Jaren Jackson Jr. is entering an important season for his career as the Memphis Grizzlies extended his stay as one of the faces of the franchise. He is now the highest-paid player on the team following his five-year, $240 million contract extension this summer, but his playoff performances leave a lot to be desired from a player of his caliber.
The biggest issues surrounding the former Defensive Player of the Year winner are the foul trouble that always seems to find its way to him in the Grizzlies' biggest games. A Grizzlies rival opponent even displayed his disappointment in Jaren when Draymond Green said, "He's too good to still be getting in foul trouble" after the Golden State Warriors defeated the Grizzlies in a late-season matchup.
Jackson Jr. fouled out of that game, which continued the Grizzlies' freefall from the top half of the Western Conference standings to the bottom half. The Grizzlies and Warriors ended the season with the same record, but their final regular-season game gave the tiebreaker to the Warriors to host their play-in tournament matchup. While his foul issues come at the wrong time, a new coach could help ease Jaren's transition to mitigate them.
Tuomas Iisalo is willing to allow Jackson Jr. to play through foul trouble
Former head coach Taylor Jenkins often took Jaren Jackson Jr. out when he got into foul trouble in nearly all of the team's big games. If he picked up two fouls in the game's opening minutes, he spent the rest of the first quarter on the bench. The same happened if he picked up a third foul early in the second quarter, and if he picked up a fourth foul early in the third quarter.
His rotations often led to Jaren sitting down nearly half of the fourth quarter for rest, but if he picked up a fifth foul, he often barely played the fourth quarter. He was essentially benched by his coach instead of being allowed to learn how to play with the foul trouble.
The above-mentioned regular season matchup against the Warriors saw Jaren Jackson Jr. foul out in only Tuomas Iisalo's third game as head coach because he allowed him to play through it. Jaren went on to have five fouls in two additional games the rest of the season and played 37 minutes in each game for the team, meaning he learned how to play through it.
In the playoffs, when Jaren's foul troubles have been more amplified, he had five fouls in each of the team's last two games against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and he played 38 and 34 minutes in each of those games. The foul trouble has to be cleaned up entering his eighth season, but learning how to play with the foul trouble is just as important, and the team will need that from him as he will be more depended on than ever this season.