Jerome knows what he proved with Dubs: ‘Zero hard feelings’ originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
SAN FRANCISCO — For the last 11 Warriors games, Ty Jerome’s pregame routine has changed. Once the game begins, Jerome has stayed on the sidelines in a sweatsuit. That’s the life of a two-way player in the NBA, and it’s about to change again on Tuesday for the 25-year-old point guard.
Jerome last played over three weeks ago on March 11 in a nine-point Warriors win against the Milwaukee Bucks. Since then, Jerome has been getting his lift and drill work done earlier in the day so he can shower, get into his clothes and be able to head out of the arena soon after the final buzzer. He’s healthy, and the Warriors would love to have him dressed head to toe in his Golden State uniform.
Strategy and his contract says otherwise.
Two-way players are only allowed 50 active games with their respective NBA teams. Jerome, through March 11, was up to 47 — 44 games played and three DNPs (Did Not Play). In the midst of it all, the Warriors had a decision to make with their open roster spot: Would it go to a player on the buyout market, or would they stay in-house and choose between Jerome and fellow two-way player Anthony Lamb ?
They chose to stay at home, but not with Jerome. The Warriors officially converted Lamb to a standard contract before their game in Atlanta on March 17, giving him their 15th and final roster spot. Lester Quinones was promoted from the G League as the Warriors’ second two-way contract, and Jerome’s status remained the same.
“They were very open about it with both me and Anthony,” Jerome told Bay Area NBC Sports. “In the heat of it, we were both playing leading up to that decision. Steph [Curry] was out and a few other guys were out and it really wasn’t on the forefront of my mind at the time. I was really locked in, I’m just trying to win games.
“We had a good stretch of like five in a row. We won some good games and that was kind of more on the forefront of my mind and then with Andre [Iguodala] being out for the year and [Andrew Wiggins] not being here, it just came down to positional depth.”
When Curry recently went down for a month to a lower left leg injury from Feb. 6 through March 3, Jerome appeared in all 11 games and averaged 20.4 minutes a night. He averaged 7.2 points, 4.2 assists and shot 48.5 percent from the field. Jerome was then inactive for Curry’s first two games back before scoring 11 points against the Memphis Grizzlies and then playing 14-plus minutes in the last game he appeared in against Milwaukee.
Without Curry, Jerome’s skill set as a backup point guard was needed for the Warriors. But without Wiggins since Feb. 13 and Iguodala being out for at least the rest of the regular season because of a broken left wrist, Lamb, at 6-foot-6 and 227 pounds, was more needed by default.
What felt obvious to the outside felt the same to Jerome. Golden State coach Steve Kerr was honest with Jerome, as general manager Bob Myers. Even if they weren’t, Jerome didn’t have a blind eye to the Warriors’ roster construction. On the court, he kept tunnel vision the best he could.
“Once Andre got hurt and Wiggs was kind of not here, writing was kind of on the wall,” Jerome said. “And I kind of let my agents and the front office communicate more, and they’re very great at communicating with me as well. But at the end of the day, we’re here to win, win games and do a job and that’s kind of been everyone’s main focus.
“It hasn’t been something that you’re talking about every day with Steve or Bob. Nah. We’re all here to win games and we knew they had a decision to make and like I said, whatever the decision was they made , my mindset was helping this team win as many games as I can and I still have three left to do that.”
Lamb and Jerome were both late signings for the Warriors going into the regular season. Their training camp deals were turned into two-way contracts on Oct. 14 after being with the team for a week. The expectation was Lamb and Jerome would see plenty of time in Santa Cruz with the Warriors’ G League affiliate and fill in with Golden State when players needed a rest or were sidelined to injury.
Instead, they each became main fixtures off the bench for a myriad of reasons. Jerome currently is four games behind his career high of 48 for a season in his four-year career. Prior to this season, Lamb had played a total of 26 games in the NBA over the last three years. He played only two last season with the Houston Rockets.
Going into Tuesday night’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Lamb has played 59 games this season, averaging 6.9 points over 19.8 minutes per game. Like the rest of his teammates, Jerome was quick to congratulate Lamb on the news, laughing at the notion of any enthusiasm.
“Yeah, of course,” Jerome said. “There were zero hard feelings. I have zero animosity towards him, towards the front office, towards the coaching staff — there are zero hard feelings for anyone. It was a decision they made, and Anthony’s had a great season and I’m really happy for him.”
This summer, Jerome will be a restricted free agent. He was traded two weeks after being drafted in 2019. And then again in November of 2020 and one more time two years later in September of 2022.
Houston waived him on Oct. 1 of last year, paving the way for the Warriors to bring him in three days later. His career has been full of uncertainties, going up and down between the G League and NBA while moving homes more than once, too. Finally, he felt at home with the Warriors.
“Uhh … for sure, for sure,” Jerome said on Feb. 14 when asked if he feels at home in San Francisco. “The only reason I took so long is because I’ve been here for what, six months? I came here in early October. But the coaching staff, my teammates from the day I got here, they empowered me. They instilled confidence in me to go be myself.
“Coach Kerr, he lets me shoot my floater. He fully lets me be myself. And someone with the contract I have, not everyone gets that opportunity and gets that freedom. For sure, I’m grateful for that.”
Even with the Warriors’ decision to convert Lamb instead of Jerome, keeping him off the playoff roster, Jerome says his feelings haven’t changed a bit.
“Of course not,” he said. “No, these guys and Steve and all the coaches, even with the decision they’ve made, they’ve still gone out of their way. Steve goes out of his way to communicate with me about certain things and just stuff that he doesn’t ‘t have to do.He does more than he has to do with me.
“He’s been great as a person, as a coach, as a leader. As has been our front office and as has our leaders been on this team.”
Jerome began his career with the Phoenix Suns, where he played 31 games as a rookie. He was then traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder the next offseason. In his first season with the Thunder, he played 33 games and saw that increase to 48 last season. His respect will always be there for both organizations.
There’s an innate difference that Jerome has seen being a member of the Warriors, one that he can’t quite explain.
“Without putting any organization down, because Phoenix, they have a lot of good things going, as you can see, and OKC is very organized and they’re running a certain way,” Jerome said. “This is … this is … what’s the word I’m looking for? This is … like I said before, it’s the most at home I’ve ever felt.
“That’s the best way I can put it. This is the most comfortable I’ve been. It’s just the most at home I’ve felt.”
With the possibility of playing time in the Warriors’ final three regular-season games, Jerome thus far is averaging 7.0 points and 3.1 assists per game in 18.5 minutes. He’s shooting a career-high 48.8 percent overall and 38.9 percent on 3-pointers, the second-best of his career, while also making 92.7 percent of his free throws — the best of his career.
More than anything, what he has been for the Warriors is a steady presence that can control the game for a team that can have an erratic playing style. Jerome has 135 assists this season and 35 turnovers, good for a 4.5 assist-to-turnover ratio.
“Ty is so underrated as a player for us,” Kerr said midway through February when Jerome stepped up for an injured Curry. “You look at his minutes, every time he comes in the game something settles down. He just takes care of the ball. … He’s the consummate backup point guard.”
“I have to be the one that’s kind of being the person that’s calm, the player that’s calm on the court and it can all blend together,” Jerome responded. “That’s just who I am as a player. It’s who I’ve always been, and I think it’s just valued here.”
“I’m not the fastest, so I don’t really have a choice.”
Jerome had a decorated final two seasons of college at Virginia. As a junior, he helped lead the Cavaliers to a national championship, scoring 13.6 points per game with 5.5 assists and 4.2 rebounds per game as well. He solidified himself as a knock-down shooter, making 39.9 percent of his threes his junior year and 39.2 percent in his college career.
The winnings stopped there.
The Suns won 34 games and finished 10th in the Western Conference in Jerome’s rookie year. The Thunder won 22 games and finished 14th in the West in Jerome’s first season with OKC, and had 24 wins last season as they again ended 14th in the West. The Warriors, however strange their season has been, have the most wins Jerome has been a part of with 41 and counting.
“Well, I think before this year there was this whole thing of like ‘Oh, he’s doing it in OKC, games that don’t matter.’ That was the whole knock on me,” Jerome said when asked what he felt he had proved most this season. “And I just thought it was silly because I think that one of the best parts of my game is that I can impact winning. Getting the opportunity to do that here, I mean you look at, and this happened for a lot of different reasons , JP was great when Steph went down. We rallied as a team.
“You look at a lot of other teams, you go look at their record when their star player’s hurt. And in most of those games when Steph was out, we were missing Wiggs as well. So just the amount of games they missed and what I’ve been able to help this group do, it definitely means a lot at this point in my career to me.”
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This season is Jerome’s first with a playoff team and championship aspirations. He came here to win again, while learning from Kerr, Curry and others. The Warriors still have plenty of goals to hit this season, but Jerome has been able to check many boxes along the way.
Golden State is 21-23 in games Jerome has played. Many of those were without Curry and without Wiggins, at least. His help in Curry’s second injury absence already has been noted. When Curry missed 11 games from Dec. 16th through Jan. 7 because of a left shoulder subluxation, Jerome gave the Warriors 10.3 points and 3.2 assists per game, shooting 40 percent from deep in 22.4 minutes per night. The Warriors were better than .500 in both instances.
Starting with his previous team Tuesday night at the Chase Center, Jerome is guaranteed to wear his No. 10 Warriors jersey three more times. The Bay quickly became home for him. Three months out from his 26th birthday, Jerome knows what he proved to be the defending champion, and he has enough fans within the franchise to very much keep his future with the Warriors wide open.
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