Franklin Willis Jackson (born May 4, 1998) is an American basketball player for the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The freshman guard was ranked as a five-star recruit, with a 94 recruiting grade, and was the #11 player in the class of 2016 and the top college prospect in the state of Utah, according to ESPN. Jackson lived in Alpine, Utah, and committed to Duke on September 1, 2015.
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High school career
Franklin attended Lehi High School as a freshman before transferring to Lone Peak High School as a sophomore. As a sophomore in 2014, Jackson averaged 17.9 points a game and helped his team, along with 4-star future BYU recruit TJ Haws, win the Utah 5A state championship. As a junior, he averaged 26.9 Points per game, 4.5 rebounds per game, and 2.0 steals earning Fourth-team Maxpreps All-American, Salt Lake Tribune All-state honors and First Team All USA Utah selection. During the 2015 summer, Jackson then was invited to the Under Armour Elite 24 Invitational in Brooklyn, New York where he performed extremely well and out-shined the competition, where he scored 20 points earning Co-MVP honors, including recording an in-game, 360-degree fastbreak dunk that was much-talked about and replayed throughout the televised broadcast. Jackson later competed in camps such as, NBPA Top 100 Camp and Adidas Nations camps. More Highlights of his junior season include a 54-point outing on December 18, 2014, against Clark County (Nev.) in the Jerry Tarkanian Classic setting a Lone Peak Record in points. Jackson averaged 24 points and 2.7 assists in 10 games on the Adidas Uprising Gauntlet circuit with his AAU team, the Utah Prospects. His AAU coach called Jackson "more skilled at this age than Russell Westbrook was." As a senior, he averaged 28.1 points per game, 6.4 rebounds per game, and 3.0 assist per game while being named Utah Mr. Basketball, Salt Lake Tribune player of the year. Jackson was named a McDonald's All-American in January 2016, and competed in both the Powerade Jam Fest, where he won the Slam Dunk Competition, and in the All-Star game on March 30, 2016, at the United Center in Chicago, IL, scoring 19 points en route to earning Co-MVP honors alongside teammate Josh Jackson (no relation), who also had 19 for the victorious West squad. Jackson was also selected to the 2016 Jordan Brand Classic. Jackson was ranked #10 overall player and #4 at his position in the 2016 high school class according to ESPN.
Recruiting
Jackson was recruited by Duke, Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, Maryland, Stanford, UCLA, and Utah. He originally committed to BYU as a freshman but backed out after receiving interest from other schools. On September 1, 2015, Jackson committed to Duke.
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College career
In his only season at Duke, Jackson started 16 of Duke's 36 games and averaged 10.9 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.7 assists. He shot 40 percent from behind the arc and 54 percent on 2-point shots. On May 12, 2017, he announced that he was signing with an agent, forgoing his three remaining collegiate seasons.
Professional career
On June 22nd, 2017, Jackson was drafted 31st overall by the Charlotte Hornets but was quickly traded to the New Orleans Pelicans.
Personal life
Jackson is the son of former Utah state senator Al Jackson, and the second-oldest of five children. Jackson is a Mormon. Although growing up he wanted to serve a mission for the LDS Church he has decided to focus on basketball but take as many opportunities as possible to use his fame to raise awareness about the LDS Church. He has also lived in Oregon and Washington, D.C., where his father worked as a lobbyist for the aerospace industry.
Jackson's father is African-American and his mother, Juleen, is Euro-American and was born and raised in Utah.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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