OKC Thunder: 3 players who need to step up in Aleksej Pokusevski’s absence
OKC Thunder step-up player No. 3) Justin Jackson
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The player who has potentially the most to with Pokusevski being assigned to the G-League is Justin Jackson. The 6’8″ combination forward struggled to get a foothold in the rotation at the start of the season. Over the last six games, he has made the floor every time. Up until this stretch of games the most he had played in a row was two.
Jackson has clearly been behind Pokusevski in the rotation and the Thunder have been gradually working him into more game time as they knew Pokusevski was going to be absent for a month. The problem is, if Pokusevske explodes in the G-League then Jackson will lose the most time when he comes back.
The other issue for Jackson is never going to take over the offense. He is a nice support piece but has shown over his four years in the league that he can do good things like shoot the 3-ball and penetrate inside but has never taken the next step.
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Jackson is shooting below 20 percent from deep on the season which is clearly not good enough. If he can get some quality minutes where he can work out his role in the offense then he is a good chance of increasing this number.