There were actually signs Ty Jerome could lead the NBA in scoring originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Through the first week of the NBA season, the leading scorer is...
Wait, that can't be right. Ty Jerome?!
It's hard to imagine that many saw this coming. Yes, it's a small sample size of three games, but the 6-foot-5 guard's 34.7-point average has him ahead of Luka Doncic, Devin Booker, Anthony Edwards, Giannis Antetokounmpo and any other star you can think of.
That might have you wondering one thing.
Is Ty Jerome actually this good?
It's an interesting question without a clear answer — at least, not right now.
ESPN, CBS Sports and The Ringer each released updated player rankings going into the 2026-27 season. Jerome didn't crack any of those sites' top 100, though some of that probably had to do with him appearing in only 15 games last season due to injury.
The season before was actually Jerome's best to date. He played 70 games with the Cleveland Cavaliers, averaging 12.5 points, 3.4 assists and 2.5 rebounds on 51.6 percent shooting from the field and 43.9 percent from 3-point range.
Jerome established himself as one of the NBA's best bench players and finished third in Sixth Man of the Year voting.
Before he turned into a human flamethrower, Jerome was probably best known for getting into a back-and-forth with Paolo Banchero that season, which ended with him telling the Orlando Magic forward that he'd "start on y'all team."
It turns out that he might have been right.
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What's interesting about Jerome's scorching start to the 2026-27 season is that he isn't doing anything drastically different from what he did in 2024-25. He's just doing a lot more of all the stuff he does well.
Like, a lot more.
Jerome has tripled his floater attempts, doubled his 3-point attempts off the dribble and tripled his pick-and-roll possessions. His 1.30 points per pick-and-roll possession are unsustainable — that would be an absurd mark over an entire season — but he's making floaters and pull-up 3s at a similar rate as 2024-25.
You want to know what else is interesting? Jerome played only 15 games last season, but he averaged 19.7 points in 22.6 minutes per game. That's 31.3 points per 36 minutes.
It might seem crazy, but there were actually signs that this could happen.
| 2024-25 | Stat | 2026-27 |
| 3.1 | Floaters per game | 9.7 |
| 56.9 | Floaters FG% | 62.1 |
| 1.9 | Pull-up 3PA | 4.7 |
| 41.8 | Pull-up 3P% | 42.9 |
| 4.7 | Pick-and-roll possessions | 15.7 |
| 1.03 | Pick-and-roll points per possession | 1.30 |
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Those numbers point to another important factor in all of this: Jerome has the greenest of green lights right now.
The Grizzlies have the potential to be feisty this season, but they entered the year without an obvious No. 1 offensive option. Jerome saw the opportunity and grabbed it by the horns.
Jerome's former teammate Stephen Curry noticed how much freedom Jerome is playing with after he dropped 28 points on the Golden State Warriors.
"He was great player when he was here, but he's got a full green light over there to kind of do whatever he wants and run their system, and initiate a lot of their scoring," Curry said of Jerome. "He's a tough cover and got a lot of weapons around him."
The biggest question for Jerome is whether he can stay healthy and keep getting this kind of opportunity.
If he can do both, he's probably not going to be the NBA's leading scorer, but don't be surprised if he's among the league leaders.
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