Terrence Jones has more upside not named Ant Davis

I had always believed this and have wondered why he was drafted so low.

 

Jones contract

2013-2014 $1,551,840
2014-2015 $1,618,680
2015-2016 $2,489,529

this is another great thing about jones, if he can be our guy at PF it's No reason to trade for a guy that makes $8-10mill, when that added salary cap hit will handicap Morey from being able to improve the roster in other areas.

 

That's fine, you can't have a team full of ISO players. You need Tjones to do the dirty work and to finish passes and hit the three.

 

And take into consideration that $8,000,000-$10,000,000 guy is still not a Allstar and are either in their prime or past it... eran, millsapp, Anderson


$15,000,000-$20,000,000 is the cost that it will take to get you that Allstar PF and it would be a waste of money if you ask me, because it's not that many touches to go around.

 

I like TJones a lot and think he has a great work ethic (basically added the range/3pt game to his skill set once he came to the Rockets). But if you keep TJones as your PF, we can all agree that we're not currently a title favorite with this lineup. What do you trade or need to get this team to that point?

 

i really like jones. he is just so versatile... can reb, handle the ball, shoot 3s, block shots, decent passer, etc. i feel like we should just hold on to him and get a lottery pick for asik.

 

I disagree

You don't have to have a Allstar at 3 spots, H&H are enough with a few upgrades on bench through smaller trades. "See rockets clutch city" dream was the go to guy, but smith, cassel, horry hit a most of the clutch shots down the stretch off the attention dream would bring.

see mavs, see spurs championship runs also, yes the heat have a big 3 but that team plays together no players are selfish, without Allen's shot and bosh rebound they would only have one title during lebrons run.

going far is all about team work & players playing their role and good coaching.

 

Z-Bo has a long track record of destroying folks. Why you putting all that on TJ...??? Big time players get theirs usually no matter what. When it says guys average 20-27 points per game that means they usually do that to everyone. Sometimes defensively those guys can't be shut down just have to try to slow them down and make them work harder for it by taking more shots from their teammates. Everybody else have to do their job on the team and out play their positions. Z-Bo isn't surrounded by a lot of offensive talent.

Was Love not a test..? Love put up 27 points with 22 shots. Love usually only takes 17 shots and scores 24 points ppg which is very efficient and usually if Love is taking that many shots he's dropping 30+ points. Love took 5 more shots just to get 3 more points above his average _ if he would have only took his normal 17 shots he would have been held to below his normal scoring average which means TJ did a good job defensively against a big time player. And on the flip side TJ had 18 points on 7-10 shooting. Love couldn't handle him. If they would have kept feeding TJ the ball he would have destroyed Love... Throw in his rebounds, assist, and block shots _ TJ (a kid on a rookie contract) pretty much cancelled out Love (a veteran all star caliber big money player)...

It's still a wait and see with TJ (as it is with the rest of his teammates) but good defense, rebounding, block shots, and shooting 64% from the field and 55% from 3 point range for the past 5 games dropping 16 points a game during that stretch is impressive.

 

What is underrated or not mentioned is that:

Jones has a knack for moving without the ball, inside and outside of the paint, to make himself available for the pass at the right time.

Jones has good hands on the catch and finishes well.

Those two attributes are responsible for the vast majority of his crazy efficiency, that and the defense is focused on other players.

I would be curious to see him get post up opportunities or face up in triple threat position. We don't know if he can take that on, but I'd like to see it when Howard goes to the bench. Jones ability to finish and handle suggest that he might be able to take the next step.

 

What? This makes no sense. That's like saying Spurs cant win a championship as long as Thiago Splitter is their PF/C.

Alot of people have this perception that we need to have an all star team in order to have a chance at winning a championship.

Look, it's really simple. If LMA came to houston, his production would go down. There simply would not be enough touches for him on this team. He would average about 13 ppg, 6 rpg on this team all while paying him $15 million.

Where as Jones is putting up impressive numbers while not having the offense ran through him, all while playing on a rookie contract.

 

I am impressed by TJones - but it is a really small sample size. He was good at times last season and god aweful at other times. He definetly has the talent and the body to be somebody special, but he has to prove it over a longer period of time and when opponents starts to notice him and are better prepared for him.

As for the rookie of the year statement - so far he is averaging 9.6, 5.7 and 1.3 blks - good numbers (especially his PER of 19.79) but far from rookie of the year worthy. True, his last 4 games were spectacular (18pts, 8 boards, almost two blocks) and maybe roty worthy, but again, small sample size against opponents that basically ignored him.

So let`s wait and see with him. I don`t think he would be a throw in in any trade, and all the trades that are talked about (Anderson, Ilyasova, Millsap) should basically be doable with just Asik (actually we should get more in return here). But he is definetly a bright spot lately.

 

Once they start paying attention to him, that'll start freeing up Harden, Lin, Howard, and Parsons.

Doing damage when NOT paid attention to isn't easy, which is why a lot of NBA players are liabilities on offense.

 

Favors has more upside. He's going to be a defensive anchor soon, and his post game is coming along very well.

 

Do you actually pay attention to LMA? He is one of the most underrated defenders in the game..

 

And so it begins. TJOF.

 

TJ has played well since being inserted in the starting 5 and each game he's growing and showing improvement. It's funny, but giving young guys consistent PT makes a huge difference. Like others, I believe DMo could become an integral part of the rotation with PT. Between TJ, OC, DMo and some Parsons I really believe we have the 4 covered. I also believe that DMo and Smith can over the 5 minutes when Howard needs a rest. Especially if we give TJ the 4 minutes when Howard goes out (make sure we have shot blocker and tough rebounder in).

If we can agree on the above, this gives Morey some flexibility on what he trades Asik for. He could look for best package and not fixate on getting a 4/5 in return.

I'm really excited to see TJ continue to develop. His improved shooting has been the missing element to his game. Hopefully he keeps it up.

 

Exactly. You don't need another superstar on this team. Complementary players can help, but not another superstar/star, scoring player. The Heat shows that 3 superstars means one or two of them have to sacrifice a lot of their game and it takes awhile for them to gel. And Lebron and at least vintage Wade are two of the top NBA players, in fact Lebron is tops by a long way. Great teams have some guys that do one or two things well with the superstars. Bowen was a defensive specialist with a great corner 3, that's all he did. I guess he got rebounds too. But adding any more dominant, star players would be a balancing act in chemistry with somebody having to sacrifice numbers. Lin isn't a star player quite yet but would have higher numbers without Harden that look like a star player. Sometimes the numbers being put up have to do with a team and system and players around them opposed to just the numbers that players are capable of putting up. LMA has Lilliard and those are their stars (Lilliard is probably now an all-star). Add another offensive scoring star to Portland, both of their numbers go down, and they both may not like it that much.

And I'm just for developing young players. Houston probably won't win now because there are too many teams that have similar to better talent, better coaches and have been playing together longer while having more playoff experience. So let the young players develop and that's Harden, Parsons, Lin, T-Jones, Beverley and hopefully D-Mo if he gets to play anymore. And then, you'll have a team. Don't think of just the parts, think of the parts forming a bigger whole than their sum: synergy--and that takes time. Trading for all of the people who will take you to the promise land is folly. Most trades are a crap shoot in terms of team chemistry and fit.

 

I'm a SL42OF