LAS VEGAS – It was the night of June, 23, 2016. Jalen Jones, obviously a bit restless considering the high stakes at his footsteps, was anxiously awaiting the results of the NBA Draft.
After averaging 15 points and seven rebounds and earning first-team all-Southeastern Conference honors during his final season at Texas A&M, Jones entered the draft very confident that he would ultimately find a home with one of the 30 NBA teams. But as this long night dragged on and on to its bitter end, Jones had to deal with the fact that not one team thought enough of him to draft him.
And that hurt more than just Jones’ ego.
“It was definitely emotional,” said Jones, who now has a two-way contract with the Dallas Mavericks. “When you’re younger and you don’t get drafted you think it’s the end of the world.
“I remember when I didn’t get drafted I shed a few tears that night and my parents picked me up and said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to bounce back and you’ve got to grind if you want it and you’ve got to grind through it.’ It’s about how bad do you want it, and I just kind of continued to grind it out and grind it out. I didn’t get down on myself too much and I just kept fighting and working.”
That fight and that work led Jones on a whirlwind tour that started with him playing on the Toronto Raptors’ summer league team in 2016. And it took him to Boston where he was waived on Oct. 20, 2016 — a mere 30 days after initially signing with the Celtics.
Eleven days later Jones was acquired by the NBA Development League’s Maine Red Claws where he stayed until signing a two-way contract with the New Orleans Pelicans on Aug. 2, 2017. That contract had Jones splitting his time between the Pelicans and their G-League team, the Greensboro Swarm.
All of that lasted until the Mavs signed Jones to a two-way contract on Jan, 11, 2018 — three days after he was waived by the Pelicans – and he spent the balance of last season playing for the G-League’s Texas Legends.
Bob MacKinnon, who coaches the Legends, watched intently as Jones continued to “grind it out and grind it out” while showing that he categorically belonged on the same court with the NBA’s elite.
“One thing you always know with Jalen is he’s going to give you 100 percent every night out,” MacKinnon said. “Every time he steps on the court he goes full bore.
“He’s one of the hardest workers, he’s extremely athletic, he’s a guy that gets to the rim and he works every day.”
In 32 games with the Legends last season, Jones averaged 19.5 points and 7.1 rebounds in 31.4 minutes per contest while helping them reach the playoffs. And in 12 games for the Mavs last season he averaged 5.8 points and 2.9 rebounds in 13.5 minutes contest, highlighted by a pair of 16-point, seven-rebound performances against Brooklyn and Orlando.
MacKinnon believes Jones fell through the cracks and wasn’t one of those players who caught the eyes of the NBA scouts, general managers and player personnel directors because of his size. At 6-7 and 220 pounds, Jones mainly played power forward in college, and at that size and that weight, that didn’t set well with the folks making the NBA decisions.
Thus, Jones had to make some changes and tailor his game and make it more pleasing to the eyes of the NBA’s movers and shakers.
“Before he got to us he had played last year in the G-League and in college and prior to us as a (power forward),” MacKinnon said. “And then when he got to us he played strictly on the wing, so it was an adjustment period and he did a great job of learning it and now progressing it to where he is a wing player, which is what his NBA position is.
“He just played inside in college and that’s not what’s going to translate to the NBA. Again, he’s just learning — I think now at this stage — about how to be a face-up wing player versus an inside player.”
On Friday night in the Mavs’ first game of the MGM Resorts NBA Summer League 2018, Jones scored a team-high 16 points and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds in 26 minutes against Phoenix. Although that wasn’t enough to get the Mavs the victory – the Suns prevailed, 92-85 – Jones once again proved that he can be a major contributor on the court when given the opportunity.
“I thought Jalen was great,” Mavs summer league coach Jamahl Mosley said. “I thought we all saw, we all recognized he shot the ball and did the things that we all know he’s capable of doing.
“And that’s being a junkyard dog on defense, going after the offensive rebounds, hitting guys on screen-and-rolls and just continuing to play with a tremendous amount of effort and just grit and toughness.”
For Jones, the double-double against the Suns was all in a proverbial day’s work.
“I’m just doing whatever the coach asks me to do, whether I need to go out there and score or defend the best player I’m going to try to do that,” he said. “I bring my effort every day.
“I try to just go out there and play my hardest. You never know if it’s going to be your last game, so I just try to bring it every time.”
Jones is a part of a group of Dallas-area athletes who found their way onto an NBA roster. Jones graduated from Dallas Kimball High School in 2011 and played two seasons for SMU before transferring and playing his last two college seasons for Texas A&M.
“I watched the Mavs a lot when I was in high school,” Jones said. “I saw them win their championship (in 2011) and I knew they were a great organization when I was younger.
“I was definitely a Kobe Bryant fan back in the day, so I’m not going to sit up here and say I was a Mavs fan. But I respected what they did when they won that championship.”
Jones also respected what the Mavs did when they signed him to that two-way contract. Now he just has to stick to the grind and turn the two-way contract into something long-term.
“I thought coming out (of college) I would get a lot more burn in the summer league my first year,” Jones said. “But I was on the bench all summer and I was like, ‘Dang, my NBA dreams might be over with and I didn’t even get to play.’
“So I was thinking overseas, but I got that call from my agent saying somebody wanted to bring me into training camp, and I just kind of stuck with it. You just got to grind it out and see what happens.”
Even through the painful tears of not getting drafted.
NOTES: The Mavs will play their second summer league game Sunday at 6 p.m. CT against the Milwaukee Bucks at Cox Pavilion. The game will be televised on NBA TV. Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo is expected to be on hand to watch his younger brother, Kostas Antetokounmpo, who is a rookie forward with the Mavs. Kostas only played two minutes in Friday’s 92-85 loss to the Phoenix Suns. . .Rookie guard Luka Doncic will not play against the Bucks and also may not play in Monday’s game against the Golden State Warriors. Doncic hasn’t had any live practice sessions with the Mavs as they continue to work on his buyout with his European team, Real Madrid. . .Proprietor Mark Cuban is salivating at the thought of rookie Luka Doncic firing up lob passes to DeAndre Jordan. By all accounts, Doncic is very well versed when it comes to tossing up lob passes. Jordan, of course, is arguably the NBA’s best finisher when it comes to hammering home lob passes. “He can throw the lob,” Cuban said of Doncic. “He’s a 6-7 guard who can play five positions and he can pass the ball. He’s an incredible passer.” Cuban is urging fans to do a little research on a Real Madrid-Oklahoma City preseason game in Spain that occurred on Oct. 3, 2017. “I encourage Mavs fans to google Luka versus the OKC Thunder,” Cuban said. “When he was 17 they played a preseason game between Real Madrid and OKC, and watch him guard Russell Westbrook and pass the ball. He didn’t shoot it real well, but you can’t ask everything of a 17-year old kid. In that contest, Westbrook started, scored 18 points and had three rebounds and four assists. Doncic came off the bench and finished with three points, five rebounds and four assists in 18 minutes and was 1-of-5 from the field. Real Madrid won the game, 142-137, in overtime. . . Anyone concerned about DeAndre Jordan’s poor free throw shooting slowing down the Mavs’ offensive attack may want to listen to coach Rick Carlisle. “His free throw shooting has gotten a lot better,” Carlisle said. From the charity stripe during the last six years, Jordan has shot 38.6 percent, 42.8 percent, 39.7 percent, 43 percent, 43 percent and a career-high 58 percent this past season. . .Mavs photographer Steve Chavera took a photo Saturday of point guard Dennis Smith Jr. and Houston Rockets point guard Chris Paul prior to the Mavs’ practice session. Paul wanted to chat with Smith and also wanted to meet Mavs rookie guard Luka Doncic. When he was a kid, Smith attended one of Paul’s summer basketball camps.
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