From a meniscus tear in the bubble to knee surgery in the 2022 off-season, the basketball gods have been all but kind to the 2022-2023 Defensive Player of the Year, Jaren Jackson Jr.
The two devastating injuries Jackson Jr. has suffered have set him a page back in his development as a player. However, this year, Jackson Jr. finds himself in a different situation than the previous two seasons.
He has finally entered the window of a full and healthy offseason and has now embarked on a new chapter of his career free from rehab and non-basketball workouts. It’s a chapter where he can focus on honing his craft as a player while also adding new skills to his already versatile repertoire.
If Jackson Jr. can get through this off-season healthy with no setbacks, then an All-NBA season may be on the horizon.
Jaren Jackson Jr. Due for an All-NBA Leap
— Alex (@alexwinton_) July 28, 2023
An Offensive Leap is the Key
Jackson Jr. showed numerous times that he can be the number one option on offense. This was most notably prevalent during Ja Morant’s eight-game absence. In these eight games, Jackson Jr. averaged 20 PPG, including a four-game stretch where he averaged 28 PPG as the leading scorer in those contests.
And with Morant set to miss more than a quarter of next season (25-game suspension), Jackson Jr. will handle much of the offensive load.
Finding a Balance on Offense
With much of the offensive freight weighing onto Jackson Jr.’s shoulders for the start of the season, he will need to find a balanced attack on the offensive side of the ball. This would make him dangerous and unpredictable. Jackson Jr. spent much of the latter half of the season inside the arc when trying to score on the opposition. In previous stretches in his career, Jackson Jr. was primarily only trying to do damage outside the arc. He was almost playing like a true stretch four. If Jackson Jr. can find the sweet spot in the middle of both of these two games and be effective at both, it will make the Grizzlies very hard to guard as a team and drastically increase their ceiling.
For instance, if Jackson Jr. was a threat from the three-point line against the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the 2023 playoffs, the series may have gone the Grizzlies’ way.
How Jackson Jr. Could Have Swung the Lakers Series
One of the main reasons the Lakers beat the Grizzlies in this playoff series was the elite rim protection of Anthony Davis. And with Jackson Jr.’s inability to knock down threes at a consistent clip (shooting 28% on the series), Davis continued to be a menace on the defensive side of the ball.
If Jackson Jr. established himself as a threat behind the arc, then Davis would have been forced to play away from the basket on defense. And when your star player averages the most points in the paint per game out of anyone in the NBA (Morant averaged 16.2 PPG inside the paint in the 2022-2023 season), the inability to pull an elite paint defender away from the basket had huge implications on the outcome of the series.
In conclusion, if Jackson Jr. is able to shoot a high enough percentage from three to be respected, he automatically becomes an All-NBA caliber player and greatly increases the chances of the Grizzlies making a deep playoff run.
Teams would have to now consistently deny him while he is behind the arc, opening numerous avenues for his teammates to be successful along with himself.
With Jackson Jr.’s already potent paint game, a steady three-point stroke gives the defense a number of things to think about when guarding him. This would make him unpredictable and harder to defend. And with a new-found stroke from the long line, it would also space the floor greatly, giving his teammates more room to be effective on the hardwood.
What an All-NBA Jaren Jackson Jr. would look like
An All-NBA Jackson Jr. would simply look like this: The same guy last year that was an elite shot blocker at the rim, and the same player who was versatile enough to defend guards. It would be the same player who was a number one option on offense at times during Morant’s absence. And it would be the same guy from the 2019-2020 season that shot 39% from three.
Jaren Jackson Jr’s peers call him a unicorn for a reason. He can do it all on both sides of the ball. It is just a matter of putting it all together. And if he can find a way to piece all of these skills together, with a full offseason under his belt, then Jackson Jr. could be well on his way to being an All-NBA player.
