I might need to recalibrate my view of Derrick Jones. 18 points doesn’t seem like a whole lot of points for him, but in reality, it’s only 1 off his career-high 19, which he set last game without me exactly realizing that it was a career-high. For some reason I’ve got this image in my head of a guy who can score 20 easily, but we don’t actually know in what way he would score 20, because he’s never done it before. At least not in the NBA.
The problem is, I think, that he just dunks it way too good. Dunking ability correlates somewhat with general basketball ability, and since Jones is near the very top in the league in that category, I naturally assume that his skill in that area translates to other areas. It doesn’t. He can grab rebounds that other people aren’t going to grab, and he can dunk things other people wouldn’t dunk (though he’s not quite tall enough to just dunk it any time he wants), but that’s about it in terms of standout skills. His three-point shot is wonky and doesn’t really go enough to justify how much he shoots it, but I can’t blame him for wanting to expand his game to make himself a more viable NBA player.
So if he wants to score 20, it’s going to have to be by catching 10 lobs and slamming them through the net. That’s the only way it’s going to happen. I’ll be waiting.