NEW ORLEANS -- The nameplate above Terrence Jones’ locker at the Smoothie King Center has been incorrect since the season began. Jones spells his first name with three E's, yet his locker boasts a rogue A for a spelling of “Terrance Jones.” Jones’ jersey number on the display is off too. He wears No. 9 in New Orleans, but his locker claims No. 6, the one he wore with the Houston Rockets.
“It’s crazy, man,” Jones recently admitted.
He hasn’t proven an easy fit on the court, either.
A former top prospect who seemed in line for big things in Houston, Jones’ struggles last season led to him signing with the New Orleans Pelicans this past offseason for the veteran's minimum. Nothing was promised to either him or late-offseason pickup Lance Stephenson, Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry conceded recently. And despite receiving 26 minutes a game in preseason, Jones' regular-season playing time has amounted to fits and a start.
After averaging almost 15 minutes in the Pelicans’ first three games, Jones sat the entire game against the Milwaukee Bucks. In Memphis the following night, he played 28 minutes. On Tuesday, he started in place of the suspended Dante Cunningham and made a good case to stay there.
While the Pelicans struggled to feed Anthony Davis through double-teams and swarming defenses, Jones provided a Davis-like effect on the offense at times in a crushing 112-111 overtime loss to the Phoenix Suns in which the team fell to 0-6. The 24-year-old had one more shot attempt than Davis at the half and was just as efficient from the floor, finishing with 19 points on 9-for-14 shooting, seven rebounds, six assists and four blocks in 28 minutes.
“He’s a great player,” said Davis, who finished with 22 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks. “He made all the right plays tonight. Helped us out.”
But Jones’ playing time dissipated as the game got tighter. He played 4 minutes, 45 seconds in the fourth quarter and just 16 seconds in the overtime, during which he found Davis for the star’s lone bucket of the extra frame.
“I’m sure I’ll second-guess myself and say I probably should have had him in there more,” Gentry said. “Which I always evaluate myself before I evaluate anybody else. I’ll look at it, and I’ll see. You might have a good point there. I just did whatever I thought we needed to win the game. I thought we needed a little bit of extra shooting out there. We freed Langston up on a couple of shots that I thought were big. I just thought we lost a little bit of our aggressiveness.”
Said Jones: “As a player, I don’t have any control over who Coach decides to go with in late-game situations. It’s just my job to root for whoever is in, and if I’m out there, to do my best and help the team get a W.”
“Coach’s decision,” Davis said.
When Jones and Davis play together, the numbers haven’t been pretty: The two-man combination has a minus-21.5 net rating, the worst pairing on the team with more than 50 minutes played together. But in a season spent searching -- for signs of hope, for answers, for a win -- riding their two most dynamic offensive players may be one of the Pelicans' last moves to play as they wait out the returns of starters Tyreke Evans (right leg), Jrue Holiday (personal reasons) and Quincy Pondexter (left leg). The latter two are not currently with the team.
The Pelicans, the second-worst 3-point shooting team in the NBA this season, shot a respectable 33.3 percent from beyond the arc this time but struggled late, hitting just two of their 15 attempts from deep after halftime. Gentry pointed to stagnation, as the offense, and thus the team’s fate, was kept out of Davis’ hands in crucial moments by the Suns’ defense and turned over to Stephenson.
“[Davis] has to find another way to help us,” Gentry said. “They did a good job. They’re not going to let him catch it and iso and beat him, so he’s got to find other ways to do it. He’s got to become a screener. He’s got to become a guy that gets out on the break. He’s got to become an assist guy.
“There’s other ways that he has to help us if they’re going to play him to the point of where we can’t throw it in to him. And the other thing is we can’t hold it and aim, aim, aim if they’ve got a guy in the front and back. We’ve got to get the ball moving.”
Late miscues, like in almost all of the Pelicans’ losses this season, proved to be the team's undoing. Though their point differential fits a bottom-five team, the Pelicans, one could argue, should be 3-3 and not one of the three winless teams in the NBA; four of their losses are by six points or fewer.
Stephenson appealed to the basketball gods. A sullen Davis said the team needs to “keep fighting.” But as Solomon Hill said before the game, “It’s tough to feel good [about any progress] if you’re in the business of winning."
Business, it's fair to say, is hardly booming. Though only six games have passed, everything about this Pelicans season already feels out of sorts.
“I think we’ve got to understand just what we want to do here,” Hill said. “This is not a season where we want to just get a high draft pick. Our goal is to make the playoffs. Everybody should have that on their mind. And if you don’t, that has to be changed.”
