The Skinny:

Image Courtesy of usatoday.com

Full Name: Jared Scott Carter Jeffries

Date/Place of Birth: 11/25/1981-Bloomington, IN
Height/Weight-6’ 11”, 240 lbs

Primary Position: PF/C

Projected Role: Backup PF/C

College: Indiana
NBA Draft: Drafted 11^th overall by the Washington Wizards in the 2002 NBA draft.

Honors: Big 10 MVP (2002)

Career Averages-5 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 1.3 APG, 1.1 TOPG, .5 BPG. PER 10.96

Jared’s Strengths:

The good news, Jeffries is coming off his best season in at least six years with New York, developing a role as a solid defensive stopper.  He’s not a great rebounder but he does do a good job with defensive positioning and his length made him one of the better stealing big men in the game last season.  He is very good at setting traps as well, so can be useful when you need to slow a team up by pressuring the ball.  Perhaps most importantly, however, Jeffries is going to be a good influence on any roster because he works hard, gets along with everyone and can be counted on to stay out of the press in a negative way.  He may not be much, be he is a solid end of bench sort of backup guy in this league.

Jared’s Weaknesses:

Beyond his knee problems, which remain a concern, Jeffries has other shortcomings as well. When a regular player has a low true shooting percentage that usually means that you shoot the ball a lot but take bad shots (see Ricky Rubio), but in Jared’s case its that he’s simply atrocious on offense.  He was near the bottom of the league in usage last season but still managed to rank near the bottom as well in shooting.  We all perhaps remember him missing the potential game winning layup against Boston in the 2011 playoffs, among others.  Jared isn’t a good rebounder either, ranking near the bottom among big men in defensive boards.  Bottom line, don’t count on him to produce any offense and certainly never have him on the court when you need a bucket at the end of the game.  Do that and he can be perhaps useful.

Blazer Connections:

None.

Did You Know?:

Jeffries was a key cog in Indiana’s run to the NCAA title game in 2002.  Of particular note was his 24 point, 15 rebound performance to upset Duke in the regional finals.

In high school, Jeffries led Bloomington High School North to the state finals in 2000, only to fall to a Marion High School team led by Zach Randolph.

Jeffries requested jersey #20 while in NY in honor of Allan Houston but was turned down because that number was already claimed by Mike Bibby (Jeffries took #9 instead).