Jones gets G League seasoning
DENVER — Little more than two weeks into the season, plenty of questions hang over the back end of the Warriors’ rotation. One thing that is certain: Center Damian Jones will spend much of the season in the G League.
With Golden State’s frontcourt crowded, head coach Steve Kerr would rather Jones get game experience with Santa Cruz than watch from an NBA bench. The hope is that he’ll build off last season, when he made significant strides in the G League — which prior to this season was called the NBA Development league.
“He’s going to spend a lot of time down there, because there’s no point in him coming up here and sitting on the bench,” Kerr said before Saturday night’s game against the Nuggets at Pepsi Center. “He needs to play. I could see bringing him up once and a while and giving him some playing time, if we had an injury. But he needs to play, so he’ll spend a lot of time down there.”
With the size, strength and speed to be an NBA center, Jones has long wowed scouts with his upside. How long it’ll take him to capitalize on his physical tools remains to be seen.
In 10 games with Golden State last season, Jones averaged 1.9 points and 2.3 rebounds in 8.5 minutes. His 31 games with Santa Cruz were spent refining his low-post arsenal, cutting down on fouls and trying to give consistent effort.
After an up-and-down several months, Jones was named the D-League Player of the Month in March and April after averaging 17.6 points and 7.8 rebounds in 12 games. It was apparent at the Las Vegas Summer League in July, when he averaged 8.2 points and five rebounds in six games, that Jones is still too raw to crack Golden State’s rotation.
Buried behind Zaza Pachulia, JaVale McGee, David West and Jordan Bell on the NBA depth chart, he was assigned to Santa Cruz last week. In Santa Cruz’s season-opening win Friday over the Agua Caliente Clippers, Jones had 15 points, six rebounds and three blocks in 24 minutes.
“We’re happy with our young guys and the experience they’re having down there,” Kerr said. “We feel like there’s better synergy now than ever. We’ve worked hard to create better synergy between the two franchises. (Santa Cruz head coach) Aaron Miles is doing a good job. He spent all of training camp with us. We’re running the same stuff, so it should be easier now when we shuttle players back and forth.”
Jones can play in Santa Cruz without fear that he’ll be forgotten by Golden State’s front office. Earlier this week, the Warriors picked up Jones’ $1.5 million third-year option. He is the only true center under contract with Golden State for next season. Foul language: After an expletive-filled tirade in Thursday night’s win over the Spurs, Kerr’s phone lit up with a meme of him unleashing on an official.
“Honestly, I need to do better,” Kerr said after a shootaround at Pepsi Center. “That was embarrassing. My daughter sent me a meme that was all over the Internet. I just hung my head in shame. I am passionate and intense, but I can’t use that wording. I would never say that to anyone normally, and it’s just awful. I saw that and I was like, ‘I need to do better.’ ”
With his team down 28-12 late in the first quarter Thursday in San Antonio, Kerr, upset with a no-call, tore into a referee and picked up a technical while associate head coach Mike Brown held him back. A foursecond clip of the tirade from the TNT telecast, which included some not-safe-for-work language, quickly rippled through the blogosphere.
“I’m always going to get on refs to stick up for my guys,” Kerr said, “but I can’t use that kind of language.”