…ly awesome.

Jaren Jackson Jr. is best known for his defense. The 2022-23 Defensive Player of the Year became a recent frontrunner for the award again after news broke that Victor Wembanyama was out for the season. Jackson is a shotblocking machine, a player whose mere presence folds up opposing offenses like basketball origami.

I’m not here to talk about the defense.

Instead, I want to focus on the other side of the ball, where Jaren Jackson has a frankly hilarious thirst for one thing, and one thing only: to put the rock on the floor, his shoulder into your chest, and the ball in the bucket.

The “unicorn” label has dangled off him for years, but that’s never quite been right. He certainly has the rim protection part down pat, and he’s a willing three-point shooter. But that undersells his strength as a scorer this season, which is his face-up off-the-dribble game.

Some stretch bigs use their three-ball as their primary weapon. For Jackson, it’s merely a setup, the off-speed pitch to get batters lunging at fastballs. His threat as a shooter means he can start possessions at the top of the key, giving him direct access to attack any open lane.

Attack is the operative word. Jackson throws haymakers and uppercuts, heavy combos only. These aren’t gentle jabs, probes to test a defense before kicking out to a shooter. Jaren Jackson doesn’t believe in passing, unless it’s to him, in which case, hell yeah, brother!

It’s not that JJJ doesn’t share at all (he is around the median in assist rate for a big man); it’s that he specifically does not pass once he’s put his head down and started driving to the hoop, which is most of the time.

Here’s a fun fact about Jackson. He’s 32nd in drives per game with 11.8 (about the same as Giannis); he’s seventh in shots off drives per game. Put another way, he passes less often on his drives than any of the 52 players who average at least 10 drives per match. Horses with blinders want him to improve his peripheral vision.

One nice thing about putting your head down: you can’t see who’s trying to stop you. Jackson has zero fear of attacking the rim. If matched against a top defender, he mounts a one-man campaign to try and ruin his rivals’ odds of snagging his DPOY trophy. It doesn’t always work:

Admirably, it doesn’t deter him:

To be clear, he’s not dunking on heads: JJJ’s 3.4% dunk rate is lower than teammates like Santi Aldama (8.2%), 3-and-D rookie Jaylen Wells (3.8%), and 6’4” shooting guard Vince Williams Jr. (4.7%). But he’s not trying to get that close anyway. Jackson frolics in the paint, dancing around the midrange until he finds an angle to gently loft the ball rimward with one hand. Jackson leads the league in percentage of shots taken from the short midrange, which is usually an inefficient area of the floor to shoot from. Not for this Bear.

Jackson is shooting over 50% on floaters this year, a gargantuan figure typically reserved for the most elite point guards and Nikola Jokic. Jackson is even one of the league’s most prolific launchers of left-handed teardrops despite being right-handed! If he gets a size mismatch (and at 6’11”, 245 pounds as a power forward, he almost always has a size mismatch), he’ll pound little guys into crumbs. On the occasions he gets a center on him, he’ll catch the ball by the tip-off circle, gain a full head of steam, and locomote right through them:

There’s more complexity here than might appear at first glance. Jackson gained a lot of valuable experience reading defenses when he was option 1, 2, 3, and 4 last year amidst an ungodly golf-ball-sized hail of injuries to the rest of the team. His ability to shoot from anywhere around the hoop with either hand means that he can take advantage of spaces that help defenders can’t get to:

Jackson leads the league in shots between five and nine feet from the hoop, but he can also launch one-handed push shots from further than anyone. What do you even do about this fadeaway floater?

The Grizzlies overflow with solid-to-good passers for their position. Ja Morant is elite, Desmond Bane is underrated, and Santi Aldama and Vince Williams are solid playmakers. Someone has to be a play finisher, and Jackson is more than willing to bear that heavy cross.

Aesthetically, I can’t pretend that Jackson is the picture of grace. He has a quicker first step than he should, and he’s stronger than he ought to be, but getting from Point A to Point B looks like work. He lacks the feline fluidity of Antetokounmpo; he’s more of a turbocharged lumberer. Defenders inevitably think they have him stonewalled, but then he puts up a shot right over their heads:

If it works, it works: Jackson is the Grizzlies’ leading scorer on above-average true shooting (59.3%). It’s a good thing. Ja Morant has been in and out of the lineup all year and hasn’t quite looked like Ja Morant when he’s been out there. The Grizzlies abide: they have been a very good team when JJJ plays without Morant (+7.9 points per 100 possessions).

Considering that JJJ has been the team’s best defender and top scorer, it’s no surprise that he leads the team in on/off rating by a mile.

Memphis is neck-and-neck with Denver for the two-seed in the West right now (as they always seem to be). Questions about how far a Jackson-led team can go in the playoffs are valid: Memphis is just 6-10 against top-10 teams. For them to reach their dreams, they’ll likely need Morant to not just return to form but improve upon his best.

But that’s not Jaren Jackson Jr.’s problem. There is something refreshing about the single-mindedness with which he approaches each possession. He’s doing his job. It’s up to Morant and everyone else to elevate their game and match his level.