Duke Blue Devils: Tyus Jones owns Summer League
Former Duke Blue Devils guard Tyus Jones showed his worth by taking MVP honors in the Vegas Summer League.
The summer of the Duke Blue Devils continued over the past week. After Kyrie Irving won the NBA title, Brandon Ingram taken with the second pick in the draft, Coach K leading the Olympics team, Christian Laettner being involved in a bankruptcy, Duke basketball scheduling issues, and all the hype building for the basketball season it seemed like there was enough happening.
Add the NBA Summer League season to that list. Duke players doted the Summer League whether it was guys like Ingram getting their feet wet or perhaps a player deciding to take over the League himself. That player was Duke’s Tyus Jones. Jones was awarded the MVP of Summer League down in Vegas.
Jones took the Minnesota Timberwolves all the way to the finals where they were beaten by the Bulls, but not after leaving a good accounting of himself. He averaged almost twenty points and six assists per game including a twenty-nine point performance against the Phoenix Suns. He also made the NBA All-Summer League Team.
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Jones has certainly left a mark on this year’s summer slate. It comes at a pretty good time for him as well since the Timberwolves have a new coach and are trying to sort through their roster. Jones now has Kris Dunn and Ricky Rubio sitting in front of him, but it seems hard to believe that Minnesota will keep both of those guards over the long term. Particularly if Jones proves to be an effective backup in his own right.
With Summer League over, the next step toward the NBA season will be training camp unless you are an Olympian. Duke has one of those in the form of Kyrie Irving, so Rio in August will still be a thing of interest.
Duke’s next big event is the rapidly approaching college football season, where we will probably get to see what Shaun Wilson is really made of.