Play Tyus Jones More

One of the cool things you can find on nba.com is five-, four-, three- or even two-man lineup data to see how team fares when certain players play together.

During my extensive research, it was apparent that backup point guard Tyus Jones was a constant in all of the best lineup pairings for the Wolves.

Last season, the Wolves routine starting five-man grouping of Jeff Teague, Butler, Wiggins, Taj Gibson, and Towns posted a net rating (offensive rating minus defensive rating) of 8.5 points per 100 possessions. This number is very good, ranking fourth in the league out of every lineup that played more than 500 minutes together.

However, if you replace Teague with Tyus Jones, that net rating number skyrockets to 23.5 points per 100 possessions. The Jones lineup only played 261 minutes together, but the results are pretty impressive.

I am not advocating that Jones should start over Teague, however, I was interested in seeing what the numbers looked like when the two point guards played together.

So I searched… and searched… and searched.

It turns out that lineups featuring Teague and Jones at the same time had a net rating of 16.9, which is among the highest two-man groupings on the Wolves roster. However, it took me so long to find because of the minuscule amount of minutes they played together.

The two point guards played together for a grand total of 21 minutes in the whole season. That is unacceptable. Jones gives the offense another capable initiator and shooter.

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