Tyus Jones Pulled The Short Straw With The Minnesota Timberwolves
Tyus Jones is beloved by Minnesota Timberwolves’ fans. However, the hometown kid has struggled to see consistent minutes.
In the 2015 NBA Draft, Minnesota didn’t only walk away with only first rounder, they were able to grab another one as well. Minnesota traded with the Cleveland Cavaliers, which sent point guard Tyus Jones to Minnesota for two second-round picks (31&36).
As a freshman at Duke, Jones averaged 11.8 points per game, 5.6 assist per game and 3.5 rebounds per game.
What really stood out about Tyus was that he lead Duke to the NCAA National Championship that year.
Not only did Tyus Jones lead Duke to the National Championship, he led them to a victory! Putting up 23 points (19 in the second half), 5 assist and a rebound led him to win the Most Outstanding Player Award.
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Even with those great stats in college, know that Tyus Jones has only played an average of 13.9 minutes per game so far in his NBA career.
Jones has game and fans have seen it in flashes.
For example, on April 12 Tyus chipped in 17 points while shooting 3/4 from deep and dishing out seven assists, grabbing four rebounds and getting two steals.
Speaking of 3/4 from deep, Jones knocked down 35.6 percent of his 3-pointers, placing him tied for fifth with Andrew Wiggins and well above the other point guards on the team, Ricky Rubio and Kris Dunn.
That’s with Tyus only playing 60 games.
Tyus Jones has been searching for minutes throughout the first two years of his career.
A big reason for that has been Ricky Rubio and Kris Dunn.
Continuing on with some stats lets compare the trio of point guards to see how they fare against one another.
From the field, Jones shot close to 50 percent, finishing with a 45.4 percent field goal percentage.
Rubio shot 44.3 percent and Dunn ended the year at 40.4 percent.
Jones also averaged more assist than Dunn while producing fewer turnovers.
If you dig deeper into his numbers and look at per 36 minutes, Jones is favored even more. His numbers would have shot up to 9.7 points and an amazing 7.3 assist per game.
Ricky Rubio’s per 36 puts him at 12.2 points per game and 9.9 assists per game.
Kris Dunn’s per 36 are 7.9 points per game and 5.1 assists per game.
The biggest difference in all three is their minutes.
Rubio played the most minutes of any of them, finishing with 2,469 minutes on the season.
Dunn’s minutes, which were the second highest of the three, of 1,333 are enormous compared to Jones’ 774.
Yet Jones has better numbers than Dunn and not much worse than Rubio’s.
With so many positives coming with Jones, he has yet to receive constant minutes or ever play over 60 games.
Although there are a lot of positives with Jones, there are some negatives as well. The biggest one is defense.
Jones is a bit undersized and tends to be outplayed when he is on defense.
Minnesota’s previous coach Sam Mitchell preached defense just like our current coach Tom Thibodeau. Which has led to Tyus being pushed down the rotation.
All of this doesn’t mean that Tyus Jones needs a new team.
Minnesota won’t get a return that is worth it and Jones can bring positives to Minnesota.
He’s a hometown kid who wants to play for Minnesota and his game will continue to grow.
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What he needs is opportunity and with Rubio possibly being shipped off this summer, I think it’s Tyus Time!