Zach Lowe: Terrence Jones could be asking for $15M per year

Hmm maybe Bobby being Bholic uad some truth.

I remember bobby saying Smith would be the best defensive big on this team. Hmmm

 

Not claiming to be a bball genius, but I have consistently preferred DMo and Josh Smith over Terrence Jones. I was certainly appalled at how bad Terrence's defense has been in the playoffs. Nevertheless, Jones has really regressed this season - so much so I think he must have some physical decline. I mean he's shooting 45% this year compared with 54% and 53% in the previous two years. So, I don't think you can rub in a victory over what you've been saying about past years' Tones b/c of what happens to him this year. Jones this year is a different player than he was in past years.

 

I knew after watching Terrence play the first month of his sophomore season that he could not and would not be a rotation player on a championship contender. I posted about it and faded all the heat for saying it every time Terrence threw up a nice, big double double. It didn't take until the end of his sophomore season to see it. You could see his slowness in reading defensively and then the double slowness to react to what he had finally read.

That factor has NEVER changed with Terrence. And it never will. It's not something that can be fixed. If you've played the game and observed the game long enough you can see it. I've played with guys like Terrence. Super athletic guys but given a very slow processor at birth that simple prevents them from being able to read and react quickly enough. No matter how many thousand times they're put in the middle defending the pick-and-roll they're ALWAYS going to have to guess in order to try to compensate for their slow processor. At the NBA level that's disastrous. And it only gets worse as they age and get dinged up.

I also knew early in the 2014 season when he was shooting 40% from 3 that his shooting would not sustain. He was four summers and three full basketball seasons removed from high school and still had the same efficiency-robbing shot mechanics. Instead of catch, hop, lift, and release he was STILL catching, coiling up, shot - faking phantom defenders, then slowly uncoiling and fading into his release. Anybody that knows how to shoot a basketball knows those mechanics were never going to yield efficient results in volume.

The one thing Terrence did have going for him at that time was his finishing ability. But any keen observer who was watching those games early in his sophomore campaign also picked up that he was diminished to an average to below average finisher when he went up against bigger, longer bigs. You could see his lack of explosion even then.

Terrence was then and still is now incapable of being a rotation big playing 20-30 minutes a game on a true championship contender. He has proven it through two post-season now. And that's not going to change because you can't change his processor. That was very observable early in the 2014 season.

 

TJones needs to be traded. Period. Way too many on court/off court bad energy tho some of it not his fault it's still takes the team down

 

If you have to constantly keep on writing 5 paragraph posts just to explain how smart you are, you probably aren't that smart.

 

Interesting theory!

We should do a line by line comparison of all their positions to test the theory.

 

That's expected by sophomores and most 1-3 year players have it.

 

TJones would benefit playing in a different system than what we have currently in place, which essentially forces him to be a spot up corner 3 shooting space maker. In a more athletic lineup, he'll likely flourish.

He fits well into the scheme his hometown Portland is building.

Lillard / mccollum / aminu / tjones / Plumlee is a good fit. He'll be allowed to utilize his strength in ball handling and speed to initiate the fast break with 2 scoring combo guards who can shoot from outside along with athletic finishers in Aminu and Plumlee. Age range is comparable, where he'll be allowed to play through mistakes and gain experience.

I'd love to get a hold of Meyers Leonard. An athletic, mobile big with playoff experience and an ever-improving outside shot, who is just scratching the surface. This would open up time to develop Vonleh.

 

Not to the degree Terrence had it. With the playing time he received, he should've been making adjustments. He wasn't even getting around first.

 

Agreed. Why did you keep doing that throughout 2014 and 2015?

 

Do that. Be very thorough and spend a lot of time on it. Then post your analysis and all your evidence.

 

Trade Tjones already for another PF. He's just not a reliable employee/coworker/teammate on a team that had high expectations this year.

He's been inconsistent as far as availability to be on the floor, AND inconsistent with his performance when he is on the floor.

We need so badly to have a solid, defensive co-anchor of the paint along Dwight. So that we are defending both sides of the paint, and not just the side Dwight is on. I dont think Tjones gets that.

He thinks he's another PG on the court and let's Dwight take on 5 players as they come at him to draw silly fouls. You're supposed to go to war with Dwight down low. Anyway, we all know he's not worth whatever he's gonna want, trade him and trade him now.

 

Jones is one of those blah players that doesn't affect the opponents' plans in any way. Honestly, he reminds me most of guys like Felton Spencer, who would get a dunk now and then, but you knew Dream could score 40 pts on him w/o breaking a sweat.

 

you said at the start of his sophomore season.:grin:
With the amount of playing time? What great amount of playing time.
I guess to you Wiggins will be out of the league in 5 years too.
Since he hasn't made any adjustments either.

 

I could understand how someone who is just terrible at analyzing basketball talent would try and draw parallels between Wiggins and Jones.

To those less terrible at analyzing basketball talent, the difference is pretty obvious.

 

I started posting that Terrence wasn't the answer and we needed to trade him in mid-December 2013.

Wiggins - at this point Wiggins is overrated. He's going to get better. He's going to be a very good player. But he won't become great unless he develops his handle extensively. Right now I don't see MJ/Kobe/Harden or even Paul George status in his future. When he shows me a handle I'll change how I feel about him. Capiche?

Edit: By the way I haven't studied Wiggins in depth because he's not a free agent or trade target. I do watch a lot of Wolves games to observe some of their players that may be trade targets for us. And I do see plenty of Wiggins. I like him. Like his attitude. He's a worker. So he may get there. So these are surface observations. I haven't noticed a definitive improvement in his handle and I would've thought that would have been his #1 priority coming out of his rookie campaign. Oh course they've got a great PG spoon-feeding them the rock so it could be that if he has improved his handle I don't really see it until they trade Rubio away. Because, like I said, I'm not studying Wiggins in depth and trying to track what he's doing over the summer or how he's being coached like I track players that may be in the Rockets near future.

 

Sure kiddo.

December 2013 is too soon to demand adjustments from TJ. Unless you expected a superstar
Wiggins like Jones in the aspects of reading the defence and making adjustments has shown a pathetic bballiq. So according to your theory he will be out of the league.
It's not just the handles. Handles don't explain horrendous shot selection, lack of team defence/rotations, (and no rebounding).

Therefore according to your own standard, player like Wiggins will be out of the league.

 

Didn't demand adjustments. I just observed very clearly that Terrence wasn't ever going to become a plus defender and that it was going to take him several seasons to overhaul his jump shot since he hasn't overhauled it from high school and now he had been playing college and the pro game for 3 years. That's a long passage of time in the shelf life of a basketball player and a lot of practice and repetition plugged into muscle/nerve memory. And it takes that much longer to unlearn bad habits even though he was only 21.

You CANNOT fix a slow processor. And we haven't in 4 seasons. Terrence still is and will always be late defensively.

I've described what I saw and knew as best as I could to you. I've played the game and I've observed it for almost 40 years now. I know what I see when I study a player.

 

And I in the much fewer years watching basketball have seen plenty of players who were slow processors turn into much faster processors especially when it has to do with defence.
Some players improve.
Some don't.
It's impossible to predict by watching a few games in the sophomore season.

If you are thaaaat good why aren't you a pro scout? I'm sure the Rockets would want to hire you, since you are such a savvant.

 

Jones has off the court issues.