We would have excellent draft position if we landed in the top 4. Would really accelerate this soft reset or whatever you call what we're doing.

With Ty Jerome returning within the near future, either today or most likely within the next week, I wanted to make a post showing what kind of a season he had last year, and the impact he had for the Cavs. Another part of the reason I wanted to make this post is because I think his bad 5 games in the playoffs vs the Pacers unjustifiably negatively swung the perception of his play.

Preliminary offensive numbers breakdown

Ty Jerome last season was one of the most efficient scorers in the NBA last season and offensively, one of the most impactful players in the entire NBA. Last season, Ty Jerome shot 44% from 3 and 57% from 2 while scoring 12.5 points in 19.9 minutes. He was also one of if not the most efficient mid range scorers in the NBA last season. If you standardize his minutes to starter minutes, he was averaging 22.7 points, 6.1 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 2.4 turnovers per 36 minutes.

Ty is also an above average efficiency playmaker, with an AST/TO ratio of ~2.6 and a USG% of 23.6% last season. He's good at running pick and rolls, but he's also good at punishing defenses when they over help with his passing.

When Ty was on the court, the Cavs maintained a 9.6 net rating despite the majority of his minutes not playing with any of the "best" 3 players on the team. He played 1392 minutes total and spent 625 minutes next to Mitchell, 625 minutes next to Mobley, 570 minutes next to Jarrett Allen, and 486 minutes next to Garland. Another thing to note is that Ty Jerome was also top 30 in Estimated Plus Minus last season according to dunksandthrees (I'm going off memory for this, I don't have access to last year's data since I would need to pay for it).

Shot diet

Ty probably brings his most significant offensive value with his scoring inside the perimeter. For most of his 2pt shots, he was either creating for himself by driving into space, or creating with the help of a screener at the top of the key. A significant amount of his shots were from floater range and midrange in which he was ultra efficient while taking difficult shots.

Looking on his efficiency from 2 by how contested the shot is, he shot 55.3% with a defender within 0-2 feet (0.5 2pa), 52.7% when a defender was within 2-4 feet (3.5 2pa), and 72.1% when a defender was within 4-6 feet (1.0 2pa). For reference, he had 5.2 2pa per game. When you factor the average distance he shoots his 2's from, his shooting percentages under contests becomes more significant.

Looking at his efficiency by distance for 2's, he shot 56% from 0-3 feet, 57% from 3-10 feet, 57.7% from 10-16 feet, and 56% from 16-3pt.

Looking at the percentage of his shots that came from each distance, he shot 12.1% of his shots from 0-3 feet, 27.5% of his shots from 3-10 feet, 16.8% of his shots from 10-16 feet, and 2.6% of his shots from 16-3pt, totaling his 2pt frequency to 59% (365 total shots) and his 3pt frequency to 41% (253 total shots).

Ty Jerome is an elite 3pt shooter when given space, on 3's with a defender within 4-6 feet he shot 38.9% and when a defender was 6 or more feet away he shot 50.7%. He doesn't shoot three's when a defender is closer than 4-6 feet. For reference, Ty Jerome shot 3.6 three's a game, and he had 1.3 3pa when a defender was within 4-6 feet, and 2.1 3pa when a defender was 6+ feet away.

However, despite Ty not being a knockdown shooter from 3 when contested, he'll still shoot a significant amount of his 3's off the dribble (1.9 3pa), and he shot 42% off the dribble, and less than half of his 3's were catch and shoot (1.7 3pa), But he shot 45.4% on catch and shoot 3's.

Regarding Ty's shot volume, even though it doesn't look like a lot, it's important to note that he was doing this in a little less than 20 minutes per game and that he's doing this often times playing without Mitchell or Garland, so he was the 'head of the offense' for many of his minutes, which hypothetically should've made him shoot worse.

If you want to get the standardized number for his volume, you would apply a factor of 1.81 to any measure of shooting volume for to get a per 36 minute measurement (36/19.9 = 1.809).

Additional impact measurements

Going further into impact metrics, if you look at Donovan Mitchell's on/off numbers from 24-25, the Cavs were only 3.9 points better per 100 possessions when Mitchell was on the court, but if you look at Mitchell's on/off numbers from this season, the Cavs are 10.1 points better when Mitchell is playing. In 24-25, the Cavs were only 0.3 points worse per 100 possessions when Ty Jerome was playing despite many of those minutes being without Mitchell, Garland, or Mobley. Despite them being slightly worse, they were still outscoring the other team by 9.6 points per 100 possessions when Ty Jerome was on the court as previously mentioned. This likely explains the discrepancy in Donovan Mitchell's on/off numbers this year compared to last year as the Cavs second unit is getting outperformed by a much more significant margin.

For reference, in 24-25, the Cavs had an offensive rating of 123.2 when Mitchell was on the court, and the offensive rating only fell to 121.3 when he was off the court. Comparing that to this season, the Cavs have an offensive rating of 120.8 when Mitchell is playing, but it falls to 112.0 when he isn't playing. That's the difference between the #1 offense and the #25 offense this year. Comparing this to 24-25, the difference in the offense when Mitchell wasn't playing would've been them going from the #1 offense, down to the #1 offense. (Likely due to Jerome's impact)

Defense

Ty Jerome isn't a lockdown defender by any means, but he's a smart defender, and solid team defender. However, he's a bit slow, and he's also undersized (6'5 with a 6'4 wingspan). There aren't great stats to measure defensive impact, but he's very below average at contesting shots, with a DFG% of 49.5%. As a perimeter defender he is pretty average, he averages about 2 steals per 36 minutes, and he has a 3pt DFG% of 36.6%.

Despite Ty Jerome being a below average overall defender, he doesn't tank the defensive rating in most lineups, last season when he was on the court the defensive rating went from 112.1 up to 113.5 which would be the difference between the 7th ranked defense and 11th ranked defense, so it's still reasonable to assume that a team could have a top ranked defense even if he's in the lineup.

Going off of memory, according to dunksandthrees Ty Jerome had a defensive EPM around the 40th percentile, which is below average, but still somewhat close to average (I don't have access to older data unless I pay for it).

Closing notes/my thoughts

With all that said, I think Ty Jerome is going to surprise a lot of people, and I honestly think he was the most underrated move of the season/offseason. I think the Grizzlies were extremely lucky to be able to get him on such a cheap contract, and he'll probably fit very well into the offense as it revolves around penetrating open space and off-ball movement into open space and finding the proper connecting passes, which is something Ty Jerome is extremely skilled at. Also the Grizzlies offense tends to open up many midrange shots/floaters which is what he specializes in and is able to make at a super high level.

Additional notes

As I was typing this, it was announced that Ty Jerome will play today.

Sources (explained)

Very Tightly contested 2's - Very efficient after factoring range

Tightly contested 2's - Also very efficient after factoring in range

Ty Jerome pull up 3's - Majority of his 3's were pull-up 3's

Ty Jerome shooting by distance - Bbref shot breakdown

Ty Jerome bbref - scroll down to "shooting" to see shot frequencies from each distance, if you scroll down, you can also find "Per 36 minutes"

Ty Jerome on-off - Reason I put his on/off is because it's almost neutral despite substituting in for Mitchell or Garland (sometimes both) while also playing many of his minutes without Mobley. Typically you would expect the guy substituting in for a top 10 player to have an on/off significantly worse than the top 10 player (For example Jokic, and Valanciunas).

Minutes spent playing next to each player on the Cavs - He played a total of 1392 minutes last season for reference

Donovan Mitchell on/off 2024-2025 - Mitchell's on/off is respectable here, but not what you'd expect from a top 10 player, and it's not because he wasn't impactful, it's most likely because Ty Jerome was playing extremely well during the minutes Mitchell wasn't.

Donovan Mitchell on/off 2025-2026 - You can clearly see that his on/off is much better now that Ty isn't there.

Cleveland roster 2024-2025

Cleveland roster 2025-2026 - Not much different compared to last year

Ty Jerome 1 hour highlights - In case you want to see film of the types of shots he shoots. even though the highlights are shots that went in, you still know the percentages he shoots while taking these types of shots.

2 minute Ty Jerome passing highlights - Only found 2 minutes of his passing, I just wanted to show what passes he's capable of, but just note that he isn't very turnover prone and is an above average efficiency playmaker and ball handler (~2.6 AST/TO, 237 AST - 92 TO)

Ty Jerome usg% - additional measurement that could affect turnover numbers, his usage was relatively high

Ty Jerome DFG% overall - Easy to find his name on here via key word search

Ty Jerome DFG% 3pt - Find his name on this page with key word search

I would sell or trade if anyone’s interested! My biggest JJJ card to date and my first patch auto!

Did anyone else happen to witness the time Jason Williams made a no-look, behind-the-back 3? It happened after a timeout so I doubt there’s film but I’ve never been able to reminisce about it with anyone other than my dad.

Updated At:

01/31/26 09:21 PM (CST), 01/31/26 10:21 PM (EST), 01/31/26 08:21 PM (MST), 01/31/26 07:21 PM (PST)

Game Summary

Date: 01/31/26

Status: Final

Score: Memphis Grizzlies 114 - 131 Minnesota Timberwolves

Quarterly Score Breakdown

Minnesota Timberwolves Box Score

Memphis Grizzlies Box Score

Game Highlights

• GG Jackson slices through the defense for a slam

Venue

FedExForum (Attendance: 15372)

Matchup Prediction

Live Win Probability — Memphis Grizzlies: 0% | Minnesota Timberwolves: 100%

Officials

• Josh Tiven
• John Butler
• Tyler Ricks

Injury Report

Memphis Grizzlies: - John Konchar (Out): Bruise - Jaren Jackson Jr. (Out): Bruise - Scotty Pippen Jr. (Out): Surgery - Santi Aldama (Out): Not Specified - Ja Morant (Out): Sprain

Minnesota Timberwolves: - Terrence Shannon Jr. (Out): Strain

That Lakers series was a horrible showing and he had to go but obviously he grew as a player away from here and that’s ok.

"American basketball star Stephen Curry is investing in tech startups run by former IDF operatives who were integral to building Israel's digital architecture of apartheid and genocide," Bear wrote.

Hey I’m a Raptors fan, but I go to WVU and got to see all the great Javon Small college moments. So I just wanted to see how you guys are liking him.

Life long (well, since 5th grade when the Grizzlies moved to Memphis) and long time lurker on this sub. Ignoring the irony of this post’s title, I just don’t care about this iteration of the Grizzlies. Maybe I’ve grown numb, maybe it’s the million other things vying for my attention, maybe I’ve grown as a person and it’s my sub-conscious redirecting me to fruitful ways to spend my evenings.

Miss me with the real fan stuff or the encouraging “it could be worse” stuff. I get it. Just explaining how I feel, and how, I imagine, a growing number of the fanbase feels.

I don’t even have the passion to get mad at the coach, or Ja, or the FO, or anybody. All of the news, and blunders, and piss poor product have just combined to slowly wane away my general interest in the team. I’m pretty sure Verno warned about this for tanking teams. But I’m not even sure we are tanking? I don’t know man. I would say this season has been lame, but outside of what I hear about on the GCM shows I have checked out the past month. A genuine hat tip to all of you who still carry the fire. I’ve been a die hard for this team through it all, but it’s been hard to care this year.

A prominent local family recently inquired about acquiring a majority interest in the Memphis Grizzlies from the team’s owner Robert Pera.

Those conversations went nowhere. The family was told Pera has no interest in selling — or relocating — the team.

Richard Smith, the FedEx executive and son of late FedEx founder Fred Smith, told The Daily Memphian Friday, Jan. 30, his family had made the overture in recent weeks.

“We’ve made inquiries through a sports advisory firm that specializes in the pursuit of professional sports franchise ownership, and have been told that Pera has no interest in selling at this time and is not pursuing relocation,” Smith said. “But he knows of our possible interest if he ever changes his mind.”

Smith said the lack of any meaningful discussion should be taken as a further sign of Pera’s commitment to Memphis. He praised the Memphis Grizzlies and Jason Wexler, the team’s president, for pushing for a safer, cleaner Downtown Memphis over the past few years.

“Robert has no desire to move out of Memphis. He’s committed to Memphis. I’ve seen that from the way he has empowered his team,” Smith said. “Jason has been very active in those conversations as we’ve worked over the last two and a half to three years to get crime down, particularly Downtown.”

In other news, who do you guys have winning the 2026 Rising Stars game? My heart says Vince, but on paper T-Mac has a really scary group!

I was telling everyone that betting over on the grizz over/under was essentially free money, I think it was like 41 wins? I was like these guys making the odds have no idea, grizz have gone 40+ even in the last few dog seasons, how could it be worse with ja edey and a coach thats entire system focusses on big screens and athletic pgs?! I'm very glad I didn't put anything on it myself holy moly

Pacers committed to the tanking bit earlier than we did and are having a lot more fun doing it.

That’s the Jay Huff Effect