I hadn’t heard of an Exhibit-9 contract was before Josh Jackson joined the Toronto Raptors. An Exhibit-10 is well known — some guaranteed money, often used as a little top up to join training camp before signing with a team’s G-League affiliate. An Exhibit-9 guarantees nothing: a camp deal and nothing more. It is a contract for the wayward and downtrodden, relative to NBA terms. After being drafted fourth overall by the then-embarrassing Phoenix Suns in 2017 and bouncing from Memphis to Detroit to Sacramento, never finding a home, Jackson seemed lost. On the verge of leaving the NBA, possibly for good.
So he signed an Exhibit-9 contract with the Raptors. It’s about as safe a contract as the Raptors could sign, from the team perspective, which shows just how tenuous Jackson’s standing in the NBA was entering this season. He still might not end up on an NBA roster by the time real games start. But he’s making a very strong case that he should.
Through two games, Jackson has made an argument that poise counts. He has defended excellently but without trying to be too flashy. He has averaged 0.5 blocks and 0.5 steals per game — modest numbers — but he’s not sacrificing positioning to chase gaudy highlights. And throughout his career he’s been excellent at helping force turnovers, so that doesn’t need to be proven. He knows that chasing blocks and steals now won’t earn him a roster spot with the Raptors. He needs to be solid. To prove that he’s not a prospect with promise but a veteran who can fill spot minutes and not make mistakes.
In short, Jackson has not been playing desperately. At least, not in a bad way. Through his entire career, Jackson has had a usage rate at or around the 90th percentile for his position. That’s not going to cut it for a role player who is low on the offensive hierarchy of a new team. Jackson is fighting just to make the Raptors, not to run the offense. And he’s playing like he understands that, with a usage rate below that of Jeff Dowtin, D.J. Wilson, or Dalano Banton. Jackson is taking lots of shots, but he’s under control and finishing — with the highest true shooting percentage on the team outside of Malachi Flynn, who missed the second game of preseason. He’s rarely creating for himself.
Jackson would not be the first end-of-roster-churn player to battle onto Toronto’s roster. Rondae Hollis-Jefferson found a home with the Raptors in 2019-20, and Stanley Johnson did the same during the last two seasons. Both were hardnosed defenders who fought onto the roster through that end of the court. Both were high draft picks who had washed out of multiple NBA stops before reaching Toronto. And both proved at times to be solid, to not make mistakes, and to be trustworthy veterans who were solid end-of-bench options when not asked to do too much.
So far, Jackson is proving to be built in a similar mold. He helped lead a Raptors comeback against the hated Boston Celtics in preseason, taking a horrific 19-point deficit at the start of the fourth quarter and turning it into an overtime win. It was, as far as NBA basketball goes, as good as it gets — regular season or otherwise.
In overtime against the Celtics, Jackson took over. He swept through the lane for a baby hook, spun in transition on the next possession for a finger roll. He finished tied with the most points for Toronto, scoring 13 in just the fourth quarter and overtime. He led the Raps with a plus-24 in his minutes. This is new ground for Jackson’s mold. The most Hollis-Jefferson ever scored in preseason with the Raptors was seven. (His high that regular season would be 21.) The most Johnson scored in preseason with the Raptors was six in 2021. Both were comparable defenders, but Jackson has surpassed both — to this point in their respective Raptors careers — on the other side of the ball.
That matters.
If Jackson is going to make the team, it will be because he is a veteran able to contribute now. He may only be 25 years old, but the Raptors have enough projects on the squad already. In fact, Jackson is fighting against some of them, especially Justin Champagnie, who has yet to appear in preseason because of injury, for Toronto’s final roster spot. Jackson’s ability to contribute now has to be his advantage. And no matter how strong he is on the defensive end, he has to offer abilities on offense to help the team.
He’s not always going to shoot 69.2 percent from the field like he is during preseason. But Toronto needs help pressuring the rim, and Jackson has done his damage as a second-side driver, taking a few dribbles to the rim and finishing. That is crucial because the bench lacks players able to hurt defenses in just that way.
Jackson has some history of success on the drive. As recently as 2020-21, he shot 48.1 percent on a beefy number of drives, which would have actually ranked second on the Raptors last season behind only Pascal Siakam for frequency and accuracy. (Jackson had some ugly years driving the basketball too, to be fair.)
He’s never been a gunner from outside, hitting only 29.2 percent in his career. And he doesn’t have even a small sample size of a single season of success. His career accuracy and frequency are better than Hollis-Jefferson and comparable to Johnson. But through two games Jackson has shot 33.3 percent from deep, better than he’s ever managed in a single season. Sure, it’s certainly a small sample size and means practically nothing as far as prediction goes. But it’s still nice and certainly can’t hurt him when it comes to making the team.
To that point, there’s little more Jackson could realistically do to make the team. And he wouldn’t be in training camp unless he had a realistic chance. Jackson has done all he can to this point. He’s played the gritty yet positional defense Toronto wants from the back end of its roster. And he’s filled in the gaps on the offensive end that the team legitimately needs.
He’s up against players with incumbent advantages. The Raptors have spent a year developing Champagnie, and he has a bright future of his own. Juancho Hernangomez already has a guaranteed contract, and he’s a movie star — he will sell a boatload of jerseys if he makes the team. Elsewhere, Toronto could opt to cut someone like Malachi Flynn, but he was a first-round draft pick by Masai Ujiri. There’s path dependency for a front office when it comes to a player like that, and Flynn has shown great promise this preseason, besides.
Jackson still might not make the Raptors’ roster come opening night. But he’s doing everything he can. That’s what the preseason is for. And for one night, against the Celtics, Jackson and the very players against whom he is competing for the final roster spots put on a show. The games may not count, but the fun sure did. And so did the effort that went into it.
