Today, Terrence Jones posted a long post in Instgram thanking his teammates and lives in the Philippine League. And it's been two years since he last played a full NBA season.
Terrence was a successful student, and in 2010 he was named to the McDonald's All-American High School Team and came to Kentucky to start his college career with Brandon Knight. Jones, a freshman, averaged 15.7 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, had 35 points in a single game, broke Kentucky's lifetime scoring record, and was elected the best rookie in the concept Southeast. Together with Knight, he took the team to the Round of 4 in March, losing to KenBa Walker's Connecticut, ending the year. And the draft prediction at the time, Jones could even rank in the top three, which should be said to be his best chance to enter the NBA league.
However, Terrence Jones chose to stay in school for another year, joining Michael Kidd Gilchrist and Anthony Davis in keeping an NCAA title for Kentucky. That year, the University of Kentucky was invincible, and eventually reached the final of crazy three and won the championship. Jones also had 12 points and 7 boards this year and was selected for the NCAA second team. However, under the dual factors of draft senior and sophomore candidacy, Jones's pick also fell all the way to 18th place, and was picked up by the Houstonians. We can't define whether such a choice is good or bad, but now think about whether Jones would have developed differently if he had been given the resources in the top three picks.
Jones, a newcomer, did not get many opportunities in the Rockets, and he only played 19 games in his rookie season, each with only 15 minutes of playing time. With the addition of Howard in the summer, Jones was also transferred to the Rockets' starting lineup, playing with the "Morden" combination. It was the best year of Jones' career, when he was named to the Rookie Challenge, scored 36 points against the Bucks, averaged 18 points and 12.5 rebounds in four games when the Rockets swept the Spurs, and fixed his season stats at 12 points and 7.6 rebounds, which is already a good performance for a second-year student. However, jones's best year of his career was ruined at the hands of Aldridge. In the playoffs, the Rockets met the Blazers led by a double-German combination. As a counterpart, Jones was slashed by the All-Star big forward for 90 points in the first two games, and if you watched that series, you may have the impression that Ade was almost bulletless in these two games, and even the three points of the whistle were open hands. After that, due to the weakness of the defensive end and the clash of playing styles, Jones gradually lost the ball and position in the Rockets.
In the summer of 2016, the Pelicans took him in on a one-year contract after the Rockets gave up an offer to the young restricted free agent, and Jones had a brief awakening at the Pelicans, where he had 36 points and 11 rebounds, but in February, the Pelicans cut him, the Milwaukee signed a deal with him, and then in April, he was cut again by the team. Since then, he has bid farewell to the NBA for a long time.
Jones's problems all the time are the black holes on the defensive end and the awkwardness of his position, his lack of speed as a small forward, his low size as a big forward, his good misplacing and attack with the ball, and his unstable shooting ability. As a rookie with the 18th pick, the team will not tilt too much resource development, which also caused Terrence's embarrassing situation in the NBA.
After running out of balls in the NBA, Terrence also briefly played for the CBA team. Qingdao signed the Rockets veteran in 2017, and Jones at the time contributed a staggering 47 points and 19 rebounds in his debut. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, in the following games, Jones's poor choice of handling the ball and not tough enough style were clearly seen in the game, and in a training session, Jones and head coach Gong Xiaobin had a dispute, which became the end of his CBA journey, with 9 games averaging 22.3 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.2 steals and 2.5 blocks, Jones began his wandering career again.
The new starting point of his career is in the League of the Philippines. In May 2019, Terrence signed an agreement with the Philippine team to represent the team in the Philippine Commission Cup. Here, he once again showed his strength of the "little prince of abuse", and cut down 3 times 40+10 data in just 11 games. Here, he played 44.6 minutes per game, with 31.2 points, 15.6 rebounds, 7.5 assists, 1.8 steals and 3 blocks of monster stats, he also became the best foreign aid in the Philippine League this year, and led the team to the finals. Unfortunately, due to the gap in the overall strength of the team, Jones' team lost 2-4 to the opponent and won the second place.
Of course, the gun hit the head bird. Here he also suffered a lot, first clashing with the famous Filipino ball boy Abueva, after being pushed down by the top of the waist, he hit Abueva's lower body, and in the next round he encountered a martial arts-style throat lock revenge, and then almost injured his right arm by the "Olynic" movement.
Now that Jones has ended his journey in the Philippine League, he says he is happy to return to the NBA league, and the Rockets are interested in signing the forward who is about to enter the palace three times (in 2019, the Rockets offered Jones a 10-day short contract). Will Jones's wandering career end here?