The all-time Big East NBA mock draft

No. 18 overall pick in 1987

1986-87 St. John’s stats (Senior): 18.9 points, 3.7 rebounds, 6.4 assists per game (lost in 2nd round to DePaul)

Before he was a controversial ESPN commentator, before he was fired in order to usher in the current Warriors dynasty, before hands, and therefore mans, were down, Mark Jackson was basically a 6-foot-1 version of Lonzo Ball. His size would have been a massive detriment to playing today, as he didn’t have elite level athleticism or shooting (We’ll see both further up the list) to compensate then, and that would kill him now. But my lord, could Jackson pick spots and drop dimes. He was a terror on the break, able to one-hand pinpoint passes to teammates, and in the halfcourt he was routinely able to pick spots for Chris Mullin coming off screens. We don’t have his college assist rates, which is a crying shame. But we do know that the ’87 Redmen had 352 total assists, and Jackson had 193 of them by himself. That’s 55.8 percent of his team’s assist numbers. For comparison, Lonzo only had 35.5 percent of his team’s assists, while 2005 Chris Paul only clocked in at 39.9 percent.

Jackson did have significant flaws. He was strong, but wasn’t going to be able to defend twos, and his jumper was decent (41.9 percent from three in 86-87) unless it wasn’t (29.0 percent over his first eight NBA seasons). He wasn’t going to overwhelm anyone athletically. But he was a crafty finisher, he had quick hands and was pretty disciplined on defense coming out of school, and that court vision/touch combo was at the level of guys like Ball, Paul, and John Wall coming out of school. In today’s NBA, he’d need to bulk up significantly, and there would be upside questions. But he could find his way into an NBA rotation despite his physical limitations.