During the whole "Chase for Bosh" saga, many posters seemed to think that Jones is not a "starting caliber PF", "Won't develop into a championship caliber starter" etc.. Yes he did get murdered by Lamarcus Aldridge in the playoffs, but Terrence Jones is only 22 years old. It basically his first year of playing NBA basketball, he showed lots of skills in various areas. He has great handles, outstanding finisher around the rim, has shown promise in his shot creation ability, has flashed good form on mid-range shots, and has done a decent job at weak-side defense. A lot of his flaws like: Defending low post (undersized, but wingspan makes up for it), positioning on defense, not disappearing against better competition, and jump shot are all fixable. I agree with what Chris Webber said about him during a game: "He has all the talent to become an all-star caliber player)
2 years in and the only players in his position he struggles guarding are big veteran PFs. he's just young.
People aren't necessarily down on him. Just really disappointed they weren't able to get a superstar to fill that spot. We really don't have 2-3 years time to develop him. Terrence Jones has crazy potential, but waiting for it isn't worth it as we don't know what is going to happen in 2016, the biggest potential free agency the NBA has ever seen.
Because we are in a win immediately mentality, and I for one feel he will be a very solid player in this league, he is just having to mature at a quicker rate than we should expect.
There are only a few who are down on Jones, most would trade him if it brought back a nice 3rd wheel type player. As a 2nd year starter he was 12.7ppg 7.3rpg with 1.3bpg It isn't unrealistic to think he could be 14 and 8 this season.
IMO, from looking at the improvements he made from rookie to sophomore season, it shouldn't take 2-3 years to develop.
It is a little known fact, but a large percentage of Clutchfans posters are homeless people that Terrence Jones has stomped on.
People aren't down on him. It is just that and a 6'9 power forward seem to grow on trees these days. If he was 7'0 or more then most people wouldn't be so keen to trade him. But as of right now most people have the notion that we can trade him for something better and get another Jones in the draft.
I believe that he will be a very solid player, but you're right, he got murdered by LeMarcus Aldridge. It's not his fault that he's 22 years old, but whether he's 22 years old or not, we can't keep getting murdered in the playoffs by opposing power forwards. Truth be told though, I love his game. He may well become an allstar, but I don't see it happening soon enough. If he proves me wrong, I'll be elated. Other than the whole stomping on a homeless man thing, he hasn't been a head-case here either.
his form on his shot is just really weird. Granted, thats not a reason to think that his shooting will be stunted..but there is a chance he won't improve as much in that area. With a stretch 4 needed on this team THAT badly, you will see a lot of people putting unrealistic expectations on him, but with a Dwight window of like 2 yrs you can't really blame them. Thats the nature of the game.
I never thought murdered would be too light a term, but I thought wilt chamberlin played pf for the blazers.
I'll add this to the discussion. He's not really lacking offensively, and I feel that he's just about there offensively, the issues he has are defensively. I think that he's also great against most teams, but we're in the position where we need to go against the most elite teams, and to be honest, only Howard was up to it in the playoffs. Parsons, Harden, everyone else, they clearly didn't cut it last year while Dwight was out there giving elite performances. I believe that he's our only truly elite player, but we can overcome other shortcomings as long as we're at least decent on defense, and neither Harden nor Jones were that last year in the playoffs. It's not that he's not very good, it's just that he's not good enough when we have those gut-check moments, and there's nothing in the playoffs that's going to prevent the elite teams from attacking him relentlessly the way LeMarcus Aldridge did last year. In short, we can't afford to give up those kinds of performances to the opposition and we need to be solid.
He'll come back strong next year. He went through his "baptism by fire" against LMA. Kind of like when Brooks got schooled by a prime Deron Williams back in 08.
