Minnesota Timberwolves: 2017-18 player grades for Tyus Jones

Strengths

If there was one thing that Jones showed us this season, it was his ability to play defense. Countless times he showed that he was one of the Wolves’ best defenders. In just 17.9 minutes of play per game, he was able to register 1.2 steals per game.

That’s an impressive feat to accomplish. Granted, there haven’t been that many good defenders on the Wolves’ roster, but it’s still an impressive accomplishment nonetheless.

When Jeff Teague went down with an injury, Jones was there to pick things up easily. As a starter, he averaged 9.4 points, 4.9 assists, 2.5 rebounds and 2.9 steals per game. One thing that jumps off the charts is his steals per game numbers.

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Those 2.9 steals per game are something only the great defenseman in the league average. He did only play 11 games as a starter, so it’s obviously a small sample size, but in that time he showed that he was a special player on defense.

His defensive rating off the bench was not the best, but you can’t really expect big things when you have players like Rose, Jamal Crawford, Nemanja Bjelica and Gorgui Dieng joining him in the second unit. As a starter he excelled greatly.

When starting, Jones posted a 96.0 defensive rating and that just goes to show what he can do if he has the quality pieces around him. He was a major role player this season and very underrated despite not being the biggest offensive weapon and coming off the bench.