24. Tre Jones, Point Guard
Current Team: Duke
The Duke trend continues on this NBA Draft 2020 big board with one of the most experienced and well-recognized players in the entire program. Sophomore point guard Tre Jones is about as solid as a two-way floor general comes without the pure ability to space the floor from any distance. The lack of shot creation beyond 10-feet really is going to hurt Jones in the NBA.
It’s a shame that while the second-year point guard Jones improved his shooting marks so far this season, it still isn’t at a good clip from range. Jones still hasn’t reached 30 percent shooting from three-point range, but he is around 49 percent from the field. It doesn’t matter all that much if he goes from 26 percent three-point shooting to 29 this season.
The 6-foot-2 Jones is a very solid defensive guard on and off-ball. He also is polished on both ends of the floor. He has 2.7 offensive and defensive win shares in his brief college career. He can at least fill a rather specific role among the more refined and specific point guards in this draft class, just like Winston out of Michigan State.
Fix the outside shooting and Jones immediately joins the rest of this deep guard class in the midst of the lottery picks. But these outside shooting woes make him a pretty easy player to defend from the perimeter and will limit his upside in the NBA. The facilitating and defensive abilities will still come in handy as a potential late first round pick.