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

Are you so sure about that?

#1. Last year at the start of the season after training camp, practices, and preseason, Rockets coaches & Morey stated that Terrence Jones was clearly the #1 Best Player On The Team after our 2 All-Star Super Stars. (I know you & Bballholic love to hear that ) Basically if you're name was not James Harden or Dwight Howard, you were not better than Terrence Jones. That is not a role player. That is a key figure. This is why #2.

#2. Terrence Jones was the starter over D-Mo last season before his injury. So it is absolutely not to be assumed that Terrence Jones is the back up PF. Why? Let's go to #3.

#3. D-Mo scores in the low post near the bucket. Howard also gets his points in the paint. D-Mo scores better when you toss him the ball and he works his low post game. D-Mo & Howard need to spread their minutes apart from each other so we maximize the most continuous minutes of low post offensive threat. Opposite to that, TJ is extremely efficient at getting points in a very quiet manner working around Howard & Harden touches. He somehow rolls in points by digging out garbage work.

#4 This works against my previous 3 comments, but Ty Lawson will be spending a lot of minutes with the bench. I think he will start, but when Harden said "get me help with point guard playmaking", I think we would be addressing the fact that the offense & easy buckets went AWOL when Harden sat. Therefore, every second Harden is resting Lawson needs to be on the court. And we don't want to run Harden into the dirt to get him tired like he sort of got late last season, so 32-ish minutes for Harden equals 16 minutes guaranteed of Lawson running the offense (more than often with the bench unit)

 

Yes, I'm sure about that.

DMo is better on both sides of the ball than Jones. Having DMo on the court with the starters means that you have crazy versatility. You can go to DMo in the post, you can have him stay outside and stretch the defense for Lawson and Harden. When your best post player is also your best 3 point shooting big and your best defensive PF, you kind of want that guy on the court as often as possible.

 

dmoney, the playoffs are the truest measure of what a player is. The playoffs separate the JAPs from the players that can contribute more than an average player to a championship contender. For a team to win the Finals they have to have at least 7 of these type players that are better than JAPs.

Terrence has failed miserably twice on that stage. He is, at this stage of his career and until he proves otherwise, a JAP. And you can go get a JAP and sign them to a minimum contract at any time. A smart GM (which Morey is) won't sign a JAP to a long-term deal unless he's signing-and-trading him to be a boat anchor to another team.

No, JSmoove did not move to the Clips because of Terrence and the FO's confidence in him. Smoove had already proven he was a much better player than Smoove. So what you're suggesting there is illogical.

That's the point they don't seem to understand. You can't just keep going on endlessly with young players. Doesn't matter their age. When their 4-year rookie deal is up a decision has to be made. And the smarter organizations (and this is one of those organizations) make decisions to preempt coming down to the razor's edge and having to wave goodbye to guys for nothing in free agency.

Terrence will be traded IF he has any residual value left to another team. And really, he should have been moved the moment he allegedly "broke out" 2 seasons ago when he looked so good playing off Harden/Howard.......if there was a good market for him then (which there may not have been).


Shooting, rebounding, defense. It all comes down to those things for Terrence. He's gotta shoot the 3 without hesitation and knock it down at an efficient rate that requires the defense to have to account for him. He's got to board above average for a big. And he's got to show tremendous improvement on the defensive end.

These are the exact same 3 things he's needed to show improvement for the past 3 summers. And nothing has changed. Same shot. Same crappy rebounding. Same below average D. Now all of a sudden, since it's August, people think it's going to magically change over the next couple months.........when he's been running around the globe fooling around the whole summer instead of having his butt parked down at TC working on his skills. It's not going to happen. I've seen this story before. Not going to happen. He'll be lucky to beat out Dekker and Harrell for backup minutes.

 

Solid astute objective post without any agenda toward or against a player. Refreshing.

 

LOLOLOL. Once again, an ode to the selling of Terrence Jones. All that happened, it sure did. And they've got advanced analytics to throw at other GMs to sell them on how great Terrence is.

But the smart GMs ain't buying it. Because context matters in advanced analytics. When you play alongside a great perimeter player (maybe the best perimeter player in the NBA right now) and a great big man (undoubtedly still the best defensive and rebounding big in the league right now) then the other 3 guys playing with them are going to look really good and their analytics are going to be better than if they played with 3 average players.

So there's no doubt that the organization is selling Terrence as being this up-and-coming good-to-great player. That doesn't make it so. When you peel back the layers of analytics and watch the games and when you analyze the analytics under a microscope a different picture appears. That being what we've discussed ad nauseum here. Terrence looks great for half the season playing alongside James and Dwight and playing against inferior teams. But when he's put out there against the better contending teams and he's got to deal with a solid PF matchup...he looks flat-out terrible. Witness the playoffs we just came through. Go back and watch the games and watch what happens when Terrence is on the floor, and watch how Terrence plays. He couldn't even match up well against the opponent bench bigs. I'm sorry. It's not there. No matter how much you or I or Morey or McHale or Harden or Dwight want it to be there. It ain't happening man.

Some legitimacy here. And there's a couple reasons for it. One reason I'm not going to name. But one reason is because Morey and McHale want to maintain Terrence's trade value so they can possibly move him for something before the trade deadline. They may actually bring DMo off the bench (if they don't trade DMo too) so they can pump Terrence's trade value one last time before they move him out.

Yeah, they need to stagger their minutes. DMo will most likely be on the floor for all 14-18 minutes that Dwight sits when the game is in the balance. However, DMo is multi-dimensional offensively. He can pass. And he isn't hesitant to fly out to the corner or the arc and launch the 3-ball. And he is a better defender at the 4 than Terrence is. And he should be playing 30 minutes a night if healthy. So.........that means he needs to play alongside Dwight as well.

Yes, Lawson will be on the floor the vast majority of the time Harden sits barring injury or relapse. Sure hope he looks great and he makes all the bench guys look great because we still need to make a big trade utilizing some of their salaries.

 

Well what they have in common is that 4 of them got huge contracts to play on scrub teams, and one of them got a huge contract because that team is worried about losing Kevin Durant in a year.

Jones might get a scrub team to pay him a huge deal....but the Rockets aren't a scrub team.

 

If Playoff performance with young players is the truest measure of player value....

Please tell me how Enes Kanter would have faired in the playoffs this year if OKC would have made the playoffs this year going against -

-Tim Duncan
-LaMarcus Aldridge
-Zach Randolph
-Marc Gasol
-Dwight Howard
-DeAndre Jordan
-Anthony Davis
-Draymond Green
-etc. etc. etc.

And Enes Kanter just signed a deal in free agency ( A YEAR BEFORE THE BOOM) at 18 mil per season. Which is insanely more than what Lowe is projecting Jones is probably worth . If you actually listen to the podcast he states that what he's asking for is probably around there, but he'd probably take an extension around 8 or so if you are guessing as his agent would probably push him to do. Lowe then later says that the Rockets, for reasons that have nothing to do with Jones, and D-Mo, wouldn't extend them regardless.

And another thing.... Enes Kanter has NO EXPERIENCE in the playoffs... NONE other than like 1 game his rookie year. And he's getting paid 18 mil per.

............

Look, there is no excuse for Jones' lackluster play in the playoffs (even though he was crucial as the only big that could shoot free throws). The guy was outplayed majorly by LaMarcus Aldridge the year before in what was essentially his rookie year.

But if you people are using playoff success as the one single barometer for player value around the league then you are a blind fool.

-Enes Kanter would have gotten creamed against the stacked Western Conference star bigs.
-Reggie Jackson would have gotten creamed against the West playoff elite guards
-Tobias Harris even would have gotten creamed against West playoff wings/bigs

Dudes are not getting paid based on how they matchup to superstars in the thick of the Western Conference currently in the playoffs. STOP using Jones' beating in the 2014 playoffs by an otherworldly LMA as a barometer for Jones' sucktitude. That's not how free agency works with guys like this.

What a stupid, stupid argument.

 

I guess the 1st one you're counting is Terrence against Portland? Why aren't you throwing heat at D-Mo? He produced a bunch of Goose Eggs during that series cause he wasn't even good enough to be in the rotation. TJ played about what you would expect for a rookie in the playoffs guarding LMA. And really LMA blew up on Asik & Howard so much more than TJ.

What about D-Mo last playoffs? Ahhhh once again, a bunch of Goose Eggs, this time cause he got injured. But you can thank a large part of getting to see a Clippers Game 7 and a WCF apperance because of TJ. And he played with that hustle while struggling back from A FREAKING HOLE IN HIS LUNG.

So just to be clear, D-Mo gets passes for being injured, but not TJ. D-Mo gets passes for not even being good enough to earn minutes, but TJ's 8 pts 6 boards as a rookie from the dleague year doesn't get a pass. D-Mo get's a pass to allow a 3rd year to break out, but TJ doesn't (again because only D-Mo gets injury passes right?)

My point is not to bag on D-Mo, I'm big, big fan of both these guys. But anyone not allowing TJ to re-do his 3rd year after what happened to the guy last year, is simply being unfair and really lying to themselves.

 

Well then you at least have admitted you have 2 issues :

1. you failed to read and understand what Zach Lowe was writing about.

2. you have a hard time to accept the facts that things may not happen the way you preferred.

 

Don't be asinine. He'll get a good net return by the deadline.

 

What are you babbling about?

 

For the record, I have not given DMo a free pass. In my mind, the jury is still out on how good he is going to be. I'm not sold on him.

However, DMo has demonstrated to me a whole different level of skill than Terrence at this point.

When you compare their half-court offensive games, there should be absolutely no question at all who the better offensive 4 is and who the better offensive 5 is. In fact, DMo is the best offensive 4 and 5 we have on this roster and it's not even close. Because of his versatility and because of his high mastery of post skills and because of his continued shooting improvement, DMo is the best offensive big we have on the roster. He's so much better than the rest of the bigs we have that I shouldn't even be typing this. Comparing DMo's offensive skills to Terrence's??? There's a whole world of difference between them.

Now defensively.....DMo showed this last season the ability to hold the fort down at the 5 when Dwight went out. No, I don't think he's some outstanding defender. But he took on legit starting 5's in the league night after night when Dwight went down and kept us afloat. Terrence simply cannot do that. Terrence is not big enough, nor strong enough, nor skilled enough, nor motivated enough to be able to take on opposing starting 5's. So that's the first level of differentiation between DMo and Terrence defensively.

So, let's go to the 4 and talk about defending 4's. Dirk, Zach, Blake, LaMarcus, and on and on. DMo is the clear better defender over Terrence at the 4 for the exact same reasons he's the better defender at the 5. He's bigger, taller....and the real biggies are DMo is smarter and has more drive than Terrence does.


You going to throw shade on DMo because he had a back injury and missed the playoffs????

And you're going to say DMo wasn't good enough to play against Portland in the 2014 playoffs?? And you're going to say Terrence was better defensive than Asik or Dwight on LaMarcus???? That's nonsense cdrive. Starting Terrence and keeping him in the rotation cost us the Portland series. We were 0-2 with Terrence starting against LaMarcus. It was pitiful to watch. When we switched him onto Lopez, Robin just ate him up down low (like a burrito). It wasn't until we switched to the twin tower combination of Asik/Dwight that we got back into the series and made a series out of it.

And who was standing there watching as Lillard took the inbounds pass and shot the series winner???????? Good ole Terrence standing there gawking. We lost the Portland series because of McHale's refusal to adjust. Terrence was useless the whole series and shouldn't have even been in the rotation.

This year??? Even worse. Terrence had the worst +/- on the team. He was the worst performing big during the playoffs we had. And he was arguably the worst performing big in the whole league during the playoffs.


Heat at DMo? We dont' know for sure what DMo could have given us. DMo should have gotten more than a token look against Portland and he nor us can do anything about him being out this playoffs. But...needless to say, DMo proved enough this past season that he would have for sure been in the rotation...and undoubtedly starting in this year's playoffs. Would it have been enough to get past GS? Dunno. I kinda doubt it. But one thing is for sure...it would have been better than running Terrence out there chewing up a quarter of the big man minutes. Because Terrence was terrible. Even against backup bigs Terrence was terrible.

 

bball, it is nonsense because it isn't what I believe in the slightest. I was trying to use a little rhetoric to call-out the double standard I perceive you're setting on TJ vs D-Mo. But if you say you are judging them both fairly, then I guess I just have to take your word for it. But again, you criticize TJ's minutes on the floor on that Portland series, but conveniently we have 0 D-Mo minutes to criticize. And also again, you don't want me to rhetorcially criticize D-Mo for being injured last playoffs, but you want everyone to count TJ's year last year as his 3rd and judge him on it.

Yes D-Mo did well backing up Howard at the C. 8th in the league in rim protection because he learned how to go straight up vertical and make his feet leave the court if he's in the restricted area, and use his 7' frame. Short arms or not, it's still a 7' frame. But banging with C's also led to back surgery.
Capela is our back up C. (And how)

D-Mo protects the rim Asik-style. Not a lot of blocks, but a lot of shot changing. But TJ is much more proficient at blocking. He can heat up into a 1-man block party. TJ is also better at changing the course of a game with his hustle. (most recently Clips game 6)

Both TJ & D-Mo spread the floor with their 3. It's a coin toss as to which is better. Both had it pretty good towards the end of the regular season and were showing J Smoove what a 4 with 3pt range really looked like.

Where D-Mo excels at low post offense, TJ is better at facing up and using his handles to drive. D-Mo's low post offense is elite. TJ facing up and driving is found money on a broken play. Where D-Mo has decent passing for a PF, TJ has elite handles for a 4 only bested by 1 other person in the league, Blake Griffin. This is because TJ played point all throughout his youth until a growth spurt, so his handles for a big man are unreal. Oh and TJ flushes dunks and offensive board dunks better. They're both great. Can we just start winning games already instead of trashing on TJ?

 

CDrive- so you REALLY think you are going to get anywhere with these boneheads?

See my post from earlier for all you need to know. Same old dumb a$& arguments they recycle against TJ. If you zig, they modulate and zag as to never be wrong in their assessment of Jones' worthlessness.

Just don't even try to rationalize with the irrational.

 

I had a good response, but my browser crashed.

Here's the main point:

What is JAP? Quantify it please.

DMo and TJones have very similiar TS%, rebounding %, and defensive winshares over the time here.

Playoffs aren't the ultimate test, smart FOs know to have a big picture approach.

Our FO values DMO and TJones and their contracts more so than giving JSmoove minutes. JSMoove picked the Clippers because they are a contender and have minutes to give him at the 3/4.

 

This. DMo and TJones are like yin and yang.

 

Still waiting on a response to this.

 

This. Well said. Trying to reason and argue with these two knuckleheads just isn't worth it.