Somebody please free Pierre Jackson from the D-League

The last time we checked in with New Orleans Pelicans prospect Pierre Jackson, he was lighting up the D-League and hanging 41 on helpless opponents in the D-League.

Fast forward a few weeks and it's more of the same. On Wednesday, the Idaho Stampede guard dropped 44 points on Rio Grande Valley, doing so on "just" 29 shots, which is a lot but still makes for a very efficient game.

Jackson has now crossed the 40-point plateau five times in 21 games and has scored 30 or more 10 times. He's scored less than 15 points in just one game all season.

In a word, he's been ridiculous.

He's now averaging 29.9 points, 3.7 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.1 steals. He's shooting 45.5 percent overall and 37.1 percent on threes, good for a 56.8 true shooting percentage. His scoring average is robust even for the D-League, as he's blowing away the second-leading scorer by more than five points a game.

(So far on Thursday, he's scored 22 points with five assists through three quarters against Austin.)

We repeat: ridiculous.

Now, if you're asking why the Pelicans haven't called him up yet, there's an interesting wrinkle with Jackson's prospect status. 

Normally teams will assign a player to the D-League while under contract to the team or after waiving them (and they then become available to other teams). With Jackson, however, he never signed his entry-level deal. He was expected to play in France - an overseas development season - but made a late decision to come stateside. 

So while he's Pelicans property and in the D-League (not with the Pelicans Iowa affiliate, mind you), he can't be called up as easily as other prospects. The Pelicans have an open roster spot at present and are well under the luxury tax line but have a fairly set guard rotation. Jackson is almost surely more valuable than Austin Rivers, but calling him up means signing him to a deal and losing flexibility entering the offseason.

As a second round pick, Jackson isn't limited to the first round rookie scale contracts and could sign any length of deal. Lance Stephenson signed an extremely team-friendly four-year deal in a similar situation with the Indiana Pacers three years ago and it's paid off handsomely for the team and soon will for the player.

The issue may be with flexibility - if the Pelicans sign him now, his contract is on the books during the summer, taking up a roster spot and (a small amount of) cap space. They may decide losing that flexibility is worth giving him a trial run down the stretch but they may also just wait to sign him entering next season.

Earlier rumors indicated Jackson was available via trade and he's a name who could come up more often as the Feb. 20 deadline approaches. He'll likely sign on a cheap deal (he has little-to-no negotiating leverage) and could add scoring punch to a second unit.

Until he's called up or traded, however, he'll continue to set fire to the D-League. Those poor, poor defenders.