Josh Jackson is a guy other teams should trade for before he breaks out

[bwgood77]

I know most of you have completely given up on him and it's reasonable to do so but I wish we could see what he's made of for one more year. His talent is off the charts, it's just that he's a bit of a headcase. He was the only reason Suns where somewhat watchable in his rookie season. There was literally nobody else. I'll miss seeing his crazy blocks.

Anyways good luck to him, hope he manages to grow up.

Talent alone just isn't enough in this league. Talent (like athleticism) gives you chances but once you run out of chances and have nothing else to fall back on (BBIQ, work ethic, great attitude, focus), you're on your way out. Chriss is ultra talented, Bender is talented and I would readily admit, JJ is ultra talented and I hope he finds a place that can get him on the right track but I'm not particularly optimistic about him. I've just seen far too many talented players just fizzle out and it wasn't because they weren't talented enough.

I’m not saying another team necessarily would have gotten more out of JJ but all those guys are high picks and none of them pan out? That’s brutal for the franchise.

Have to wonder about the front office and the coaching staff, especially if any of those guys do better elsewhere.

But it appears these picks were mistakes.

We had the worst GM at player communications and fostering player development, but we probably had one of the worst coaches in recent memory in Earl Watson for Bender and Chriss' rookie seasons and Josh's first training camp (if you want to call it that) and then Triano and then Josh had 3 SFs on the team better than him in year 2....he may have simply tried to do TOO much when on the floor and forced too much to try and prove himself instead of let the game come to him.

I guess the only silver lining is that we don't have to worry about handing out max contracts to our 2 top 8 picks from 2016 next summer or our top 4 pick from 2017. Hopefully we can keep some cap flexibility.

[wco81]

At the time the pick was made, it was defensible because he seemed to be seen as at least a top 5 pick around the league.

That was just 2 years ago! Can't believe there were no behavioral evaluations back then.

Did he ever get to play with a good passing PG? If they got out to run with him running in from the wing, you'd think he'd be perfect lobs or filling the lane.

That would have built his confidence, at least.

As for shooting, there have been a lot of athletes who came in, couldn't shoot, but became shooters, even great shooters, like Kawhi.

But there have also been a lot of athletes drafted high who never became consistent with a jumper. Especially greater demand to shoot from outside with the emphasis on the 3 these days.

Otherwise, Fox was drafted just after Jackson and he improved his shooting in his second year but he creates the crazy pace that the Kings played with last year. Of course the Suns could only draft one or the other but Jackson would get a lot of easy buckets playing with a PG like Fox.

Now who knows if he'll get many minutes with Memphis but maybe Morant could set him up for some easy buckets in transition.

[bwgood77]

At the time the pick was made, it was defensible because he seemed to be seen as at least a top 5 pick around the league.

That was just 2 years ago! Can't believe there were no behavioral evaluations back then.

Did he ever get to play with a good passing PG? If they got out to run with him running in from the wing, you'd think he'd be perfect lobs or filling the lane.

That would have built his confidence, at least.

As for shooting, there have been a lot of athletes who came in, couldn't shoot, but became shooters, even great shooters, like Kawhi.

But there have also been a lot of athletes drafted high who never became consistent with a jumper. Especially greater demand to shoot from outside with the emphasis on the 3 these days.

Otherwise, Fox was drafted just after Jackson and he improved his shooting in his second year but he creates the crazy pace that the Kings played with last year. Of course the Suns could only draft one or the other but Jackson would get a lot of easy buckets playing with a PG like Fox.

Now who knows if he'll get many minutes with Memphis but maybe Morant could set him up for some easy buckets in transition.

The weird thing is he improved his shooting down the stretch...was shooting like 40% from 3 at the end of the season but his TS% was still dropping.

Look how in March he was over 42% from 3 but his TS% dropped to 48.6%. https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jacksjo02/splits/2019

You can see in his shooting splits that he was terrible at the rim at like 53% and from 3-10 ft he was awful at under 34%....he would drive and just could not finish...he often would go up 1 vs 3 or 4. https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jacksjo02/shooting/2019

I would have never thought his biggest issue would be finishing around the rim and at short range, but that's it, along with having as many turnovers as assists.

[wco81]

I would think that's where someone running pick and roll effectively would help him. They could rotate or kick the ball to him in the wing or corner and he could attack the closeouts and be above the rim in a couple of dribbles.

Or if his defender gets sucked in by the screener diving to the rim, it would set up a lot of easy lobs to him.