It was his talent, first and foremost, the drew Stan Van Gundy to Reggie Jackson. Let's be clear about that. Van Gundy saw a guy who, at 6-foot-3, could look the elite point guards in the NBA's golden age at the position in the eye. He saw the way Jackson cradled the basketball like a grapefruit, grabbed defensive rebounds and used his elite speed to lead one-man fast breaks, the way he blew by defenders on pick-and-roll plays and lofted soft floaters over 7-foot shot-blockers in the paint.
But the vast amount of intelligence the Pistons collected on Jackson before shipping Kyle Singer, D.J. Augustin and two future second-round draft picks away to land him also provided a glimpse into his makeup. And that intel told them Jackson was a player who craved responsibility. He wanted the chance to prove he could be entrusted with leadership of an NBA franchise's future.
And that will come. First comes winning the trust of teammates. And to figure out who they are and what they require of you. You can't be a leader without first knowing the needs of those you expect to follow.
That's complicated by joining a team two-thirds of the way through a season, without the benefit of shoulder-to-shoulder off-season workouts and the bonding environment training camp provides.
"He wants to fit in, but he wants to lead, too, which I really like," Van Gundy said. "As he learns more about what we're doing and is more sure about what to say, I think he can really take a leadership role here. You can already see he's got a lot of natural leadership abilities and a desire to lead. That's a real positive."
Van Gundy's endgame is to compete for championships and do it over many seasons. That was the motivation for the Jackson trade – the talent, sure, but the talent in a 24-year-old package that fits nicely with Andre Drummond (21), Greg Monroe (24) and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (22).
It's not an ironclad necessity that a championship contender gets leadership from its point guard, but unless you have a LeBron James or Kevin Durant, it sure helps. Leadership falls to the position as naturally as it does to quarterback. If Jackson can win the trust of his teammates over the last seven weeks of this season, he'll have positioned himself as their leader for perhaps the length of the Van Gundy era, if the coach – and president of basketball operations – gets the long-term deal with Jackson he envisions hammered out this summer.
"I've got to earn my trust around here. I've got to earn my keep, make sure everybody understands I'm here to work hard," said Jackson, who flashes an easy smile and has been visibly engaged with his new teammates since joining them in street clothes for last Friday's win over Chicago before debuting Sunday. "Try to be the best player I can be for the team. Everybody's making it easy. The transition has been going well. They're allowing me to be me."
"I think he's fine," Monroe said of Jackson's balancing act so far – imposing himself as a leader without stepping on toes by being too forceful too soon. "He's been real talkative and I think guys are responding. Everybody here has an understanding of what we're trying to accomplish. It's not like it's just because he's a new guy, guys are going to shut him out. As long as he's coming in with the same intent as everybody else and the same goals that everybody else has, which I think he does, he's been fitting in fine."
Anthony Tolliver knows something about being the new guy. The Pistons are his eighth team since coming to the NBA with San Antonio in 2008 and he's changed uniforms twice at mid-season, including this year when he came from Phoenix in a Christmas eve deal. Tolliver quickly earned respect in the locker room as a consummate pro, but it's a little different being a second-unit forward than a starting point guard.
"I think he's a naturally vocal type of guy. Guys are starting to realize that," Tolliver said. "At the end of the day, he wants one thing – he wants to win. As long as the intentions of people are the same as ours, it's easy to be a good teammate. If he was selfish or someone that just wanted stats and he was saying one thing but doing another, then it would be different. But he's all about winning. He wants to win as bad as anybody on this team. Whenever he says something, everybody responds the right way."
It's helped that Jackson joined the Pistons at a time when their schedule has been slightly less hectic than it was in January, when they played 17 games and had so many back-to-backs sets (five) that practice time was extremely limited. Jackson has already had three practices – a time players tend to linger in the weight room and locker room, bantering and bonding – two pregame walk-throughs and two full games. But it doesn't change the fact that starting point guards changing teams in mid-stream have a daunting challenge.
"It's hard. It's really hard," Van Gundy said. "You don't have a relationship with guys yet. That's why it's tough for point guards and yet, as a point guard, you're expected to organize and lead and everything else. It's a major challenge when you haven't been with a team all year, so not an easy thing and we're cognizant of that."
Long term, Van Gundy already has seen enough of Jackson to have no qualms that for all the reasons beyond his obvious talent, choosing him to be the point guard who steers this young core into the future was the right call.
"I think it'll be great. He's a guy that's looking for that kind of role, to really lead. He's been very positive and very vocal since he's been here, but he's also very careful. He's not going to be the guy who gets on somebody right now. You're not at that point. That has to be done by other guys."
That's for now – when the goal before the Pistons is the No. 8 playoff seed. As their ambitions become loftier – not so far down the road, and within a window that figures to be propped open for a good long while – Reggie Jackson appears willing and able to grab the reins with both hands.