GG Jackson's Surprising Rookie Season and What it Can Tell Us About the 2024 NBA Draft
GG Jackson has far surpassed expectations this season. Where has he found success and can we learn anything about his journey for the 2024 NBA Draft?
Battling expectations is one of the most difficult things for young players to do. Far too often, players get hyped to such a degree that whatever they do on the court is destined to fall short. GG Jackson is a recent prospect who has fallen victim to this and joined the ever-expanding group. Jackson’s road to the NBA was a roller coaster, but the Memphis Grizzlies rookie has quickly shown what all the hype and intrigue was about.
In high school, Jackson was one of the most highly touted prospects in the country. Jackson was once committed to North Carolina before he decommitted and instead headed to South Carolina. Jackson also wasn’t originally part of the 2022 recruiting class that became the 2023 NBA Draft class. Jackson was originally part of the 2023 recruiting class that will be the freshmen in the 2024 NBA Draft class. After reclassifying, Jackson finished as the 16th overall recruit, per ESPN, and became the youngest player in the 2023 NBA Draft by about four months (Dariq Whitehead); Jackson didn’t turn 19 until this last December.
Before we dive into Jackson’s rookie season, it’s important to look at what he did before the NBA. This will allow us to gauge what went wrong, how he’s improved, and how he can be best deployed going forward. Additionally, history tends to repeat itself. To look at Jackson as a one-off would be foolish, so let’s also figure out what we can learn from his journey to apply to the 2024 NBA Draft.
Coming out of college, one of the biggest concerns with Jackson was his maturity. There was the very highly publicized incident where he went to Instagram Live after a loss where he voiced his frustrations over not having the ball in crunch time. Unfortunately, some of those maturity issues carried over into his predraft workouts and have even resurfaced with the Grizzlies as he’s been fined four times and suspended one game for violating team rules.
All of that, when combined with less-than-stellar play, led to Jackson’s predraft buzz being about as muted as possible for someone with his raw talent. The maturity stuff was far from ideal, but it’s also something that we see get way overblown every year. He wasn’t breaking the law or doing heinous things, he was (and very much still is) a young kid who didn’t react well to no longer effortlessly dominating the competition. And it’s the on-court stuff that I think deserves more examination.
It's easy to look back on Jackson’s path to the NBA and view it as a no-brainer. His highlight tape was superb, and he could do a lot of stuff with the ball that very few prospects who are 6’9” can. It was everything else that came between the highlights, though, that drove him down boards. If you kept all of your Jackson stock and fully bought in on him being a sure thing, it was solely based on the flashes and what those could potentially grow into one day.
When we look at Jackson’s lone college season, there isn’t much that screams that he’s an NBA player. Jackson became just the third freshman to be drafted since 2008 while posting a negative box-plus-minus, joining Jalen Hood-Schifino and Ziaire Williams. Additionally, Jackson had an effective field goal rate of just 44.4, an assist rate of just 6.6, and a turnover rate of 17.7. Despite taking nearly 300 2-point field goal attempts, Jackson had a free throw rate of just 26.9 while also shooting 32.4% from three on 10.2 3-point attempts per 100 possessions. Jackson had a supremely high usage of 29.1, but there was nothing that suggested he was ready to score at an NBA level, let alone a college level, as he barely got to the line, only shot 30.7% from two, 32.5% from three, 56% at the rim, 34.2% off the catch, and 30.5% off the bounce. These numbers aren’t meant to tear down Jackson, but instead do the exact opposite by highlighting how unlikely and encouraging this rookie season for him has been.