Jarrett Jack brings good and bad to the Brooklyn Nets. Which side outweighs the other?
By Chip Murphy
Jarrett Jack was thrust into a starting role at point guard for the Brooklyn Nets this season after they finally cut ties with Deron Williams.
Jack’s $6.3 million salary for 2016-17 is non-guaranteed if the Nets waive him on or before June 30th. The 32-year-old played in just 32 games this season before tearing his ACL.
Now the franchise’s new regime has to make a decision on whether they want to bring back the point guard for next season or move on.
Since arriving in Brooklyn via trade back in 2014, Jack has taken over a leadership role with the team. Perhaps the greatest complement he received was from Steph Curry. When Curry received his first MVP award he was asked what leader he learned from the most. His answer was likely a surprise to many (via Nets Daily).
“The leader I learned from the most? Probably Jarrett Jack has a big influence when he was here.”
https://youtu.be/4zsaSZGH6Zw
As much respect as Jack may have as a leader however, the statistics contain multiple glaring problems. Quite frankly, Jack can’t play starters minutes. Mike Mazzeo of ESPN wrote about Jack’s 2014-15 failures.
The Brooklyn Nets were outscored by 314 points with Jack on the court in 2014-15 — the worst mark of any player on a playoff team. He shot 26.7 percent from 3-point range — his worst percentage from downtown since his rookie season (26.3 in 2005-06). And the Nets went 11-16 with Jack in the starting lineup — including 4-10 when he started and Deron Williams did not play.
Jack’s inefficient stats are notorious. He takes poor shots, turns the ball over, and his +/- numbers have been historically awful. The most notable recent example is the issues he had playing with Williams.
Unfortunately, former Nets head coach Lionel Hollins decided to ignore the overwhelming evidence that Jack and Williams were awful when playing together. Brooklyn was -9.4 points per 100 possessions when the two point guards shared the court. That didn’t matter to Hollins though as he trotted them out there for over 661 minutes. With Joe Johnson spending a majority of time at small forward, Brooklyn was thin at shooting guard so Jack was forced to spend time off the ball. It went badly.
Jack’s horrible three-point shooting percentage from 2014-15 didn’t get any better during his small sample size this season. He was just 30.4 percent from downtown, on 3.6 attempts per 36 minutes.
Jack takes a ridiculous amount of long twos (16-24 ft.), a dying art in the NBA (analytics!), when he should be focusing more on getting closer to the rim. In 2014-15, he put up 222 long twos and 110 this season. As much as Jack has hurt Brooklyn on offense, he has been on terrible defensive player his entire career and that hasn’t changed.
For his career, Jack’s defensive rating (estimate of points allowed per 100 possessions) is 111. He’s never had a rating lower than 108. He was 45th among all point guards in defensive real plus-minus this season, and 48th in 2014-15 (via ESPN). According to NBA Stats, Jack has been getting torched at the rim (less than 6 ft.) for the last two seasons. Opponent’s shot 5.8% better against him in 2014-15, and 4.4 percent better this season.
As Mazzeo noted, the Nets were significantly worse when Jack played. In 2014-15, they were -7.8 points with a net rating of -10.7 points meaning they were 2.9 points better without Jack on the court (per 100 possessions).
Jack is well liked by his teammates and on a bad team in need of a leader he is valuable, but with those numbers his $6.3 million salary isn’t worth it. The Nets must release their starting point guard for the second straight summer. It’s time to start over.
