Terrence Jones: Homecoming
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 7:56 pm
It is a chilly soggy morning in Portland, Oregon. Terrence Jones rolls into the parking lot outside of the Chiles Center on University of Portland’s campus in his 2015 BMW 750 and gets out with a bag of doughnuts, grease just barely soaking through.
“Gotta have my Voodoo in the morning. People say they just for tourists but I’m like, man, you ever had one a these? They’re my guilty pleasure for sure.”
You wouldn’t guess Terrence Jones eats three doughnuts for breakfast every morning from looking at him. He’s 33 and hasn’t played in a PBSL game in 10 years but he’s still in great shape.
“I come here to play just about every day,” Jones says as he downs a man-shaped doughnut. “I used to come here as a kid and watch the Pilots. They were bad but that was the dream for me. Go to college. Play ball. Now I’m friends with some guys on the staff so they open the place up in the morning for a few of us to ball. Then I hit the gym.”
I make a comment about his love of the game. He laughs.
“Yeah, I love the game. But I aint just doin’ this for love. I gotta stay in shape. This could be my year. Never know when that call is going to come. Gotta be ready.”
The last time Terrence Jones played in a PBSL game, there were only four divisions in the league. It has been that long. His fourth training camp didn’t go well and he sat the bench the entire year his fourth season. Didn’t see a single minute of playing time all year. Until this year, he hadn’t received so much as phone call from a professional team. It was a surprising end to once promising career… or was it?
Draft night 2012: Terrence Jones was feeling pretty good on June 27, 2012. He had an impressive resume. He had averaged almost 20 points, 12 rebounds, and two blocks a game for Kentucky, even though he had shared the front court with demigod, Anthony Davis. His agent had assured him he would be a top 10 pick, despite the fact that the pundits on ESPN had him as a mid to low first-rounder. Terrence believed his agent.
“I have always had confidence. I knew that I was one of the best 10 to 20 basketball players in the world. You can laugh,” Terrence says. I do laugh. “But I just wasn’t really ever given my time to shine. I keep working at it. Some people might not believe it but I am a better player now than I was as a rookie and I was definitely one of the five best players in that draft.”
I automatically reel off 7 players: Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Kris Middleton, Andre Drummond, Draymond Green, Jeremy Lamb.
“You think Lillard has ever been better than me? I’m offended. I could beat any one of those guys except Davis, of course.”
I ask him what went wrong. He tells me a story I already know. He was drafted by the Hornets but was shipped off to Toronto with a package of veterans for Andrew Bogut.
“That was the greatest moment of my life, man. I was immediately inserted into the starting lineup. I was playing thirty a game for a really good team. I showed the world what I could do,” Jones says of his 10 and 6 rookie season. “And then the world stopped caring. Apparently.”
The next offseason the Raptors acquired Chris Bosh and Jones headed to the bench. Over the next two seasons he still played about 10 minutes a game and appeared in every game but the Raptors felt he had already hit his ceiling.
“That was just the narrative they wanted to hear. They got the big name. The three time MVP or whatever. But I would be schooling him in practice and I’d go to the coach and be like, man you see what I can do. Just give me some more playing time. He’d always be like, yeah T we’ll get you in the game more but he never would. It just got demoralizing. I kinda gave up after my third year.”
“Kinda giving up doesn’t accurately describe Terrence,” says Raptors GM Soundwave. “It was more like he kinda forgot how to rebound. It was terrible. The guy was useless. We had no choice but to bench him and let him walk in free agency.”
Sure enough, that offseason the Raptors did not claim RFA rights to Terrence Jones and nobody sent any offers his way. His agent stopped returning his calls. He was done.
Fast forward 10 years to present day Jones. He is a remorseful but repented man. “I had my chance, the very chance I used to dream of in this very building when I was a kid, and I blew it. When the going got rough, I gave up. I saw Whiteside and Bosh in front of me in the depth chart and I just gave up. I work hard every day to stay in shape so that if that opportunity ever comes along again I’ll be ready. I know it has been ten years and everyone I know keeps telling me to just retire but I can’t give up. I know I’ll get another chance”
The long-awaited (and highly unlikely) opportunity did come along this season. The Portland Trailblazers got wind that Jones was back in his hometown and still in pretty good shape, offered him a one year, unguaranteed, vet-min contract, and invited him to training camp. Training camp did not go well to say the least, as it pretty much never goes well for 33 year-olds, and he was promptly cut after training camp was complete.
“I mean Terrence is in great shape for his age but he still can’t play basketball and we brought him in mostly because we thought he could serve as good mentor to Marvin. Marvin has some issues and he has his shot to be great, just like Terrence did. We’re hoping Marvin learned something from Terrence and his experience,” explains Blazers coach Toni Kukoc.
“Yeah, they may have been planning cutting me all along. In fact, that is the only reason I can imagine why they would cut me. I’m still an elite player. For me though, I’m just glad I got another chance and, this time, it wasn’t my fault it didn’t work out.”
“Gotta have my Voodoo in the morning. People say they just for tourists but I’m like, man, you ever had one a these? They’re my guilty pleasure for sure.”
You wouldn’t guess Terrence Jones eats three doughnuts for breakfast every morning from looking at him. He’s 33 and hasn’t played in a PBSL game in 10 years but he’s still in great shape.
“I come here to play just about every day,” Jones says as he downs a man-shaped doughnut. “I used to come here as a kid and watch the Pilots. They were bad but that was the dream for me. Go to college. Play ball. Now I’m friends with some guys on the staff so they open the place up in the morning for a few of us to ball. Then I hit the gym.”
I make a comment about his love of the game. He laughs.
“Yeah, I love the game. But I aint just doin’ this for love. I gotta stay in shape. This could be my year. Never know when that call is going to come. Gotta be ready.”
The last time Terrence Jones played in a PBSL game, there were only four divisions in the league. It has been that long. His fourth training camp didn’t go well and he sat the bench the entire year his fourth season. Didn’t see a single minute of playing time all year. Until this year, he hadn’t received so much as phone call from a professional team. It was a surprising end to once promising career… or was it?
Draft night 2012: Terrence Jones was feeling pretty good on June 27, 2012. He had an impressive resume. He had averaged almost 20 points, 12 rebounds, and two blocks a game for Kentucky, even though he had shared the front court with demigod, Anthony Davis. His agent had assured him he would be a top 10 pick, despite the fact that the pundits on ESPN had him as a mid to low first-rounder. Terrence believed his agent.
“I have always had confidence. I knew that I was one of the best 10 to 20 basketball players in the world. You can laugh,” Terrence says. I do laugh. “But I just wasn’t really ever given my time to shine. I keep working at it. Some people might not believe it but I am a better player now than I was as a rookie and I was definitely one of the five best players in that draft.”
I automatically reel off 7 players: Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Kris Middleton, Andre Drummond, Draymond Green, Jeremy Lamb.
“You think Lillard has ever been better than me? I’m offended. I could beat any one of those guys except Davis, of course.”
I ask him what went wrong. He tells me a story I already know. He was drafted by the Hornets but was shipped off to Toronto with a package of veterans for Andrew Bogut.
“That was the greatest moment of my life, man. I was immediately inserted into the starting lineup. I was playing thirty a game for a really good team. I showed the world what I could do,” Jones says of his 10 and 6 rookie season. “And then the world stopped caring. Apparently.”
The next offseason the Raptors acquired Chris Bosh and Jones headed to the bench. Over the next two seasons he still played about 10 minutes a game and appeared in every game but the Raptors felt he had already hit his ceiling.
“That was just the narrative they wanted to hear. They got the big name. The three time MVP or whatever. But I would be schooling him in practice and I’d go to the coach and be like, man you see what I can do. Just give me some more playing time. He’d always be like, yeah T we’ll get you in the game more but he never would. It just got demoralizing. I kinda gave up after my third year.”
“Kinda giving up doesn’t accurately describe Terrence,” says Raptors GM Soundwave. “It was more like he kinda forgot how to rebound. It was terrible. The guy was useless. We had no choice but to bench him and let him walk in free agency.”
Sure enough, that offseason the Raptors did not claim RFA rights to Terrence Jones and nobody sent any offers his way. His agent stopped returning his calls. He was done.
Fast forward 10 years to present day Jones. He is a remorseful but repented man. “I had my chance, the very chance I used to dream of in this very building when I was a kid, and I blew it. When the going got rough, I gave up. I saw Whiteside and Bosh in front of me in the depth chart and I just gave up. I work hard every day to stay in shape so that if that opportunity ever comes along again I’ll be ready. I know it has been ten years and everyone I know keeps telling me to just retire but I can’t give up. I know I’ll get another chance”
The long-awaited (and highly unlikely) opportunity did come along this season. The Portland Trailblazers got wind that Jones was back in his hometown and still in pretty good shape, offered him a one year, unguaranteed, vet-min contract, and invited him to training camp. Training camp did not go well to say the least, as it pretty much never goes well for 33 year-olds, and he was promptly cut after training camp was complete.
“I mean Terrence is in great shape for his age but he still can’t play basketball and we brought him in mostly because we thought he could serve as good mentor to Marvin. Marvin has some issues and he has his shot to be great, just like Terrence did. We’re hoping Marvin learned something from Terrence and his experience,” explains Blazers coach Toni Kukoc.
“Yeah, they may have been planning cutting me all along. In fact, that is the only reason I can imagine why they would cut me. I’m still an elite player. For me though, I’m just glad I got another chance and, this time, it wasn’t my fault it didn’t work out.”