DERRICK Jones Jr.

In 2025-26, Jones played 50 games for the Clippers, averaging 27.0 minutes, 10.1 points, 3.5 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.9 steals and 1.0 blocks, with 0.8 turnovers a night. He shot 49.9% from the field, 35.9% from three and 76.3% from the free-throw line, numbers that add up to a 60.0 true shooting percentage. His usage rate sat at 14.4%, and his plus-minus was +2.6, a sign the team outscored opponents with him on the floor. Those are his full-season totals heading into this year, the benchmark against which his current-season minutes and scoring will get measured as the schedule rolls on.

Jones is not on the injury report right now. There is no injury history to account for either, so as the Clippers settle into the first weeks of the 2026-27 schedule, he is available and healthy. That clean bill of health lines up with the minutes he has already logged this season, three appearances in a row without a missed game. For a 29-year-old in his 10th year, staying off the injury report early in the season is exactly what the Clippers need from him if he is going to approach anything close to last season's 50-game workload.

The season opened with a mixed stretch for Jones. On October 4, he had 6 points, 1 rebound and 0 assists in 14.5 minutes in a win over Golden State, with a plus-minus of +5.0. On October 10, the Clippers lost to Toronto, and Jones finished with 5 points, 2 rebounds and 0 assists in 17.0 minutes, a -7.0 plus-minus. Then on October 14, he had his best game of the three, 14 points, 5 rebounds and 1 assist in 24.0 minutes in a win over Denver, finishing at +1.0. His minutes have climbed across the three games, from 14.5 up to 24.0, with his scoring climbing right alongside it.

The jump from 14.5 minutes to 17.0 to 24.0 minutes across his first three games is the number worth tracking. Last season, Jones averaged 27.0 minutes across 50 games, so his 24.0-minute outing against Denver is already close to that full-season pace. If that trend holds, the Clippers are using him close to where they had him last year, built around the same 10.1-point, 3.5-rebound profile he carried through 2025-26. His shooting marks from a year ago, 49.9% from the field and 35.9% from three, give some sense of what efficient nights could look like once he is logging that kind of time consistently.