You wouldn’t know it, but Cleveland Cavaliers guard Ty Jerome is flying under the radar as one of the top players in the NBA so far this season.
Jerome, who helped lead Virginia to win a national championship in 2019. has bounced around the NBA and G League before finally landing with the Cavaliers. He is mostly coming off the bench during Cleveland’s impressive start to this season but his role is integral to their success as they have the best record in the NBA.
At first blush, you may not notice his stats this season. He is averaging a modest 12.6 points and 3.8 assists per game.
As a passer, his assist-to-usage rate (which measures how often a player gets an assist relative to how often they have the ball) rank 94th percentile among players at his position, per Cleaning The Glass.
Meanwhile, his 3-point percentage is a career-high 54.4 percent and he is one of the most efficient pick-and-roll scorers in the league. Jerome has one of the most prolific floaters and his defense isn’t too shabby, either. He is currently averaging 1.3 steals per game when his previous best was just 0.6 spg.
Catch-all metrics are not without their flaws but tell a compelling story as well. But it is worth noting that when adjusting for mean regression based on minutes played, the Cavaliers guard is a standout across several all-in-one metrics.
Based on Neil Paine’s Estimated RAPTOR, among those with at least 100 minutes logged, he ranks third-best. Jerome ranks fifth-best in EPM, via dunksandthrees.com. He ranks seventh-best among qualified players in PER, according to Stathead.
That doesn’t mean he is one of the best ten players in the league or so, but that is the kind of impact he has had during the 2024-25 campaign thus far.
Most importantly: Cleveland is consistently winning the minutes that Jerome is playing off the bench. Especially when paired with Caris Levert, which is currently the best high volume two-man lineup in the league, they look tough to beat.
That is invaluable for a team with as much star power in the starting rotation as the Cavaliers, who are also dominating with Donovan Mitchell as well as Evan Mobley and Darius Garland on the court.
Jerome deserves serious consideration for awards like the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year and perhaps Most Improved Player.
