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How Bobby Jackson Became the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year

How did Bobby Jackson become Sixth Man of the Year? His path ran through a Nebraska junior college, a crowded backcourt and Rick Adelman's Sacramento Kings.

By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · March 3, 2018

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Bobby Jackson had never been on an airplane when he left North Carolina for Western Nebraska. In Scottsbluff, he found snow, cornfields and a basketball team that wanted him. He told Chris Horwedel that the town embraced him. The trip began a career that would demand several more moves, some of them less welcome.

How did Bobby Jackson become Sixth Man of the Year? He kept working when his minutes shrank in Minnesota, then found a place in Sacramento where his scoring fit. Coach Rick Adelman helped him accept a bench role without asking him to play small. In 2002–03, Jackson won the NBA award while helping the Kings win 59 games.

Why did Bobby Jackson go to Western Nebraska?

Jackson’s first college plan was close to home. He told Horwedel on Tales from the Association, in the episode “Tales from the Association: Bobby Jackson,” that he had committed to Johnson C. Smith in Charlotte. Then he changed his mind. His high school coach knew the coach at Western Nebraska, and Jackson wanted to get away from home.

That meant a flight he had never taken before. Jackson remembered arriving in Scottsbluff and seeing open space, cornfields and snow. The change was sharp. He also remembered teammates he liked and a community that made room for him. Those two years gave him a way to keep playing and a wider view of where basketball might take him.

Horwedel asked if Nebraska had been Jackson’s first sight of cornfields. Yes, Jackson said. Horwedel then compared that first flight with the travel many young players do now. Jackson said the experience had taught him to be open to new places. It is a modest answer for someone whose next basketball stop was Minnesota, which offered yet more winter.

What did Jackson learn at the University of Minnesota?

Jackson said he chose Minnesota partly because he wanted to play for a Black coach. He had never had one. He also wanted a team without a returning player who would command all the coach’s attention. At Minnesota, he found Clem Haskins, whose demands went well beyond game night.

Haskins pushed him. Jackson told Horwedel the coach had prepared him for the NBA, and that he had grown up without a father figure and came to look up to Haskins. They talked about life away from the floor, too. The bond was clear when Jackson spoke about him on the show.

Horwedel mentioned that Willie Burton, another former Minnesota player he had interviewed that day, had described Haskins’s program as something like a minor-league NBA team. Jackson agreed. Haskins was tough, he said, and expected players to represent the school well. For Jackson, that kind of coaching had a point: he wanted to reach the league.

After his junior year, he stayed for his senior season. Jackson told Horwedel he wanted a full year with that group and a chance at the NCAA tournament. Minnesota won 31 games and lost 4 during the season that ran from 1996 into 1997, then reached the Final Four. Jackson remembered the closeness of the team as much as its wins.

There is a necessary footnote. The NCAA later vacated Minnesota’s 1997 tournament results after finding academic misconduct in the program. That ruling changes the official record. It does not change where Jackson and his teammates played that spring, or his account of what Haskins meant to him.

How did the NBA draft lead Jackson to a smaller role?

Jackson worked out for about 15 teams after college, he told Horwedel. He went to the 1997 NBA draft even though he had not received an invitation. He wanted to be there if his name was called. Seattle selected him with the 23rd pick, then traded him to Denver that night.

He had hoped to learn from Seattle guard Gary Payton. Denver gave him something else: a chance to start as a rookie. Jackson said the league’s speed and physical play caught his eye at once. With no established guard ahead of him in the same way, he had to learn while playing.

Jackson also remembered being told he would last only three years in the NBA. Work came first. Horwedel asked about the draft and what Jackson had expected, and Jackson kept returning to the work. He trusted his game more than other people's forecasts.

“I recognized what my role was on that team, and I accepted it and I relished in it.”
— Bobby Jackson, on Tales From the Association

A move to Minnesota in 1999 tested that view. Jackson played behind Stephon Marbury and Terrell Brandon, and he told Horwedel he wanted more minutes. He still pushed them in practice. Kevin Garnett made those sessions fierce, Jackson said. In his telling, Garnett had little patience for anyone who failed to work hard.

Jackson called himself a scoring guard who could play either backcourt spot. He could handle the ball and defend bigger guards, yet he did not see himself as a classic pass-first point guard. That range would help in Sacramento. In Minnesota, it had not guaranteed him a bigger role.

Why did Sacramento fit Bobby Jackson?

Jackson signed with the Kings in 2000. He told Horwedel that their fast style suited the way he played. He also saw a chance to join skilled players who could make him better. After two years of wanting more time in Minnesota, the move gave him a fresh chance to show what he could do.

The Kings had stars and guards of their own. A reserve could still matter every night. Jackson could enter with his own pace, look for a shot and press the other team’s guards. Sacramento’s account of his years there points to his quick drives and pull-up jumper. Those were useful tools for a player expected to score without much time to settle in.

Rick Adelman made the role easier to understand. Jackson called him the best NBA coach he had played for. More to the point, he told Horwedel that Adelman explained what he expected from his sixth man and helped him accept it. Jackson had not lost his wish to start. He had a coach who gave him a clear job anyway.

The team made that bargain easier. Jackson said Sacramento’s players got along on and off the floor. He remembered teammates who wanted one another to succeed. The Kings won 61 games during the season that ran from 2001 into 2002 and reached the Western Conference finals. They were already a strong team when Jackson’s best season arrived.

How did Bobby Jackson become Sixth Man of the Year?

The season that ran from 2002 into 2003 complicates the usual picture of a sixth man. Jackson played 59 games and started 26 of them, filling in for an injured Mike Bibby. Across those starts, he averaged 20.2 points and 4.0 assists. He had spent years making the case that he could do more; now the Kings needed him to prove it.

He still came off the bench in more games than he started. Across the season, Jackson averaged a career-high 15.2 points, along with 3.7 rebounds and 3.1 assists. He shot 46.4 percent from the field. Sacramento won 59 games, and Jackson became the first Kings player to receive the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award.

Those starts matter to the story. Jackson had learned to accept his place in the rotation, but Adelman could also turn to him when the starting point guard was out. He supplied points in the regular role and more points when the job grew. The award recognized a reserve whose value held up under both demands.

Horwedel asked Jackson directly if he was content as an offense-first sixth man or still wanted to start. Jackson did not give the neat answer. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to be a starter,” he said. He also said he knew his role, accepted it and took pride in what the team accomplished. That sounds more like a working arrangement than a sudden change of heart.

What happened after Jackson won the award?

Jackson stayed with Sacramento for two more seasons. When the Kings traded him in 2005, he told Horwedel it hurt more than his earlier trades. He had spent five years there and thought he might finish his career with the team. By then, he knew basketball could move a player without asking how settled he felt.

His NBA career continued through Memphis, New Orleans and Houston before a final season back with the Kings. He played 755 regular-season games over 12 seasons. Later, Sacramento hired him as an assistant coach.

The work changed how he saw the coaches he'd argued with as a player. He saw more from the bench than he had understood at the time. Jackson told Horwedel coaching took more effort than he had noticed as a player. After his playing days, he worked with guards, watched film with them and helped prepare for games. He also got another chance to work with Adelman.

Near the end of the interview, Horwedel asked Jackson for quick thoughts on former teammates. Mike Bibby got one word: “Clutch.” Adelman had helped Jackson learn when to give the ball up and when to take his turn. Jackson needed no time to think about the guard who had once been ahead of him.