After missing the first 46 games of the season due to a lingering calf strain, former Virginia Cavaliers star Ty Jerome is finally back in action and already winning over a new fanbase.
It was a disappointing start to the season for Jerome, who broke out last year with the Cleveland Cavaliers to the tune of 19.9 points and 7.0 assists per game, leading to a third-place finish in the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year Voting.
Jerome’s impressive campaign earned him a three-year, $27 million deal with the Memphis
Grizzlies in July, but his Grind City debut was pushed back until the final day of January for the first of a pair of home games against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The 2019 National Champion has quickly made up for lost time, scoring a team-high 20 points in Saturday’s 131-114 loss before following it up with a 19-point, 8-assist, 6-rebound performance on Monday night in a 137-128 rematch win over the T-Wolves.
Despite playing just 20 minutes in each of his first two appearances for Memphis due to a minutes restriction, Jerome is already bringing stability to a Grizzlies backcourt that has dealt with injuries and inconsistency throughout the season. Jerome is shooting 54.5% from the field while showing off his trademark deliberate pace and elite decision-making as Memphis’s floor general.
“[Jerome] doesn’t look like the most explosive guy, but he gets to his spots on the floor because he reads so well the body language of not only his own defender but also the helping defenders,” said Grizzlies head coach Tuomas Iisalo to the media after Monday night’s win. “He’s actually so good that he can manipulate [defenders] to get out of the space that he wants to create or get into the space that he wants to create for someone else.”
With Jerome sidelined and several other key players (including 2x All-Star Ja Morant, who has missed 28 games this season) in and out of the lineup, the Grizzlies went just 18-28 in their first 46 games, leaving them currently three games out of the play-in equation in the Western Conference.
In other pro ’Hoos news, De’Andre Hunter made headlines over the weekend as he was dealt from the Cavaliers to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Dennis Schroder and Keon Ellis ahead of February 5th’s NBA trade deadline.
It hasn’t been the season that many envisioned for Hunter, who averaged 14.0 points in 43 games this season with Cleveland on 42.3% shooting from the floor and a career-low 30.8% from beyond the arc. But a new home might be exactly what is needed for the 2019 fourth-overall pick. The Kings, which have a league-worst 12 wins this season, are in full-on tank mode, meaning we won’t be seeing Hunter back in the postseason this spring. However, Sacramento could be a perfect spot for the former ’Hoo to become an offensive focal point and once again show the league what he’s capable of in the right environment.
