Photo by Stacy Revere | Getty Images
When Marquette had their first open practice of the Shaka Smart era on October 14, 2021, it stood out to me when Coach Smart introduced Kam Jones and said that he would leave as Marquette's all-time leading scorer. A year after Markus Howard had left, I knew the improbability of his reaching that scoring level, but wondered at the time if the skinny freshman guard would truly be able to carve his name as one of Marquette's all-time scorers. With names like McNeal, Hayward, Thompson, James, Lee, and Diener as the five that came after Howard, what were the odds this kid could match them? I'll admit, in that practice Jones, along with Olivier-Maxence Prosper, were the most impressive newcomers that weren't established college players. Most of the night, Jones was matched up with grad transfer Darryl Morsell, who dogged Jones on defense, fighting over screens and challenging Jones to do the same when engaging him in both offensive and defensive exercises.
My favorite interaction of the night came after Jones was a bit lazy trying to get to an inbound with Morsell hounding him.
Shaka: "Do that inbound again. You want the ball you gotta do a better job of getting open than that. Now get open."
— Alan Bykowski (@brewcity1977) October 15, 2021
Also Shaka: "Darryl, don't let him get open."#mubb
Two moments in that practice still stand out in my mind for Kam. The first was on a perimeter drill where the defender would have to go through screen after screen to stay with the man. Morsell's strength and slippery ability to go over screens allowed him to hound Jones relentlessly while the then-freshman was clearly gassed trying to keep up. The second was a one-on-one gauntlet drill against that pitted Jones against fellow freshman Emarion Ellis. At the time, Ellis had more recently committed and with a football background, felt like the one who would come out on top, but Jones bested him. Those plays and those interactions set the tone for the level of work Kam Jones would have to put in to become an elite college player. If Darryl Morsell wasn't going to make it easy on him in practice, there is no doubt that opposing guards wouldn't make it easy on him in games.
Photo from jsonline.com
Jones' development has been impressive, as any Marquette fan can attest. He went from a Big East all-Freshman team to leading Marquette in scoring (15.1 ppg) as a sophomore on a team that won both the big East regular season and tournament championships, setting a program record for wins in a season, and earning the best NCAA Tournament seed in program history.
Jones quickly developed a truly elite ability to score at the rim. His sophomore year reminded me in ways of Markus Howard, when Kam's conversion rate at the rim improved vastly. They did it differently, but both achieved more at the rim success after proving themselves as long-range shooters. As a freshman, Howard made 45.4% of his shots inside the arc, but 52.5% at the rim. Because of his prodigious shooting ability, teams really tried to chase him off the line as a sophomore. While Howard's efficiency there didn't change (still shot 52.5% ATR) his frequency did. Howard took 17% of his shots at the rim as a freshman compared to 32% as a sophomore. This brought his overall 2PFG% to 53.3%, making him an interior threat as well. For Howard, this was a high-water mark. He would never again reach this level of ATR usage nor efficiency. Jones' trajectory was a bit different.
Kam Jones ATR Usage and Efficiency Progression
As a freshman, Jones had similar efficiency to Howard, but didn't go to the rim as often. While Howard nearly doubled his sophomore year rim usage, Jones nearly tripled his. But for Jones, that was just the beginning. I remember discussing with a Marquette fan how Jones would almost certainly not be as efficient inside the arc as a junior after his prolific sophomore season. Instead, he nearly maintained that efficiency while increasing his ATR usage. As a senior he has further increased both efficiency and usage to career highs. Consider that Jones is also doing this as a 6'5" point guard. Here's where he rates nationally according to Synergy:
Jones is the only back court player on this list and the shortest at 6'5". His at the rim efficiency is comparable to 6'10" and taller lottery picks like Queen and Newell, both of whom Jones and Marquette beat this year. Because of Jones' style, he will never be prolific getting to the free throw line. The way he contorts his body, maintaining control while avoiding contact to make finishes with the English of a billiards master, simply doesn't lean toward a high free throw rate. That said, his 19.9% free throw rate would be a career high and he's on pace for a personal single-season high-water mark in trips to the free throw line. He even drew a foul on a three Saturday, fading away to avoid contact but drawing it nonetheless as he completed a four-point play:
KAM JONES!!!!!!! 🤯
— ESPN Milwaukee (@ESPNMilwaukee) December 7, 2024
pic.twitter.com/WvneoMHg60
Not only that, but Jones is doing this while making 41.3% of his shots from deep as well. Jones is seeking to become the first Marquette player in the T-Rank database to make 60% of his shots inside the arc and 40% of his shots beyond the arc. He truly embodies the Marquette offensive philosophy of scoring at the rim and beyond the arc. To emphasize how good Jones is from deep, look at his Synergy ratings on the various three-point attempt types:
Jones rates as excellent overall and in every aspect of catch and shoot jumpers. If he gets the ball on the catch, he is among the most deadly shooters in the country whether you guard him or not. Off the dribble he is merely good, but still above average as a shooter. The threat he poses from three means teams cannot leave him alone at the arc (1.75 ppp unguarded speaks for itself) which opens up the driving lanes that let him get to the rim and finish with the prowess he does.
Video from Wisconsin at Marquette | Fox Sports
What started the thought process for this article, however, was Jones' incredible Assist/Turnover rates. I was stunned to see after the Wisconsin win that Jones' 42.6% assist rate according to kenpom, currently 5th in the nation, was better than any individual season posted by Tyler Kolek. Not only that, but Jones is doing that with a turnover rate (9.3%) that is less than HALF of what Kolek's was (18.9%) as an All-American last year and accomplishing all that at a higher usage rate. According to T-Rank, here is the list of every player in the database to ever have a 40+% assist rate and below 10% turnover rate:
Wait, that can't be right. Kam Jones can't be the only player to ever have an assist rate that high coupled with a turnover rate that low. Let's check the filters and expand the range a bit. How about a 15% turnover rate?
Huh...I guess it was right. Not only is Jones the only player with a 40+% assist rate and sub-10% turnover rate, but the closest player to matching him has a turnover rate that is more than 140% Jones' rate (Sidney Sanders). So not only is Jones the most efficient interior scorer at his size and a lethal three point shooter, he's creating for others without turning the ball over at a rate no one in the last 15 years has matched. In 2020, we wrote about PORPAGATU!, a metric from T-Rank that tallies overall player value. Filtered for 10 games played (to allow Jones to be compared to recent historic players) his current PORPAGATU! is third highest in the T-Rank database. Here are all of the players with season-long rankings of 7.0 or better. Those that are highlighted were Wooden Award winners at the end of the season. In the seventeen-year history of the metric going back to 2008, the #1 player in PORPAGATU! has won the Wooden Award eight times, the winner has been in the top-5 fifteen times, and only once been outside the top-7 (Obi Toppin in 2020). Here's how Jones stacks up:
T-Rank isn't the only system that loves Jones. The website evanmiya.com evaluates all players based on both offensive and defensive acumen, using the Bayesian Performance Rating, which quantifies overall player effect on the team using various box score metrics, play-by-play data, and historical information. Jones has the top Offensive BPR in the country at 6.07, and his overall BPR ranks third behind Johni Broome of Auburn and Zakai Zeigler of Tennessee. Miya's website also rates Jones as the #1 most indispensable player in the country and #1 in his MVP rankings.
Jones' defense has also been notable. His four steals against Wisconsin tied a career high and his 3.2% steal rate is the best mark of his career. Defensive acumen is notoriously difficult to assess even through advanced metrics, but Synergy likes what it's seen from Jones so far.
Jones rates well in the defensive actions he is most frequently called on to guard. Further, if you compare the number of possessions as the primary defender to the number of shots allowed, Kam allowed a shot on 48 of 69 possessions so far, just 69.6% of possessions. That's the lowest rate of any of Marquette's five starters, meaning Kam is either forcing the ball out of the offensive players' hands or forcing them into turnovers. This part of the defense is often a team effort, but it's another indicator Jones is doing his part on both ends.
Photo by Foster Goodrich | Marquette Wire
Look back up at the BPR chart above. Jones' Defensive BPR of 2.14 might seem fairly average among the players there, but it ranks #143 in the country out of 3,291 players, putting him in the 95th percentile of defenders. Of course, it's tough to stand out as a defender when the other two back court starters (Mitchell and Ross) are in the 97th percentile. I would stress that defense is difficult to quantify, because good defensive teams will have low points allowed per possession, which will make everyone look good, but Jones has clearly developed into an above average defender.
Whether Jones can keep up his historic play is yet to be seen, and ultimately Marquette fans will likely judge his legacy with a heavy weight towards the performances in March (and April) than anything that happens before the New Year. But with 1,594 career points after the Wisconsin game, Jones is now alone in 15th place on the all-time Marquette scoring list. With 100 more points (5 more games at his current pace) he would pass Dean Meminger, Damon Key, Darius Johnson-Odom, Bo Ellis, Wesley Matthews, Tony Smith, Brian Wardle, and Travis Diener all the way to 7th place. By the end of the year, he is on track to become Marquette's second ever 2,000-point scorer, making Coach Smart's prediction look pretty good. And he's doing that while playing at a historically efficient rate in terms of passing, turnovers, and overall production. Further, Jones isn't just a positive defender, he's metrically one of the better perimeter defenders in the country. Just like Darryl Morsell, who put him through the paces in that first public practice more than three years ago..
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