2018 NBA Draft Prospect Report Part 5: Jaren Jackson Jr.
Offense
Jaren Jackson Jr.’s areas for improvement lie on the offensive end. Despite encouraging improvements over the course of the season, he still looks uncomfortable making decisions with the ball.
He has shown flashes of touch on high-low passes,. But his overall timing and accuracy are both still relatively poor, as shown in this post-entry pass to Miles Bridges.
In a quintessential Jaren Jackson Jr. play from earlier this year, he turns it over on a handoff attempt but manages to recover for a chasedown block.
One of his biggest areas of growth this past year was his ability to attack closeouts. Once nothing more than a straight-line driver, he has now shown the ability to execute spin moves and dump-off passes
In the same game as the last clip, he receives the ball on the perimeter, beats his man off the dribble and dumps it off to Nick Ward before receiving it back for an and-one. He has room for growth as a playmaker but he has shown encouraging signs making decisions on the move.
If he never becomes more than a straight-line driver attacking closeouts, he still has a mean first step. Combined with the threat of his jumper, it can lead to some highlight-reel rack attacks.
Despite the flashes of improvement, his assist-to-turnover ratio ended up standing at a meager 0.63 for the season, with a ratio of 0.57 in the first half and 0.72 in the second half of the year. He has only taken four jumpers off the dribble. At this point there is little evidence to suggest he can become a dynamic creator like Kristaps Porzingis has. But his improvement trajectory also suggests he will not be a black hole.
It seems likely he will become nothing more or less than a valuable support piece on offense that can stretch the floor and beat closeouts. But his ceiling is higher than that based on what he has shown in terms of passing on the move.
His low efficiency finishing at the rim has been another point of concern, but as The Stepien’s Mike Gribanov explains, those numbers can be misleading as they lack context. He is not an elite below-the-rim finisher. But Jackson is an explosive leaper whose numbers would certainly look a lot better had his team put him in the position to catch lobs or rim-run.