Phoenix Suns: 5 goals for Josh Jackson’s rookie season

2. Earn the starting job at small forward

Josh Jackson is already being penciled in as the fixture at small forward for #TheTimeline, but that doesn’t mean T.J. Warren — who is eligible for a contract extension before the start of the season — will simply roll over and hand him the starting job.

Warren may be the forgotten man in the Suns’ rebuild at the moment, but it’s worth mentioning that he was averaging 17.7 points and 4.3 rebounds per game on 45.8 percent shooting before his mysterious head injury, and that he closed out the season strong, posting 17.6 points and 7.7 rebounds per game on 56 percent shooting after the All-Star break.

As of right now, he should be ahead of Jackson on the depth chart, but Warren looks more like a super-sixth man and less like a long-term starter with each passing day. The Suns may even try him as a small-ball 4 until Jackson gets strong enough to give it a try himself.

In any case, the two will mostly be competing for minutes at the 3, and it’ll be the rookie’s job to come in with the same mentality his front office has in regards to his bright future.

"“We thought Josh Jackson was the best player in the draft,” general manager Ryan McDonough said. “People say, ‘Well yeah, maybe he’s the best two-way player,’ but last I checked, the game was played two ways, you don’t just play one. We really like Josh — his talent, we love his fit for our roster.”"

McDonough, Watson and the rest of the Suns are high on Jackson, but now it’s his job to speed up the process of living up to those expectations and surpass Warren in the rotation.

It probably won’t happen right away, but Jackson should make it his personal goal to chase the inevitable and establish himself as the team’s starting wing by season’s end (and not just because the Suns might be tanking and feeding the youngsters more minutes down the stretch again).