With Booker out, this is Josh Jackson’s time to shine

Josh Jackson has faced some fan base rebuke of late. While purported to be better than advertised prior to the season, Jackson has fall far from living up to those expectations thus far.

While much of that could be heaped upon him unfairly merely due to draft selection positioning, it was necessary to compare Jackson recently to third overall selection Jayson Tatum, the other pawn in Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough’s scheme to manipulate the Boston Celtics into avoiding Jackson with the third overall pick so that Jackson would be available fourth.

Tatum, while playing for a much better team in Boston, is having the better rookie year. Not only is he averaging 13.9 points and 5.3 rebounds, but he shooting an incredible 51.3% from beyond the arc in 151 attempts.

Jackson, on the other hand, is forced to play out his rookie season on a team destined for another lottery selection regardless of overall roster health, and has disappointed many Suns fans with his lackluster 9.2 points and 3.5 rebounds per game, while shooting a seriously disappointing 23.8% from 3-point range.

But with Devin Booker out for some time, the versatile Josh Jackson will undoubtedly be offered additional minutes over this stretch, an opportunity that comes with the unfortunate consequence of not having Booker on the court, but one that will assuredly give Jackson the chance to shine.

The Suns’ current model for victory is “Booker and Warren, we need them scorin’.” If even one of those two have an off night, the chances for a Phoenix victory diminish considerably.

Phoenix Suns

We know that in those games where T.J. Warren scores at least 25 points, the team is undefeated at 6-0. When both Warren and Booker score at least 20 points, the Suns are 5-3. But when neither of them reach 20 points, the Suns are 0-6 this season, and Warren has failed to reach the 20 points mark 14 times thus far, of which the team is 2-12. Mathematically, if Warren doesn’t score at least 20 points with Booker out, Phoenix doesn’t look to stand much of a chance.

Warren too isn’t a primary scorer. He gets his points off of one-on-one matchups, mismatches in the post, and slashes, each provided that he wasn’t double-teamed. His own poor outside shooting (he is shooting 17.5% from 3 this year, having only made 7 of his 40 attempts so far) precludes an inability to stretch the defense to any degree given that there is no reason to guard him when over 8 out of every 10 attempts will be missed.

Warren needs another hot scorer to take as much additional defensive pressure off of him as possible opening up the floor and dashing through the lane to quick points.

This is where Jackson can come in.

While not expected to take over Booker’s volume of shot attempts and scoring totals, Jackson will have the opportunity to begin to show the scoring prowess that made the offensive side of his game so anticipated when coming out of college. In doing so, he can take some of the pressure off of T.J. Warren, ultimately opening up his scoring opportunities somewhat and allowing the team to ride him a little bit more on the offensive end.

Logically too there is no one else on the roster than can fill in for Booker’s scoring the way Jackson should be able to do.

While Mike James would certainly love to, and I foresee his minutes spiking in Booker’s absence as well, James’ future is not riding on whether or not he can score 20 points a game, so he can be explicitly coached to look to use this opportunity to help get the younger Suns, such as Jackson, in the offense early.

Marquese Chriss does not create for himself either and takes himself out of games far too often with personal fouls or emotional outbursts that causes his mind to wander from the task at hand. If Chriss could be counted on to keep his cool at all times then I could see him potentially being the leader in the clubhouse to replace Booker. Unfortunately, he is who he seems to be thus far in his early career, and that is someone who is too inconsistent.

Dragan Bender would be an exciting player to see taking a step forward, and with additional shot opportunities from the outside he could see his scoring rise. While Bender possibly attempting seven 3’s a game and hopefully making at least 3 on average would be an excellent step forward and something he can carry over into Booker’s return, it is his inside game – or lack therefore – that is currently holding him back from taking the biggest leap in Booker’s absence.

If the Suns force feed him the ball a bit in the post a few times each game (which I wish  that they would), then I could easily see Bender taking a significant offensive step forward. But since that does not seem to be the case at the moment, I must still lean more heavily on Jackson.

Part of what makes Jackson the best pick to take a step forward while Booker is out is that he has already received a decent portion of his playing time at shooting guard (12% according to basketball-reference’s estimate) which will often be the role that he plays in Booker’s absence so both he and Warren can stay on the court together. It is altogether fitting that Jackson plays some at shooting guard as well since he is a (slightly) better 3-point shooter Warren. Hopefully his volume (and with repetition his percentage) will go up with the guards looking for him on dish outs.

As would be expected, his shooting percentage from the outside when open (as defined by no defender with 6 feet), generally created by such dish out situations, is higher than with a defender nearby, although still a paltry – though workable – 29.7%. Just under one quarter of his 3-point attempts are wide open, but should he work on getting these shots more often and taking them – something that is entirely plausible due to his otherwise poor percentage – he will help open up the lanes for Warren as defenders begin to cheat on Jackson and scoot up to him.

Jackson’s minutes have also fluctuated considerably, something that is mainly attributed to Jay Triano’s willingness to play those who are getting the job done at any given time and not necessarily those players who happened to start that game or have the wealthier contracts.

Not that consistent minutes will make all the difference in Jackson’s statistics, however, consistent minutes would push his averages up to a little bit of a pleasant line similar to his current per-36 stats, 15.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and 2.1 steals. Should he at all improve upon his shooting percentages due to increased focus in the offense (39.2% from the field and the aforementioned 23.8% from 3), then he could even push his scoring numbers slightly higher.

Next: Devin Booker's Injury Could Have Wide-Ranging Effects

Jackson should be the new co-focal point in the offense with Booker out, if nothing else than to give him the reps necessary to hopefully help him become a more experienced and capable offensive force next season. If Jackson can take advantage right now, that could go a long way towards setting himself up as the next great Sun, and one who could be expected to further take the offensive load off of both Booker and Warren, deep into the future.