It’s how he got there that was not part of the plan.
Once a Clippers linchpin, Jackson is now with Denver as the Western Conference’s top seed plays in the franchise’s first Finals against Miami, the first eighth seed to advance to the final round since 1999.
Jackson, 33, reached the Finals at the end of a season that has been personally difficult but also professionally fortuitous: While injuries stalled the Clippers’ championship hopes in the first round, Jackson still is playing in June.
In Colorado, the state where he starred in high school while looking up to Nuggets stars Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups, “the buzz is crazy,” Jackson said.
He knows from experience. He reached the Finals as a rookie with Oklahoma City in 2012. Though the Thunder lost to Miami, with Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant and James Harden as teammates, Jackson assumed it would be the first of many Finals trips.
The Thunder never got back to basketball’s highest stage. Seven years later he joined the Clippers as they built one of the NBA’s deepest teams behind Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. But they flamed out during the pandemic-restarted 2020 playoffs, and injuries have derailed each of the Clippers’ last three seasons.
“I just thought it was going to be championship after championship after championship,” Jackson told The Times in a phone interview Wednesday. “So being here, taking 11 years, the ups and downs of the business, injuries, changing franchises, yeah, I don’t take it for granted.
“I think the 11-year run has made me realize how much luck you really have to have.”
It has helped to have dominant, healthy teammates. Three years after Jackson and the Clippers lost a 3-1 series lead to Denver in the 2020 postseason, Jackson has seen what makes Nuggets star point guard Jamal Murray and center Nikola Jokic great from an insider’s perspective.
Jackson said he was fascinated to learn how they see the game in a way that is intellectually different than most. Murray told Jackson he was raised in Canada to play center, only transitioning to point guard later. As a youth in Serbia, Jokic was a point guard before growing to become one of the most dominant big men in NBA history.
Jokic is a two-time most valuable player and averaging 29.9 points, 13.3 rebounds and 10.3 assists over 15 games this postseason. Against the Lakers, Murray became the first player to average at least 30 points in a conference final while making 50% of his field goals, 40% of his three-pointers and 90% of his free throws.
“They got one of the best connections in the league and they’re only getting better,” Jackson said. “So it’s a little scary that they’re doing what they’re doing now and they’ve yet to hit their prime.”
Jackson believed his own prime might have passed him by in 2020. Feeling burned out by injuries and his passion for the game diminished, he considered retirement. Months later he formed an unusually strong connection with Clippers fans by talking openly about how he recaptured his passion for basketball and then helping ignite the deepest postseason run in Clippers history as an unexpected offensive force on the way to the 2021 conference finals.
By the 2021-22 season, Jackson was hearing his name chanted inside Crypto.com Arena, and seeing his face on packets of promotional peanut butter and jelly snacks produced by the team.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)
He thought the good times would continue this season, with Kawhi Leonard back from a knee injury that sidelined him all of 2021-22.
“I didn’t really care what the seeding was, just let’s be healthy and let’s be clicking and on all cylinders and we can. Shoot, even as a 10-seed, I think we can get in and win,” Jackson said.
But the Clippers, like Jackson, never found rhythm in the first half. He was benched in January in favor of Terance Mann, whom he said “had earned the starting role.”
“We thought it was going to be a nice little mixing pot but unfortunately it didn’t go the way it did that we wanted it to,” Jackson said. “Even for myself, getting benched, taking a step back and having to really watch the team and just try to feed knowledge as much as I can and shoot, just being happy for Terance Mann.”
Given the Clippers’ lack of trade assets, Jackson looked at his expiring contract and had enough of a hunch he would be dealt that “I had already made a small security bag” of essentials he could take to a new city.
He was sent to Charlotte, which bought out his contract, and he signed in Denver as a free agent. Signed to bolster the bench’s backcourt, his role was reduced after shooting 29% during his first nine games with Denver. In hindsight, he said, it has had the positive effect of solidifying coach Michael Malone’s rotation, allowing role players like Bruce Brown the opportunity to thrive.
In lieu of playing time, he has tried lending his experience to the youngest Nuggets including Peyton Watson, the rookie from Long Beach and UCLA, Christian Braun and Brown.
Jackson’s up-down-up season has required “something of a stoic mindset and just being thankful and very appreciative and understanding that I’m very blessed,” he said. “Honestly, just practicing acceptance. Practice acceptance and then always trying to be a star in your role whatever is asked of you.”
Last week, after sweeping the Lakers in the conference final, the Nuggets buzzed about how they’d looked at one another as time ran out, failing to immediately process that they’d made the Finals.
That night, Jackson said he looked at teammate Jeff Green, who is making his second Finals appearance in 15 years, and saw an expression that matched his own: happiness, but not satisfaction.
“Knowing what a lot of these guys have worked for, knowing what I’ve worked for my whole life, wanting to hoist the trophy and be the last one standing, and getting within three wins my rookie season and never getting quite as close again, yeah, it was hard for me to be as elated,” Jackson said.
“I just wanted guys to remember this is sweet, but the journey is not yet over.”