Josh Jackson
Steals per game
Obviously as a rookie every stat he records will be a career-high. So for Jackson, let’s look at a stat that could be most impressive: steals.
Offensively Jackson will not be leaned on much, if at all, this season. There are simply too many scorers ahead of him to ever need putting the ball in the basket his primary concern. Even rebounding will be a stat that he will not necessarily need to excel in right away because of Tyson Chandler, Alan Williams, T.J. Warren, Marquese Chriss, and presumably Alex Len all with expectations to grab boards without hesitation. Jackson will be able to layoff the block and stay ready for a fastbreak pass, rather than start one.
All that being said, if Josh Jackson can be a lockdown defender with any consistency (let’s not get ahead of ourselves and say he’s Draymond Green or Kawhi Leonard just yet), then we should safely expect that he grabs at least one steal a game his rookie season. If he can average closer to 1.5 in 2017-18, that will be a career-high worth celebrating, and one that we could expect to be broken come 2018-19.