Former Perth Wildcats star Andrew Vlahov says team must find an elite point guard after sacking Mason Jones

Perth Wildcats legend Andrew Vlahov has declared sacked import Mason Jones was always going to be the wrong type of player for this year’s team and the club had no option other than to dump him after only five matches. The Wildcats released Jones last week and are hunting for his replacement as they prepare for upcoming games against Cairns and Illawarra. Vlahov said the NBA G-League’s Finals MVP would be a quality player elsewhere, but the Wildcats made the mistake of signing someone who didn’t fill the missing piece of their puzzle. “He shouldn’t have been here in the first place. He’s the wrong type of guy for this type of team and that was an error from the beginning,” Vlahov told The West Australian. “They’ve got Windler who shoots NBA threes. They’ve got Doolittle who can shoot the three. They’ve got Elijah Pepper who is trigger-happy and Ben Henshall who is trigger-happy. You don’t need a Mason Jones. “I think Mason is a good player, but he was on the wrong team for his skillset.” Vlahov said dumped Illawarra point guard JaQuori McLaughlin would have been a better option, and called for Jaron Rillie to become the starting point guard until the Wildcats find another import. Vlahov said it was obvious that the club had to sign a distributor instead of another scorer. “Clearly you need a tier-one ball handler who knows how to play off the pick-and-roll and bring both JLA (Jo Lual-Acuil) and Kristian Doolittle into it,” he said. “We don’t need more shooters. We’ve got enough of them. We need someone who has high level IQ and bringing the studs into the game. They’re simply not getting the ball in their hands in the right positions and that’s making us unproductive. “Having someone like JLA, you need to bring him into the game a lot more and I feel like Kristian Doolittle isn’t getting the ball in his preferred position enough. I’d be making some tweaks around how that happens. We saw what he can do in the play-offs last year. He is a legit First Team player, but it’s hard for him to score if the ball is never in his hands. “We need someone with an unselfish nature. If I was putting out an AI filter, I’d look at assists before scoring. “It’s still got to be the type of guy who can knock down an open shot. There’s no place in the world for the old school point guard who was pass first and never score. “But I’d go for someone who has speed, can play off the pick-and-roll and is highly competent to defend the other point guards in the league. Scoring would be fourth on the agenda on what is important.”