Understanding Jerryd Bayless: Is He Starting Material or Fool's Gold?

Who is Jerryd Bayless?

Some will say he's the future PG of the Raptors franchise. Some will say he's just a journeyman who hasn't seen a large role for a reason.

Jerryd Bayless has just finished his third season in the league, and like a few of his teammates, the 22-year-old will be extra motivated to give everything next season when his rookie contract will need renewal.

Coming into the league, Bayless was accompanied by plenty of hype, being compared to former superstar Gilbert Arenas, and 'would-have-been' superstar Jay Williams.

Bayless was selected 11th overall by the Indiana Pacers, who traded him shortly after acquiring T.J. Ford from the Raptors.

Jerryd Bayless has been a solid but not spectacular player so far in his career. Viewed by many as a "spark plug" off the bench, Bayless has shown signs of dominance but not consistently.

He stands with great physical attributes being 6'3" and has the speed and quickness to get to the rim at will. Bayless also has a good three-point shot and has good passing ability, even though some question his willingness to share the rock.

Jerryd Bayless is labelled an "undersized shooting guard" and as an "offensive tool off the bench," and this has hurt his development more than anything else. Playing time has been the biggest obstacle standing in his way since coming into the league.

Per 36 minutes, Bayless has scored:

12.5 PPG in his rookie season; 17.4 PPG in his sophomore season, and 16.1 PPG with Toronto this past year.

His lack of playing time has been understandable as one could argue Andre Miller and Chris Paul were clearly the better players while Bayless was on those teams. With Toronto however, Bayless is splitting time with Jose Calderon, a good but not great player.

Bayless did manage to crack the starting lineup when Jose was injured, and at season's end... the time where coach Triano's lineups were designed to improve Toronto's draft standing.

Bayless did a great job in the month of April, posting averages of 22.5 points and 5.6 assists in 8 games. Bayless started in all of those games.

So why isn't he producing off the bench? Clearly, if he'd be a full-time starter if he could maintain this level of play, right? Wrong.

Jerryd Bayless thrives with confidence and a larger role. When he's given little playing time, many times we see him trying to do "too much."

I personally believe he goes into a shell (though he doesn't show it in his attitude). Forcing his game leads to all the accusations of him being a shoot-first PG, while his shooting percentages take a hit as well.

I can prove my theory by pulling up Bayless' splits for his past season, as you can see below Jerryd Bayless' playing time is almost paralleled with his field goal percentage; in general the more time he sees, the better he shoots from the field.

Month	Minutes per game	Percentage of field goals made
October	11.3	33.3%
November	14.7	35.7%
February	15.2	30.8%
March	19.4	42.7%
January	22.0	41.3%
December	23.1	43.5%
April	37.8	48.4%

* Note: February being the exception, in January Bayless missed a couple of games due to injury.

Being benched causes Bayless to play poorly, and playing poorly prevents Bayless from seeing any playing time. It's a cycle which I feel could be broken.

With Dwane Casey at the helm, emphasis on defense is going to be huge. Bayless is a supreme defender against point guards, and holds his own when facing bigger shooting guards.

Bayless CAN pass the ball, and I'm not going to sit here and say he'll hand out 7-8 assists nightly, but I will say that he's capable averaging a modest 6 assists or so.

Bayless has a lethal three point shot, and the Raptors were surprisingly bad from down town last season.

If Jerryd continues to develop his game, I feel he can start and score around 15 points nightly. The solution to maximizing the contributions of Jerryd Bayless is to make him the official starter of this team, and to not force another Jarret Jack-Jose Calderon situation, where both players would see fluctuating minutes and neither of them would secure the starting spot.

The Raptors would be smart to try Bayless as a full time starter, and give him at least a month in that position before deciding if he's our guy or not.

Remember he's still young and will screw up, but if he can show us enough in the first 10 games as a starter, it will be a fair game to invest in his future.

If he doesn't pan out and continues to be inconsistent, trading Bayless would be the best move for Toronto because regardless of how he plays, he will require a significant raise at year's end.

Toronto should try Andrea Bargnani at the Power-Forward slot, and that will require good defense by the guards because Bargnani is a terrible help defender.

Keeping Jose and Bargnani in the lineup will result in a mediocre defense at best, regardless of who's the coach, and though I feel DeMar DeRozan has plenty of room to improve this summer, playing Bayless at PG would be most logical moving forward.

The only downside to having Bayless at PG is that Jose Calderon is such a great distributor. Limiting Jose to little minutes won't be the problem (because he's a class act), but he's a very skilled veteran which some would rather keep as a starter.

Expect more fast-break offense as a result of better defense, and Jose is the guy you'd want to facilitate offense in the fast break. There's only an outside chance Bayless learns the ropes fast enough to replace Jose, but overall the positives look like they outweigh the negatives.

In conclusion, I'll say that the questions regarding Jerryd Bayless will only be answered when we see this guy step on the court next season, but by looking his situation, people should understand his true game comes with conditions.

Is it in the team's best interest to grant Jerryd Bayless the condition of a full-time starter? Will he just put up inflated stats and hurt the development of the other young players? Post a comment and tell us all what you think!