[4] Jenkins was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he lived in the Brownsville section for six years until moving to Rosedale, Queens.

[2][3] He played in 29 games and averaged 15.0 points and 4.6 rebounds, led his team in free throw percentage (78.0), and finished 10th in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) in scoring (first among freshmen).

[3] On November 30, 2009, in an 84–80 win versus Fairfield, he scored a career-high 38 points on 12-for-17 shooting and went 9-for-9 in free throw attempts.

[8][10] Jenkins became just the third player all-time to win the Haggerty Award three times, joining Jim McMillian (Columbia, 1968–70) and Chris Mullin (St. John's, 1983–85), both of whom later achieved great success at the NBA and/or Olympic levels of competition.

[13] Twenty-two-year-old Jenkins made his NBA debut on December 25, 2011, in the Warriors' 2011–12 season opener against the Los Angeles Clippers.

[15] The rookie's minutes especially increased from March 2012, as Curry was ruled out for the rest of the season and Monta Ellis got traded.

Heading into his second season at Golden State, twenty-three-year-old Jenkins participated in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas throughout July 2012.

[15] Once the season began, Jenkins saw his role on the team diminished severely, getting very little playing time with Curry back healthy and newly-acquired Jack getting most of the backup minutes.

[21] Joining the struggling Sixers, a team well out of the playoff spots and on the verge of tanking for a better draft position, Jenkins was again relegated to the bench, getting sporadic minutes way down in the pecking order behind guards preferred by head coach Doug Collins such as Jrue Holiday, Evan Turner, Nick Young, Damien Wilkins, and even the newly-acquired Justin Holiday who joined several weeks after Jenkins.

[22] At the end of the season, with no firm NBA offers other than several training camp invitations, Jenkins began considering Europe as an option via instructing his agent to pursue those opportunities as well, revealing in later interviews he first got alerted to professional basketball outside the U.S. by fellow Philadelphia benchwarmer Jeremy Pargo who had explained the European club basketball system to him during one of their Sixers team flights while offering personal advice "not to settle for an NBA journeyman career since there is life in European basketball".

[23] On July 30, 2013, following interest from Maccabi Tel Aviv and Olimpia Milano, Jenkins signed a one-year contract with the Serbian team Crvena zvezda,[24][25] citing its superior financial offer as his main consideration due to having no specific knowledge of any European clubs.

[23] Joining the squad coached by Dejan Radonjić, Jenkins came in alongside a number of acquisitions—including center Boban Marjanović, coveted small forward Blake Schilb, shooting guard Jaka Blažič, and power forward Ivan Radenović—as the Adriatic League runner-up looked to reinforce on all positions ahead of its return to Euroleague after 14 years as well as continuation of the chase for its first Adriatic League title domestically.

With Schilb's suddenly increasingly peripheral role in the team due to not fitting in coach Radonjić's plans all of which eventually led to the player being left off the squad in mid January 2014 and the two sides agreeing a negotiated settlement to break off the 3-year deal after only 6 months,[27] Jenkins saw his minutes increase, scoring team-high 16 points in a Eurocup home win versus Bilbao.