At a glance Jerome’s box score makes you raise your eyebrows (12 points a game, 3.6 assists, 50% from three, 123 TS+ not a typo). His efficiency has been absurd this year, posting similar scoring numbers to play finished bigs like Sabonis, Gafford, and his teammate Jarrett Allen. The logical question to ask is “Well is he just standing in the corner being spoon feed wide open looks?” The answer: no. His overall Shot Quality is in the 13th percentile. He’s second in the league in Shot Making Efficiency which is a metric that measures how well you shoot relative to expectation. The takeaway is he’s been extremely efficient on difficult shots. Below you can see his shot diet. You don’t need to be an analyst to see that he’s been automatic regardless of play type.

Viz via nbavisuals.com

The scoring combined with his passing pushed him into the “I need to write an article about him” territory. It’s hard to find bench players who can run an offense but when you do, it can keep you from over-taxing your stars during the regular season. Jerome has been the top bench player in Basketball Index’s Playmaking Talent. This metric takes into account your passing volume, efficiency, versatility, on-ball gravity, and quality of looks generated for teammates. Looking at Playmaking Talent versus how often a player has the ball (Ball Dominance) you can see if a player is making good use of his passing opportunity. In the graph below you can see that Jerome has been not only the best playmaker among bench players but he hasn’t needed the ball as much as his peers.   

(The graph above is filtered down to players that have 250 minutes played this season and have started less than half of their games)

-Viz via bball-index.com

His scoring versatility, efficiency, and playmaking have put him in early conversations for 6MOY. Some regression is expected in regard to his 3-point shooting, but even so, his midrange and rim finishing have been great. On the other end of the floor, his Defensive Playmaking has been fantastic (95th percentile – this is a metric I created that takes into account deflections, steals, blocks, and offensive fouls drawn) and has kept his value near neutral. So far, Ty Jerome has been one of the biggest surprises of the 2024-25 season. 

The post Ty Jerome: Late Bloomer appeared first on Swish Theory.