Five signs Josh Jackson has arrived
By Adam Maynes
Minutes per game
I’ll get to the actual comments by Jay Triano in a few moments, but the ultimate sign of trust for a player is his minutes per game. He cannot accumulate stats, he cannot take big or impressive shots, he can’t make a highlight reel, when he’s on the bench.
And although we didn’t know then the exact reason why, we now know that there was a lack of trust in Jackson’s game by Triano, which makes it easy to go back now and look at the stretch prior to his benching and then right after to notice statistical evidence of Triano’s dis-trust.
In the four games prior to January 2, Jackson averaged only 13.5 minutes per game, hardly that of a young key rotational player. In none of those four games he played even 20 minutes, and in the three final games before his benching, he never even played 13, averaging only 11.5 minutes per outing.
Now in his most recent three games Jackson is averaging 25.9 minutes per game, and even broke the 30 minute mark for the first time since December 20.
Nothing is more indicative of trust than playing time, and it seems like Jackson is well on his way to earning enough minutes to continually make those big, highlight reel, plays.