Should Clippers Sign Dahntay Jones For Rest Of Season?
Should the Clippers sign Dahntay Jones for the rest of the season?
After another productive night for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, of the NBA Developmental League, Dahntay Jones, 10-year NBA veteran who last played for the Dallas Mavericks and Atlanta Hawks in 2012-13, has been signed to a 10-day contract by the Los Angeles Clippers.
Jones scored 30, gets called to Clippers:
— Justin A. Cohn (@SportsiCohn) January 14, 2015
After defeating the Reno Bighorns 153-131 tonig... http://t.co/jESdI6MLnt #madants #dleague
This according to the The Journal Gazette, of Fort Wayne. In that piece, Jones sounded very excited for the chance to step back on an NBA court.
“I’m very excited. It’s a great day when I get another opportunity to show what I can do at the highest level, in the greatest league in the world,” said Jones
The Clippers bench has been downright awful for most of the year, with only Jamal Crawford showing any real ability to positively affect the game. With the news that Austin Rivers is indeed headed to Los Angeles, this will be a major shakeup of the bench, but can Jones still contribute to an NBA contender(if you still consider these Clippers contenders)?
Can Jones Still Contribute?
I would lean towards no, as in his career Jones has shown little ability to score, and has shot a dismal 33 percent from beyond the arc. Now, Jones has never been known for his offense, and has mainly made his way through the league as a perimeter defender with some playmaking skills.
I have never thought of Jones as being a great defender, and looking through his advanced defensive statistics on basketball-reference.com, the league has not either.
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 1/14/2015.
That is a chart of Jones’ advanced numbers, with the big take away being that his defensive box plus/minus numbers, the stat that tells you how much he contributed to team defense while on the court, for the last three years he was in the NBA, was negative.
That means he made his team’s defense worse when on the court versus when he was on the bench. It is not a perfect stat, but you can clearly see all of his defensive stats have been going down as he has aged.
Is it time to take away the car keys?
Does Doc Rivers really believe that an aging Dahntay Jones and washed up former lottery pick(and son) Austin Rivers can revive the bench unit?
If Rivers really thinks this will turn the season around, I think it might be time for Steve Ballmer and the rest of the Clippers organization to take back personnel control from Rivers. So, far, in his brief stint at GM, Rivers has been a disaster.
Signing Dahntay Jones to a 10-day contract means either that Rivers is trying to fill out the roster while he trades away useful players for his washed up, soon to be playing in Europe son, or he really thinks that a 34-year-old D-League player like Jones is a legitimate upgrade to the roster.
Either way, Rivers has been a disappointment both in his coaching and personnel decisions. Big free-agent signing Spencer Hawes has barely made an impact, due to questionable coaching and injuries.
The bench has been outplayed, leading to things like Blake Griffin being in the top 10 in the league in minutes played(while also jacking bad shots).
To top if off, we cannot discount the persistent rumors that the Clippers do not like each other.
Right now, Rivers and the Clippers are a mess of a team, barely hanging on to a playoff spot, while rumors swirl of locker room tension. The solution to this is not to bring in the coach’s son, someone who is a marginal NBA player at best, and give him some minutes at the expense of one the veterans.
I almost feel bad for Dahntay Jones, as he has no idea what kind of toxic situation might be waiting for him when he walks through the locker room door.