Jabari Smith Jr. was solid at a lot of things last season. Can he become elite at any of them?

Fifth in a series of Rockets player previews ahead of the 2026-27 season.

Entering his fifth season, Jabari Smith Jr. has secured a regular starting role for the Houston Rockets by … being solid at a lot of different things.

Last season, Smith played and started 77 games, a reliable supplementary piece for coach Ime Udoka. Smith was a decent perimeter defender, floor spacer, defensive rebounder and screener. 

He set per-game career-highs in minutes (35.1), points (15.8), assists (1.9) and effective field goal percentage (54.1%). 

A lot of the time, Smith’s job on offense was to stand in the corner and take 3-pointers when the defense overcommitted to his teammates. Nearly 80% of his makes and 97% of his 3-pointers came off assists. His 36.3% mark on 3-pointers was solid, but unspectacular considering the quality of looks he got (more on that later). Smith did shoot career-bests at the rim and on midrange shots, per Cleaning the Glass. 

Best moving in straight lines, Smith was still relatively limited when creating for himself. His handle was a bit better and he looked best when he was decisive, cutting through the defense before using his height and wingspan to rise over a defender for a midrange shot.

Defensively, Smith took on matchups against larger forwards – players like Julius Randle, Zion Williamson, Kawhi Leonard and Chet Holmgren – and was solid on the perimeter. The Rockets didn’t have him defend the rim too often, something that could change next season, but Smith was a high-level rim protector. On a relatively small but not insignificant sample, opponents shot 6.3 percentage points worse with him defending at the rim, per DataBallr, a mark in the 75th percentile among power forwards.

Estimated plus-minus, a predictive advanced metric that incorporates box score, on-off and tracking data, rated Smith in the 78th percentile among all players. DARKO, a similar predictive metric, put him in the 77th percentile among forwards.

Entering the 2026-27 season, Smith is pencilled into the starting power forward spot and should have a similar role to last season – primarily spacing the floor on offense and guards on one of the opponent’s best forwards on defense.

What to watch in the first 20 games

Do any of Smith’s solid skills blossom into elite ones? This could be fulfilling his promise as a long-range shooter, maintaining his efficiacy defending more shots on higher volume or something else. 

Nerd stat

Smith got a ton of open looks but didn’t convert them at a high enough clip. General manager Rafael Stone said at the end of the 2025-26 season that Smith is a very good shooter, but that Stone’s expectation is he becomes an elite one. The Rockets could really use that to happen.

A successful season for Smith is …

One where he becomes an elite 3-point shooter, maintains his solid perimeter defense and pairs with increased volume defending shots at the rim with similar effectiveness. That would give Houston a stretch, rim protecting big – the perfect compliment to Alperen Şengün. 

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This article originally published at Jabari Smith Jr. was solid at a lot of things last season. Can he become elite at any of them?.