“I love you. I’m not embarrassed.. I love you. It’s like, why don’t we say that every day? Why can’t we say it more often?”

-Evan, from Superbad

Jackson, the player

Stephen Jackson is not a talented basketball player. If you watch Jackson for blazing crossovers, 21-foot fadeaways, or vicious tomahawks, too bad. Jackson can’t do those things. He is unathletic, so he can’t grab rebounds or block shots well.

So what can he do? He can hit 3’s- even with a hand in his face, even in transition, even with 51 seconds left. This generates momentum. He can defend the other team’s best player, and give it his all, even if he can’t deliver on highlight-reel blocks. This establishes the team’s philosophy. He tutors Randolph and Morrow during timeouts, cracks jokes about (with?) Al in the locker room, urges the crowd louder after a big shot. Passion. Loyalty. Unity.

Jackson’s greatest strengths are not reflected in the box score. If momentum shifts and leadership and passion were stats, Jackson would be going somewhere between Paul and Bryant on fantasy draft day.

Jackson, the teammate

A team is like a star. For a star to form, there must first be enough mass to gravitationally contract and form the star’s core. Only then can heat be applied to counteract the contraction and stabilize the star.

You can’t just plop a supernova of a player, like LeBron James, onto a team with no core, like the Cavs. Jackson is the core of our core. All of his individual talents as a player are solely to better the team. He is the quintessential team player—the better version of Posey or Bowen.

In his rightful role, Jackson can do no harm to the team. Just as all Bowen has to do is bring the D and hit corner 3’s at a good clip, all Jackson should be doing is defending, hitting clutch 3’s, and OCCASIONALLY setup/create. Of course, Jackson as #1 option brings naught but ruin. But is it his fault? If Bowen and 14 guys at the Y were a team (in other words, the OKC Thunder) Bowen would be putting up 4/26 games too.

Imagine if we landed LeBron, or if Anthony Morrow takes off his Anthony Morrow costume and reveals himself to be the love child of MJ and Magic. Ellis/Jackson/Maggette/James/Biedrins. Best perimeter shooter/defender? Veteran and emotional leader? Only NBA champion? Stephen Jesse Jackson.

Jackson, the ideal

If LeBron James is the superman, Jackson is the everyman. Our other 2nd round steal—not propelled onto a pedestal by his 50” vertical, nor lifted up by Stern and ESPN. The late David Foster Wallace wrote that professional athletes

“become a transcendent practitioner of an art -- something few of us get to be.” Jackson is among the “few of us” who has climbed every step to what the rest of us merely sit and dream of.

Barack Obama may have inspired black kids to believe they can become president, but Stephen Jackson inspires all of us Warriors fans, rail-thin and laughably fat alike, to believe we can one day make it in the league, too.

“Like, when you went away for (6 games), on your (suspension)…I missed you."