Who is Bobby Jackson? Four things to know about Nick Nurse’s first coaching-staff hire

The first hiring for Nick Nurse’s 76ers coaching staff surfaced over the weekend, as The Inquirer confirmed that Bobby Jackson will join the team as an assistant.

Here are four things to know about the former NBA Sixth Man of the Year, who has spent more than a decade carving out his post-playing-career coaching role.

Followers of 2000s basketball will likely remember “Action Jackson” for his instant offense and spark-plug energy off the bench, primarily with the Sacramento Kings.

Jackson played 12 NBA seasons with the Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Kings, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, and Houston Rockets. Yet his most successful stint came in Sacramento, where he became one of the franchise’s most beloved players on the championship-contending teams anchored by Chris Webber. Jackson was the league’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2002-03, when he averaged 15.2 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and 1.2 steals per game.

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That vast experience means Jackson could help fill a void similar to former Sixers assistant Sam Cassell in terms of relating with players. Early in Jackson’s coaching career, an NBA.com story described his intense one-on-one matchups during individual workouts.

“When he wins, those are probably the best games I have when we play later that night, because I’m so upset he beat me,” a young Isaiah Thomas said in 2013. “… He tells me I remind him of himself back in the day, just with the heart and the never-back-down mentality that I have.”

Jackson was a self-made player who grew up in Salisbury, N.C., and did not partake in organized basketball until he was a sophomore in high school, according to that 2013 NBA.com story.

He acknowledged that he did not garner major college interest because he did not meet academic requirements. So he first played for Western Nebraska Community College — where he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee before his freshman season — then transferred to Minnesota. There, he helped lead the Golden Gophers to the 1997 Final Four by morphing into a consensus second-team All-American and the Big Ten Player of the Year, which was later vacated as part of the program’s academic fraud scandal.

Jackson was taken 23rd overall in the 1997 NBA draft by the Seattle SuperSonics, before being traded to Denver prior to his rookie season. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie second team after that season.

Jackson spent the last two seasons as the head coach of the G League’s Stockton Kings. He guided that team to a 25-7 record and the playoffs’ top seed before losing to Sioux Falls in the semifinals.

At first glance, that path looks similar to Nurse’s journey from leading a developmental team to becoming an NBA assistant. But Jackson has been on NBA staffs for much of the last decade.

He was an assistant coach for Paul Westphal’s Kings from 2011-13 — including his head coaching debut during Summer League in 2012 — then was a player development coach for the Timberwolves from 2013-15. He was also a regional and college scout for the Kings and later became a player-development coach and assistant under former head coaches Dave Joerger (2018-19) and Luke Walton (2019-21). He was the head coach for Sacramento’s 2021 Summer League championship, before taking the top post in Stockton.

Jackson was inspired to create the Bobby Jackson Foundation after his mother, Sarah, died of breast cancer in 2003. Jackson’s maternal grandmother also died of the disease, prompting him to get involved with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

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Sarah Jackson raised Bobby and his twin sister, Barbara Ann, as a single mother while working two jobs as a hotel manager and house cleaner, according to the foundation’s website. Jackson was able to spend the last weeks of her life with her, after he broke a knuckle in his hand during a 2002 Christmas Day game against the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Bobby Jackson Foundation holds an annual golf tournament to raise funds.