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In October of 1999, Stephen Jackson was waived in training camp by the then-Vancouver Grizzlies, along with Rich King and Antwain Smith, though the latter two wouldn’t make Vancouver regret it, as neither played another minute in the NBA after that.
Jackson, on the other hand, would go on to play 14 seasons in the NBA, winning one championship in his career as a member of the San Antonio Spurs. Besides playing a role in San Antonio’s 2002-03 championship, Jackson also earned Most Improved Player votes twice and even MVP votes (a very small amount) in 2009-10.
Of course, it’s hard to give Vancouver too much grief for waiving Jackson, as he played for eight NBA teams in his career, bouncing around a lot – almost certainly because of his attitude – and didn’t even play in the NBA in 1999-00, the season after the Grizzlies waived him.
It is a bit of a tough look for the Grizzlies, however, considering Vancouver wasn’t exactly a powerhouse at the time Jackson failed to make its roster, with the team going 22-60 that year. The Grizzlies did have a lot of wing depth at the time, though, including one-time All-Star Shareef Abdur-Rahim and veterans Antoine Carr and Dennis Scott.
Jackson did fail to make the team over another young guard, Felipe Lopez, who the team had just invested a first-round pick on a year prior. Lopez wound up playing just four seasons in the NBA. That makes the Jackson waiving look a bit political in the sense that even if Jackson did outplay Lopez in training camp, Vancouver still had to go with Lopez on its roster since it had made a big investment on him and had him on his rookie contract for another two years.
The same applies for another young guard on Vancouver’s roster at the time, Michael Dickerson, a late lottery pick in 1998 who the Grizzlies had acquired in a trade for eventual All-Star Steve Francis. To Vancouver’s credit, Dickerson did at least average 18 points the season after Jackson was waived.
Regardless, in a statistical sense, no one has produced more after being a training camp cut than Jackson. In hindsight, it clearly doesn’t really look like a good decision, especially considering Vancouver had pretty weak young guards at the time. But maybe Jackson needed to get his priorities straight and pay his dues in lowly leagues before getting another shot in the NBA to blossom into the player he eventually became.
