By Chris Hine

Star Tribune

The moment Tyus Jones gets off the bench, you can hear a groundswell of cheers permeate Target Center. No doubt the crowd is excited because Jones grew up in Apple Valley, but they also are excited because the Timberwolves point guard has blossomed before the eyes of his hometown fans.

In his third season, Jones is in line for career highs in minutes (18.3 per game), points (4.9) and assists (2.7), and acquitted himself well in a starting role when starter Jeff Teague was injured for seven games.

Jones played so well that some fans and corners of the internet called for him to replace Teague (33 mpg, 13.0 ppg, 6.9 apg) in the starting lineup. Just where did that come from? And is coach Tom Thibodeau likely to make that move at any point?

Those who want Jones to start like to point to one advanced metric that shows him as one of the best in the league during the minutes he plays — ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus statistic. That statistic is one developed specifically for ESPN in 2014 by Jeremias Engelmann and Steve Illardi, both of whom worked in NBA front offices. It attempts to show how much a given player contributes to his team’s success compared to a league average player during the span of 100 possessions, or a league average game, regardless of who is on the floor with him and which team he’s playing against.

After crunching the numbers Jones comes in eighth — in the entire NBA — at 4.86, ahead of All-Stars Giannis Antetokounmpo, Draymond Green, Anthony Davis and his own teammate Karl-Anthony Towns (3.85). Teague, meanwhile, is 0.65 — worse than 34 other point guards. An average player rating is 0.