Curtis Jerrells was traded from the San Antonio Spurs to the New Orleans Hornets. Just days later, after the Hornets acquired point guard Jerryd Bayless from the Portland Trailblazers and subsequently Jerrells was cut by the Hornets.
This leaves us with the question, does Jerrells have what it takes to cut it in the NBA?
Jerrells has proven he is more than ready and willing to lead a team. He has shown his leadership twice, once in college at Baylor and again with the Austin Toros when former teammates Alonzo Gee and Dwayne Jones were both called up to the NBA.
At Baylor, Jerrells led the team all four years in points and assist per game, and was also the second player in Baylor history to score 1,000 points, record 400 assist and get 100 steals.
In Austin, Jerrells led the team in total points scored, assist and steals; however, one other category Jerrells lead the Toros in was turnovers, where he averaged 3.18 turnovers per game. Fans would often criticize Jerrells of taking to many shots and gave him a nick name of “ballhog.” The observation shows some truth when you look at the amount of shots taken, 777, which equals to 249 more shots than the next closest put up by any Toros player.
To answer the question of whether or not Jerrells is NBA ready, the answer is no, but I do believe he is on the cusp of being ready. There is no doubt that he has the athleticism and talent for the game of basketball, but the decision-making and ball handling are key question marks for him.
If he were to stay in the NBA D-League for another year or two to polish off these skills, I think that would elevate his game to be NBA ready.
It’s reasonable for a point guard who handles the ball on nearly every possession to lead the team in turnovers. Let’s look at the top ten guards in the NBA in turnovers per game.
PLAYER NAME TOPG
1 Monta Ellis 3.8
2 Gilbert Arenas 3.7
3 Steve Nash 3.6
4 Deron Williams 3.3
5 Dwyane Wade 3.3
6 Russell Westbrook 3.3
7 Stephen Jackson 3.2
8 Kobe Bryant 3.2
9 Stephen Curry 3.0
10 Rajon Rondo 3.0
You see some of the top players in the league have more TO per game than Jerrells. So TOPG isn’t much to go on. How does he compare when you look at turnover percentage, or assist/turnover ratio? There is a lot of competition for roster spots and I think Jerrells could make the cut somewhere even though he has room for improvement.
Is it also reasonable for a pg to lead the team in shots taken?(not to mention it was nearly 250 more than the next toros player) No, not a true point guard, a scoring one, yes but not a true point guard. I did not focus on just his turnovers I also mentioned his decision making, which is horrible at the most crucial of times. This is something that does not show up on the stat sheet. I’ve seen Jerrells win games and lose them on a play that he was trying to make when a simple pass would have done wonders for the Toros. At this point he is a expendable player, which is why he was released as soon as he was. Although he was a “me-first” type of player when he got to Austin, I did see some improvement on that.