Jaren Jackson Jr, to date, is the favorite to win the Defensive Player of the Year of the NBA season. The Memphis Grizzlies’ long man, who missed the first 16 games of the season due to injury, is currently the leader in blocked shots (3.1 average), to which he adds 1.0 rebounds per game. However, a user on Reddit has raised some suspicions about how real these statistics are, with several valid reasons. let’s start with the fact that of JJJ’s 103 stoppages to date, 66 have come in home games. Not only that: of the 34 recoveries, 22 are related to games played in Memphis.
The finger has thus been pointed toward the statistics officer and some users have investigated further. Some have suspected that the person in charge of counting stats at Grizzlies home games has bet that Jackson Jr will win the Defensive Player of the Year award, and therefore would try to “push” him by inflating his defense-related numbers. User Jon Asaad examined some of Jaren Jackson Jr’s games, and pointed out on Twitter how he some of the stoppages and some of the recoveries awarded to the Grizzlies’ long man are instead to be attributed to teammates.
Milan, Italy. A graduate in Labor Management and Communication for Organizations from Catholic University, I founded BasketUniverso in 2011. Yes, I root for Orlando Magic and do my best not to hide it.
