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Tyus Jones, Andre Miller, and Minnesota's Point Guard Professorship

The Minnesota Timberwolves drafted Tyus Jones, and then signed Andre Miller to mentor him. Miller's time in Minny is over, but the point guard professor did his job.
Photo by Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

The youngest player on what is regularly described as the most talented young team in the NBA is a hometown product who in college led his team to a NCAA championship and is scarcely a rumor in a NBA rotation. The bulk of his minutes have come in the D-League, and he's yet to make any kind of impact with the parent club. This is the freshman season for Tyus Jones, his second in a row, and his curriculum so far has been far more theoretical than practical. His professor is Andre Miller.

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It's obscene how good Minnesota's core could grow to be, before even factoring in a likely top-five pick in June. Jones's fellow youngsters—21-year-old 20-point scorer Andrew Wiggins, two-time Dunk Contest champion Zach LaVine, and future NBA overlord Karl-Anthony Towns—have been thrown to the—well, they've played a lot, in order to expedite their development. "Our young guys have done a great job thus far," head coach Sam Mitchell said in Toronto on Wednesday. "We don't treat them like young players." Except for Jones, it seems.

Read More: Karl-Anthony Towns Is Too Big to Fail

Jones won't turn 20 until a month after Minnesota's season ends in mid-April, perhaps the last time it ends so early for some time. Mitchell has seen fit to treat Jones with kid gloves, even on a team this young. The No. 24 overall pick played just twice before getting assigned to the D-League in early December. This is increasingly common for rookies, and Jones took uncommon advantage, averaging 24.7 points and five assists over six appearances while shooting 48.7 percent from the floor and 42.6 percent on threes.

"It was a good experience for me," Jones said on Wednesday. "You have to look at it as a positive, an opportunity to play and work on everything that I've been working on in practice and in my workouts, trying to apply them in a game situation. It turned out pretty good for me."

Jones was dominant in the D-League, and that display earned him two weeks in Mitchell's rotation. From December 23 until January 2, Jones saw 11 minutes or more in six consecutive games. He played well, at least by the standard of a rookie backup point guard, but on January 4 he saw just two minutes and wouldn't see the floor for more than a month after that.

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Andre Miller, seen here teaching Minnesota's young players proper high-five form. Photo by Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

This happens, too, when you're a rookie point guard, and Jones was left to try to make the most of practice time. It's hardly the worst way of learning, especially when Andre Miller and Ricky Rubio are doing the teaching. "There's nothing I can do but get better and learn every day from those two guys," Jones says, but there was nothing Jones could do to put that improvement into effect on the floor.

"Every practice is like a game, that's how I treated it when I was a rookie," said Toronto Raptors guard Cory Joseph, another late first pick who played little in his first season before becoming an important role player with the Spurs. "I just tried to get better, soak up all the knowledge I can. Try to not waste any opportunities, because any opportunity you get, they don't come by often when you're a rookie."

One of the primary strengths on Jones's scouting report coming out of Duke was his intelligence. Though a bit undersized, he already had the experience of leading a winning program, and his decision-making was some of the best for a freshman point guard in recent memory. He's focused that intelligence, since joining the Wolves, on observing and absorbing the behavior that Miller models in practice and in games. "It's been great," Jones says. "He's been around the game so long, he knows what he's doing. Like, 99 percent of the time he knows what everyone else needs to be doing and are gonna do with their next move. He thinks the game at such a high level."

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Miller is not just the resident sage for Jones here—he's a role model. Jones lacks elite athleticism or speed, and Miller has carved out a lengthy career without those assets, using idiosyncratic drives, savvy court vision, and a well-defined post game to thrive. He's already done what Jones wants to do.

"With me and Tyus, it's a little bit of dialogue," Miller says. "He already has that feel and the IQ to figure things out as they go. He's already there, it's just going through the transition period." Miller recognizes that the slender Jones probably won't be able to mimic his work on the block but thinks he has an even bigger weapon to help him stand out early. "What he does have is the IQ and being able to shoot the ball," Miller says. "That's something that I had to do in my career is prove I could make the open shot when I'm left open. Everything is about adjustments and figuring out your niche."

Jones has only taken eight attempts in the NBA, but he was a solid shooter in college and showed well from outside in preseason and in the D-League. Miller, too, thinks Jones's shot "will carry him a long way." It's a necessary skill for most point guards, and it could represent a nice change of pace for the Wolves as they use Jones in support of Rubio, who's still developing his own shot.

The skill that Jones would do best to learn from Miller, given his teammates, is the ability to throw lobs. Miller is one of the all-time greats when it comes to setting a teammate up for an alley-oop, and he still surprises Jones from time to time in practice. Highlight reel dunks are fun, and Miller's seen enough to appreciate their value. "Before they get into the rhythm," Miller explains of getting a player going, "they need to get to the basket. Get a couple of easy layups, a couple dunks. I think that helps a lot as the game goes—their confidence gets sky high and the ball tends to go in easier."

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That should come naturally for Jones, a gifted playmaker who showed flashes of elite passing skills at Duke. But again, Jones understands the learning curve can and will continue to be steep. "That's something that I pride myself on, is having a high basketball IQ," Jones says. "At this level, obviously, it's almost like starting over, or starting from a new beginning, and I want to get where he's at one day."

Where Miller's at, right now, is in his 16th NBA season, 1,291 games deep. He's also nearing his 40th birthday, which means his window to win an NBA championship is about to close. This is why Miller negotiated a buyout with the Wolves that became final on Thursday.

It's a bit surprising, but the timing makes sense. Jones has played backup minutes in four of the last six games while Miller has sat; LaVine has been given more time back at his natural shooting guard position. Mitchell won't admit that the LaVine Point Guard Experiment is coming to a close—"We just get guys some minutes," he says of Jones's sporadic playing time—but LaVine has been getting regular starts on the wing, and Jones has seen more playing time behind Rubio. The departure of Miller will open up that playing time further.

It seems, then, that the first part of Jones's education is complete. He's spent the bulk of a season learning under Miller, picking his brain, and waiting for his chance. Now that he's ready, Miller's task is complete. He might as well chase a championship; he's done what the Wolves paid him to do.

"The hardest part is already done," Miller said of his understudy. "Other things are the small things, minor things he'll figure out as he goes." Jones will have to figure them out without his professor around, but he couldn't have asked for a better apprenticeship.