Josh Jackson
Summer League be damned, Josh Jackson is a good player and a good scorer. To think that his poor Las Vegas turnout is going to be a reflection on his regular season play is to believe that a player who averaged 17.2 points and 5.6 rebounds over his final 39 games played as a rookie against actual pros is a fluke because he didn’t average 30+ plus in Vegas exhibition games with very little team structure.
Would it have been nice to have seen Jackson dominate? Absolutely. But take this into consideration: he also left Las Vegas unhurt.
Jackson is going to prove that the second half of the 2017-18 season was no fluke and that he truly is the above average scorer and defender that we all hoped he would be when Phoenix selected him fourth overall.
To do this he is going to have to compete against Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton for scoring, but that won’t matter: he’ll get his touches and he’ll get his points no problem.
My bold prediction for Jackson is that he is going to be the team’s second leading scorer in 2018-19, finishing well below Devin Booker, but still above Deandre Ayton.
While some people believe that Jackson is going to be a moderate player in the NBA, I believe that he has the ability to be the next Shawn Marion, a legitimate and fair projection, one that would be fantastic on this team and make him one helluva player for many years coming.