On Friday, the Dallas Mavericks Summer League squad played in their first game in the Vegas Summer League.  One of the players I had an eye on was Dominique Jones, a wing player out of the University of South Florida who was drafted by Grizzlies with the 25th pick and then traded to Dallas.

In case you didn’t know, Jones lead the Big East in scoring last year with an average of 21.4 points per game.  Most of his points came from attacking the rim.  After watching the Mavericks’ first summer league game, it is apparent that ability to get to the rim is going to translate to the NBA:

Jones makes the catch on the wing and attacks the lane through the middle of the court.  Initially, his defender cuts him off, but Jones makes a strong quick crossover.  My favorite part about the crossover is how his defender reaches, but Jones is so strong, he just discards the reach in and continues to the basket.

Again, Jones makes a catch on the wing.  This time, instead of a pump fake, Jones jab-steps towards the middle, getting his man to lean.  This opens up the baseline, and Jones takes it.  Instead of putting up a weak floater, Jones jumps directly into the help defender’s chest and finishes a lay-in.  A move like this is important, because when you jump into your defender’s chest like this you either force the foul, or you prevent the defender from getting good elevation and that keeps him from blocking your shot.

Jones’ strength was also on display in transition.  Here, the defense tries to take the foul and prevent the easy lay-up.  Jones just powers through it and finish.

Jones’ just doesn’t finish at the rim either, as he showed a pretty nice feel for finding the open teammate when driving the basketball:

This time when Jones drives, the defense collapses on him. Instead of forcing it, Jones kicks it out to his teammate for an open three.

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So why did Dominique Jones drop all the way down to 25 in the draft?  Because nobody is really confident in Jones’ ability to do anything else with the basketball.

Jump Shot

Dominique Jones doesn’t really have a good feel for his outside shot.  He shot only 31% from three, with over 150 attempts (this is important because the college three point line is where most guys get their long two point jump shot attempts from in the pros), and shot just 75% from the foul line.  Eventually teams are going to back off of Jones and force him to take jumpers.  In the game today against the Nuggets, he took only one outside shot, and missed it:

From what I see here (yes, I realize it is only one attempt), it seems like Jones isn’t comfortable catching and shooting. He doesn’t catch it in rhythm like you see most shooters do (By in rhythm, I mean you time your step into the shot to be finished right when you make the catch, so you can rise up and shoot). Here, Jones makes the catch THEN takes that little timing step. Just that little thing can throw off your shot.

Pick And Roll

The way the NBA works now is that if you handle the basketball (whether at the PG or SG position), you are going to be running the pick and roll a fair amount of the time.  With the ball in his hands, Dominique Jones looked uncomfortable running the pick and roll today: