My Favorite Surprise Players Part Three

How Tyus Jones is unlocking the greatness of the Minnesota Timberwolves

This season, I’ll be running through some of the most intriguing players making an unexpected impact this season. Whether it’s due to a new team, expanded role, or flat-out skill improvement, these guys are making waves around the league. Today we’ll discuss a player in his 3rd year providing lineup balance to a mostly uneven team— Tyus Jones of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

Coming into the league, Tyus Jones was thought of to be of average size (generously listed at 6'2), to go along with average athleticism for the point guard position. That still remains true today. While he did add some muscle to his frame, no one his mistaking him for Russell Westbrook driving to the basket. The Timberwolves went through a game of point guard musical chairs this offseason, as they traded away franchise point guard Ricky Rubio and last year’s #4 overall pick Kris Dunn to the Bulls in the Jimmy Butler trade (who’s excelling in his new home in Chicago), along with signing former All-Star Jeff Teague to take over the starting duties. The one mainstay in all of this has been good ol’ Tyus. Now in his third year in the league, Jones has proven that his play does have a big impact towards the team’s success.

In a freak injury against the Denver Nuggets last week on a jump ball that saw Gary Harris crash into the side of his knee, Jeff Teague went down with a painful looking knee injury. He is expected to miss 2–4 weeks with a grade 1 MCL sprain and in his absence, the main beneficiaries of minute increases are Jones and reserve guard/Benjamin Button impressionist Jamal Crawford.

Due to head coach Tom Thibodeau’s propensity to overplay his starters however, we can expect Tyus to pick up the bulk of those minutes. Just in his first game as a starter against the Bucks, which saw the Wolves barf up a 20 point lead in an eventual loss, Jones played 35 minutes — light for Thibs’ starter standards. Minnesota at 23–14, good for 4th in the Western Conference, is playing their best basketball since the KG days, and will be trying to keep this train chugging along in Teague’s absence. Tyus is just the guy for the job.

This may not be a surprise to you, but Jones and Teague are vastly differently players. While they’re both gifted passers, Teague looks for his shot more often than not, while Jones is a pass first, pass second, and shoot third type of point guard. Jones has a usage rate of 10.7% for the year, versus Teague’s 19.6%. In a starting lineup that also features high-usage scorers in Butler, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl-Anthony Towns, a player of Tyus’ nature is actually more useful. It also opens up Jimmy Butler to facilitate offense more, which gets him more involved overall. Jones being an above average 3-point shooter this year (39.1% on 3.6 attempts per game) also helps spread the floor for others as the defense can’t sag off on him when he’s off the ball, freeing up space for the Big Three to go to work.

Tyus making the easy plays against the Wizards

The lineup of Jones-Wiggins-Butler-Gibson-Towns has an eye-popping +28.4 net rating per 100 possessions this season (on 266 possessions this year), per Cleaning the Glass. Their offensive rating is 122.7 and defensive rating is 94.2, good for the 97th percentile of all lineups played in the league. Their regular starting lineup with Teague instead, has a net rating of +6.3 per 100 possessions (on 1432 possessions ), with an offensive rating of 111.9 and defensive rating of 105.7. In the month of December alone, the numbers with Tyus Jones with the starters jump even higher to a 132.4 ORTG and 90.7 DRTG in 48 minutes of time together — a full game’s worth a minutes. While the numbers with Jones will have to normalize and come back to Earth with more possessions and time on the floor together, there is proof in the pudding here, as Jones allows the other starters to play their roles on the team better.

Tyus Jones balances out the starting lineup better than Teague, simply by knowing his role in pushing the ball on offense, camping out for open spot-up threes, and playing pesky defense on the other end. He is averaging 2.2 deflections per game in just 18 minutes — good for 2nd best in deflections per minute, only behind Paul George. His ability to make quick decision passes keeps the offense flowing, and the big guns engaged in the game. He is protecting the ball and making good decisions, with a 36 to 4 assist/turnover ratio — also second in the league to only Spencer Dinwiddie of the Nets. While his presence seems conservative, his impact is certainly felt. While Thibodeau may be kicking himself over trading away Kris Dunn, Jones’ play this year certainly has helped dissipate his feeling of FOMO.

If his solid play continues, it will certainly give Teague the proper time to heal from his injury and not rush back. The question will be “how good does Tyus have to play to relegate Teague to the bench upon his return?” His impact will never be felt in the box score, and that’s exactly why he’s the perfect complement to the rest of this starting lineup. Teague, an established player in the league, will certainly have qualms about backing up the third-year guard. Perhaps a nice compromise would be starting Teague, but mixing up the lineups more during games to have Teague run the offense with the second unit. That would be a huge improvement over the current bench situation of 37 year old Jamal Crawford being the primary playmaker and shooting contested mid-range shots early in the shot-clock — arguably the worst shot to take in the modern NBA age of analytics. Going forward, Thibs will also know that he has a solid backup at the point guard position, and won’t have to play Teague as many minutes as he had, which will hopefully keep him healthy long-term. As with the backup’s play, sometimes the best decisions, are the ones easiest to make.

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