitive,” Elfrid Sr. says. “I’m somebody who, when I beat you, I’ll tell you about it.”

The younger Payton takes after his dad, but without the trash talk.

Elfrid Jr. hates to lose and he hates to be doubted.

In 2013, he was one of 26 players who were invited to try out for USA Basketball’s Under-19 team.

Elfrid Jr. was a rising junior at Louisiana-Lafayette, a Sun Belt Conference school.

“Some of the coaches there that were just watching — some of the big-name coaches — you hear stuff about them saying that guys like me shouldn’t even be there,” Elfrid Jr. remembers.

He proved he belonged.

Payton made the team, and in the 2013 FIBA Under-19 World Championships in Prague, he was one of only two Americans to start all of the team’s games.

Team USA won the gold medal.

“I think he’s always had this mentality that he’s going to prove himself,” says Florida Gators coach Billy Donovan, who was Team USA’s head coach. “He doesn’t give an inch, and he competes.”

Elfrid Sr. believed from the outset that his son would make the team.

To that point, Elfrid Jr. had spent his entire life around older people. He started preschool at the age of 3, and he did so well in school that his parents resisted the urge to hold him back a year so he could be the same age as his classmates.

But Elfrid Jr. was only 16 years old when he started his senior year at John Ehret High in Marrero, La.

He was small compared to some of the players he was playing against.

Only two schools offered him a scholarship: Louisiana-Lafayette and Xavier University of Louisiana.

In the years since, he’s sprouted to 6-feet-4 and 185 pounds, and he willingly battles against taller, bigger opposing players to track down rebounds or drive to the hoop.

“You may not always be the most talented or the most skilled or be the fastest and things like that,” Elfrid Jr. says. “But if you can outwork people, you’ll always be in a good position and have a chance to win.”

That lesson came from his dad.

When he was a child, Elfrid Jr. constantly watched his dad’s highlight tapes, eyes riveted on the TV screen as his father outfought offensive tackles for another quarterback sack.

Elfrid Jr. watched one of the tapes — a tape filled with plays from Elfrid Sr.’s days with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Shreveport Pirates and Baltimore Stallions — so often that he memorized the announcers’ descriptions of the action.

The Paytons’ house would echo with the sound of Elfrid Jr. mimicking the play-by-play calls: “With another sack, ELLL-frid PAAAY-ton!!!”

These days, Elfrid Sr. is the one doing all the cheering.

Last Wednesday, the proud father sat in a baseline seat at Amway Center and watched as the Magic faced the Houston Rockets in a preseason game.

The Rockets’ Patrick Beverley, one of the league’s most physical defenders at point guard, tested Elfrid Jr. all night, pressuring him and attempting to generate turnovers.

On one sequence, Elfrid Sr. complained to the refs that Beverley was committing reach-in fouls.

“Ref, that’s the foul!” the elder Payton said.

Beverley turned to him and said, “Stop crying!”

James Harden, the Rockets’ All-Star shooting guard, watched the exchange and somehow figured out that Payton Sr. wasn’t a typical fan.

“That’s your son?” Harden asked.

When Elfrid Sr. answered yes, Harden said Elfrid Jr. is a good player.

Magic players have learned that lesson so far this month: that their rookie point guard is, as Ridnour says, wise “beyond his years.”

When asked to describe Elfrid Jr., Magic forward Tobias Harris extended his arm, held the palm parallel to the ground and moved his arm horizontally from left to right, not moving it up or down.

In other words: Elfrid Jr. is even-keeled

With just one exception.

“You watch him,” Elfrid Sr. says, referring to his son.

“If you score on him, you’ll see he’s going to come back at you. He’s not going to be satisfied with you scoring on him.”

Like father. Like son.

jbrobbins@tribune.com. Read his blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/magicblog and follow him on Twitter at @JoshuaBRobbins.