Spacing the Floor | Part I: Why Fred Hoiberg-Bulls relationship was doomed from the start

NEW YORK — The NBA’s rookie class is exceeding expectations, and many feel it’ll eventually join 1996 (Allen Iverson, Ray Allen, Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash) and 2003 (LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade) as the best in recent memory.

Dallas’ Luka Doncic and Atlanta’s Trae Young will be forever linked due to their draft-night trade, and Chicago’s Wendell Carter Jr. and Phoenix’s DeAndre Ayton have put up good numbers on underperforming teams.

But of all the impressive first-year players, one wonders if Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr. will wind up being the best of them all, an unexpected development considering the questions about him entering the draft and his standing as the league’s youngest player.

View photos (Amber Matsumoto/Yahoo illustration) More

Scouts had him pegged as the player with the highest ceiling but the least amount of performance certainty. He wore that ugly “potential” label that’s slapped on players who can do a little bit of everything but nothing great.

Watching him play, though, not only is he NBA-ready, but he’s doing it for a team that wouldn’t seem to have the patience for such a young player: the mature, grit-and-grind Memphis Grizzlies.

He defends the rim and can get out to defend the 3-point line, while showing the ability to score in the post and the feel to know where to be on the floor when he doesn’t have the ball.

“I know exactly what it’s like. Granted he was in a different situation than I was in. We were still rebuilding,” point guard Mike Conley Jr. told Yahoo Sports recently. “A guy like him, he knew coming in that we would be really good if he could be really good. And he’s been awesome. He’s been everything we needed.”

Friday night against the Brooklyn Nets was the perfect illustration of the Grizzlies’ partnership with the 6-foot-11 Jackson, and how Jackson’s relentless energy set the stage for an improbable win. The Grizzlies were dragging and allowed the Nets to pull away to a seven-point lead with 33 seconds left.

Then Jackson went to work, nailing a triple and getting fouled to complete a four-point play. Next thing you knew, Jackson nailed a 28-footer to take the air out of the Barclays Center, sending the game to a pair of overtimes where Conley closed matters.

At the end of the night, Jackson’s 36 points were an NBA rookie high this season and he added eight rebounds in 43 minutes.

“No stage is too big for this kid,” Grizzlies coach J.B. Bickerstaff said after the victory, almost stunned.

View photos Jaren Jackson Jr. is the youngest player in the NBA. (AP) More

Jackson playing on a team of veterans is an unusual situation. Injuries created the lottery opportunity for the Grizzlies last year, so instead of tearing the franchise down to the studs, they added one in the draft.

“We knew if we were healthy, we were right back in the mix of things,” Conley told Yahoo Sports, highlighting the amount of pressure Jackson faced coming in.

Jackson’s stats don’t jump off the page — 13.9 points on 52 percent shooting, 35.2 percent from three, 4.5 rebounds, two blocks — but he’s top five in most categories for rookies.

“We knew he could be good. He could shoot, he’s athletic enough to protect the rim, all that stuff,” a high-ranking Grizzlies official told Yahoo Sports. “But no, we didn’t know he would have the feel for the game that he does. He sees the floor so well. He’s a perfect fit with [Marc] Gasol so far. It’s hard to keep the expectations down because we can see what he can become.”

After the best night of his rookie campaign, Jackson admitted his head was spinning because of the fatigue but that was the extent of his shock.

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