Center Grove graduate Trayce Jackson-Davis was part of the USA Basketball Men’s Select Team leading up to the Olympics this summer.
Juan Ocampo | NBAE
“NBA veteran” has a pretty nice ring to it.
A year ago, Trayce Jackson-Davis was an unknown quantity from a pro standpoint. He had excelled at Indiana University, earning All-America honors, but could he find a niche in the pace-and-space NBA as a relatively undersized center who hadn’t shown much ability to operate outside of the post?
The Center Grove graduate has answered that question and several others over the last 12 months, and as he gets set to begin his second professional season this fall, he’s already proven that he can cut it at the next level. Now, it’s about expanding on the foundation he’s laid and going from role player to something more.
Taken with the 57th and penultimate pick in the 2023 NBA draft, Jackson-Davis signed a partially guaranteed four-year deal with the Warriors last summer and earned a spot on the roster. After struggling to get regular minutes in the first half of the season, he gradually worked his way into a larger frontcourt role, getting 24 minutes of action per game in March and April and averaging about 10 points and seven rebounds a night over that closing stretch.
For the season, he finished with averages of 7.9 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.1 blocks in 68 games, shooting a robust 70.2% from the field. He missed the NBA All-Rookie second team by a single vote.
Being able to establish himself as a legitimate rotation big, the 6-foot-9 Jackson-Davis learned a great deal during his rookie campaign and now enters his second season with a greater level of comfort and self-assuredness.
“The work that I put in my first year kind of showed at the end, and I just need to continue to build on that,” he said. “There’s definitely a confidence around my game and around the guys that I play with now. I think that they can trust me a lot more than they were, and I think I have a lot more trust in myself and confidence in myself.”
Just having that first regular season would have been enough of a learning experience, but Jackson-Davis got to build on that over the summer. In late June, he was one of 15 players named to the USA Basketball Men’s Select Team, a group of young talent put together to help the star-studded U.S. Olympic team prepare for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.
The USA Select squad convened in Las Vegas from July 6-8 and scrimmaged against the Olympic team. Running other countries’ plays and helping prep that group of All-Stars for an eventual gold-medal run was “a fantastic feeling,” Jackson-Davis said.
He had played against each of those players during the NBA season, but seeing the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Joel Embiid and Jayson Tatum all on the same team was a new experience.
“It was great,” Jackson-Davis said. “It was really unique just to see how the players reacted to each other and playing against them, but overall it was a blessing, being there with my other rookie, (Warriors teammate Brandin Podziemski), and continue to build that relationship with him but also some of the other guys in the league.”
In addition, Jackson-Davis also played for the Warriors in a pair of NBA Summer League games before returning home to Indiana for a couple of weeks off around family and friends. Earlier this month, he returned to California to get back to work.
Golden State missed the playoffs last season, but Jackson-Davis feels good about the team’s chances to right the ship and become a contender again — especially after he and his teammates had built some momentum in the spring.
“We just need to continue to do what we did at the end of the season,” he said, noting that the Warriors went 27-12 over the final 39 games. “We have the pieces, but we just have to stay healthy and we have to just continue to build and grow. I feel like if we have all of our pieces, we’re still a really tough team to beat. … We still have a top-five player to play the game (Curry) on our team and the best shooter ever, and then we have one of the greatest defensive players to play the game (Draymond Green), and his IQ is second to none. So two guys like that on a team, surrounded by pieces that can shoot, pass and do the little things? I think that’s tough to beat.”
Jackson-Davis plans on being an even bigger part of that equation this coming season. He says he feels a bit more empowered to be more aggressive on the offensive end, and he’s hopeful that by doing so he can open up more opportunities for his teammates.
“Just getting back to what I did at IU, bringing the ball up the court and getting guys open like that,” Jackson-Davis said. “I feel like me being able to guard bigger guys and them having to guard me, if I’m able to bring the ball up and get us into actions quicker, then the big can’t keep up with that and it’s two on one for maybe Steph or maybe Buddy (Hield) or BP, guys like that who can shoot the ball, come off and make a play, and I think that’s going to be tough for teams to deal with.”
