Shockingly Luka Doncic Did Not Invent Basketball And There's Another Rookie In The West Single Handedly Winning Games For His Team

Listen, there’s no doubt Luka Doncic is having an incredible start to his career. But, this may shock you. So are other rookies. That’s especially true for Jaren Jackson Jr., who was drafted one spot behind Doncic to the Grizzlies. Oh, and while everyone loves to talk about how young Doncic is, Jackson is the youngest person in the NBA.

So what’s Jackson doing? Well, how about ranking seventh in the league in blocks while also limiting opponents to the 10th lowest field goal percentage within 6-feet of the rim according to SI. He’s also 6’11” and shooting over 35% from three. Seems like someone we should be talking about more.

And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Look at these stats from earlier this week:

That’s absolutely unreal when you talk about a rookie. Especially a rookie big. If there’s one thing that history sort of tells us is rookie bigs tend to have a longer learning curve than guards, especially defensively. Jackson is damn near elite already defensively. If that’s not enough he’s becoming a huge offensive threat for the Grizzlies and can play alongside Gasol, giving them two bigs who can step away, pass and you have a 6’11” guy that can shoot. That’s scary.

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Yes, Gasol and Conley being healthy is part of the reason as to why the Grizzlies are off to a 13-9 start after going 22-60 last year. But, Jackson is the other reason. He’s in every sense of the word a ‘unicorn’ one that we like to throw around for bigs that are versatile like this.

So while everyone is going to be talking about Doncic, take a minute to talk about Jackson. He’s a rookie taking the league by storm and making the Grizzlies relevant again.