The Cleveland Cavaliers are 14-0, dominating the NBA to start the season. They are heavily favored to pick up win No. 15 on Sunday evening against the Charlotte Hornets. If they do, it will be the second-longest undefeated start to a season in NBA history, trailing only the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors.
A major part of their success has been the play of their talented backcourt, including one veteran guard putting up elite numbers. He is scoring 21.4 points per 36-minutes on a team-high 71.3 percent true-shooting, hitting 53.3 percent of his 3-pointers. He is dishing 7.5 assists per-36 minutes and has a steal rate of 3.7 percent, Top-10 in the entire league.
When this guard is on the court, the Cavaliers outscore opponents by 9.5 points per 100 possessions. Pick an advanced all-in-one stat, and this player likely leads the Cavaliers -- Player Impact Estimate (PIE), Box Plus-Minus (BPM), Win Shares per 48 minutes, PER, all of them.
Yet strangely enough, the player in question is not perennial All-NBA star Donovan Mitchell. It’s also not former All-Star Darius Garland. Both are excellent players en route to All-Star appearances this year. But neither is leading the team in those advanced statistics.
The player in question, in fact, is playing on a minimum contract, has a career scoring average of 7.2 points per game, and missed all but two games last season due to injury. We are speaking, of course, about Ty Jerome.
Ty Jerome has been amazing for the Cavaliers
The former national champion at Virginia was nearly out of the league before he rode a two-way contract into playing time with the Golden State Warriors. Koby Altman and the Cavaliers' front office identified him as a player they wanted on the roster in the summer of 2023, signing him to a two-way contract at essentially the minimum that the Warriors simply couldn't match.
Then Jerome suffered a nasty ankle injury in the second game of the season and missed the rest of the year. The Cavaliers had a great season, but were playing their star backcourt significant minutes, and when Darius Garland missed extended time himself with a broken jaw it was undrafted rookie Craig Porter Jr. asked to do too much as his replacement.
Enter Jerome this season, fully healthy and playing at a shockingly high level. He is confident with the basketball as a facilitator and scorer, and head coach Kenny Atkinson has even played him in crunch time alongside the two other guards as something of an extremely-small small forward. He is shooting the leather off the basketball but also not afraid to drive into the paint and finish inside.
The beauty of this Cavaliers team is that they are deep enough with different kinds of bench players that they can split their core stars into two groups, maximizing the fit and plugging the right players in around them. From Dean Wade to Georges Niang to Caris LeVert to Ty Jerome, the Cavs have a different player to fit each role. And Jerome is soaring in his.
The 27-year-old guard won't shoot 53.3 percent from deep for the season, but if he can stay above 40 percent he will continue to be one of the most valuable bench players in the league. It was unexpected, but Ty Jerome has been the X-Factor for an undefeated Cavaliers team, and he's not done yet.
