New Rockets guard Mason Jones watched James Harden closely

“It’s just the people I watch, you know,” Jones said of his approach. “I’m watching Luka. I’m watching Manu. I’m watching James Harden.

The Houston Rockets are signing undrafted free agent Mason Jones to a two-way contract, as first reported by ESPN’s Jonathan Givony.

A 6-foot-5 guard, Jones played his college basketball at Arkansas, where he led the SEC in scoring last season. In all, Jones averaged 22.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per game for the Razorbacks.

Though he’s not an extreme athlete, the 22-year-old was among the best college guards last season at scoring inside and drawing fouls. In a Q&A with Rookie Wire’s Bryan Kalbrosky, Jones credited current Rockets star James Harden as someone he watched to develop his game.

Here are relevant portions of the Q&A:

You also shot 75.6 percent at the rim, which was the best among high-major players 6-foot-5 or shorter. Did you pick up a lot of that from watching Doncic and Ginobili as well?

MJ: It’s just the people I watch, you know. I’m watching Luka. I’m watching Manu. I’m watching James Harden. As you can see, Harden is not really doing a lot of dunking. He does a lot of more finesse layups or he uses his body to get the defender off and get the fouls. That’s when I really knew I was moving to become elite at foul drawing. Like I knew I could get people to foul me when I started really watching James Harden and watching what he was doing and I started to do it. I started to add it to my game. It just skyrocketed.

You drew 8.1 fouls per 40 minutes, which was the most in the nation. What are some of the strategies that you use to get to get to the free-throw line so often?

MJ: Yeah, I’ve definitely picked that up watching Harden. If you watch back film on me, he used to always do a double between to see what his defender was doing with his hips. He’ll always get lower than the hips of the defender. And when I was watching that a lot, I was like, “Okay, I see.” Once he went past the defender, the defender only had two choices: let him get the layup or a foul.

Once I learned that, I was unstoppable. I really took advantage and I ran with it. That’s the difference between me and a lot of players. This game, it’s not a game to me. I’m here for business and I want to be great. I have a lot of things that I want to still show. What can I do better? That’s exactly what I want to add. You can see that in the game that I played in college basketball this year, doing numbers that people haven’t seen in 20 years. It’s just incredible. But I still got downplayed. But it will all translate to the next level. I’m only getting better.

The complete Q&A with Jones can be read here. He finished as the No. 29 overall prospect on Kalbrosky’s final big board.

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