Garrett Temple

Garrett Temple
PG/SG, 6’6, 195lbs, 31 years old, 7 years of experience

As steady as ever, and now featuring consistent decent volume three-point range. Temple’s hybridised game relies upon ball movement, some spot-ups, reliable if unspectacular ball-handling and high intensity pe-rimeter defence. So to a team that lacked for all of those things on the roster as a whole, his minutes were a welcome infusion. Particularly useful for his defensive versatility, Temple has worked his way up in his career not only to decent sized multi-year contracts, but also to potentially having trade value to contending teams. Not bad for a player whose average contract length used to be ten days.

Player Plan: Two years and a combined $16 million remaining, with a player option on the second of those years. Entering the last third of his career, Temple could be a good veteran to have around the young guards, and his contract is not prohibitive, especially on a team with such little committed salary.

Washington will still need to consolidate this position during the season. The injuries to Porter, Beal and now Al Harrington are exposing a real lack of depth, particularly offensively. Backup point guard Eric Maynor has continued to struggle badly since his injury two years ago, shooting only 32% from the field, whie his backup Garrett Temple is similarly inefficient offensively but without any jump shot range and with more turnovers than assists on the season thus far. At the forward spots, Jan Vesely has finally shown some signs of life yet still provides almost nothing offensively, whilst Singleton and Trevor Booker have been mostly opportunity scorers in the NBA thus far. And the two players who can score off the bench, Harrington and Kevin Seraphin, are liabilities defensively and on the glass.

Garrett Temple - Temple began the season with the Spurs, but was released after only two weeks. He subsequently went to the D-League, and averaged 12.4 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists on the stacked Rio Grande Valley Vipers roster, before being traded to the Erie BayHawks last week. Temple is one on the cusp of the NBA, and has considerably improved his three point shooting.

Like Gist, Jerrells, Temple and Gee were covered in the Spurs summer league roster round-up thing. Jerrells averaged 10.8 points and 4.4 assists on 43% shooting; Temple totalled 11 points in his only 1 game; Gee averaged 14.2 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.4 steals, and was the team's best player. All of them did better than Baylor centre Josh Lomers, who in 4 games recorded only 21 minutes, 0 points, 2 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 blocks, 5 turnovers and 11 fouls. Tough week for Josh Lomers.

Garrett Temple

Temple is another benefactor of the Spurs' roster manipulation thing, although he also played with the Rockets and Kings last season. The guard who never scored more than 8.6ppg in college, and who never shot over 40%, is now a much hankered-after NBA player. It seems strange. But Temple shot the ball from the outside in his first professional season much better than expected, and if he can continue to show he's not an offensive liability, then he can make it as a defensive specialist. This is particularly true in San Antonio, where all Temple has to do to impress the fans is not be Keith Bogans.