Someone called Jalen and airhead and I think that's his biggest problem. Like he wastes possessions and bricks shots playing like an airhead sometimes. If he was a cerebral player that made good decisions all the time he'd eliminate his wtf plays. But stuff like driving to the rim and getting blocked, missing fts when you know he can shoot, those are things that are result of not thinking and not focusing.
The freethrow misses and dumb drives make him inefficient so far BUT I like what I am seeing in regards to defense and passing. Especially coming off the Sengun pick. Give it 50 games.
His drives take too long to develop. He just doesn't have skill as an iso scorer right now. He's a slasher. I'm also unsure he ever becomes a reliable shooter with the way he shoots across the body. Throw in the total mental lapses off ball and on defense... Three years in, I'm concerned.
The most important thing about +/- (or net rating) is that our starting 5 logged +14 (net rating + 25.1) in 23.5 minutes. All the starters have massive positive impact, certainly Green and even Jabari who finished with +4. Their final +/- numbers are shaped with how they are used with the (problematic) second units and how well/bad the Kings performed in those minutes. Also these second units play a couple minutes together and involves a good amount of luck that effects your +/-. With Jabari, I don't think his low +/- indicates bad performance, or smaller impact. It is rather a structural problem in our roster. We always need a secondary ball handler/scoring threat on the floor. And they are Sengun&Green. When Sengun or Green plays with the second unit, they automatically have one such player on the floor(themselves)!! But Jabari plays in 5s that doesn't have Sengun or green, and he is not the type of player to perform well in that environment, at least not yet. Sengun also has the upside that he never plays with Landale, who is a regular underperformer. For Green, expecting him make the jump at the beginning of this season was unfair and not a realistic expectation. He put up big numbers in his first two seasons but he really did not have a chance to build the fundamentals to make that jump, mostly volume scoring with the same plays all the time without any guidance for improvement from coaching. We are already seeing improvements with Ime, and we should wait for next season, asb at least. He should get stronger as well. He plays smaller than he is on defense. I won't be disappointed by green even if he doesn't put up the numbers like last year. If he is improving, doing the right things, putting in the effort the results will come sooner or later.
The three years thing is misleading. The first two years offered little to none to Green(and Jabari) who never played pro basketball before, and desperately needed good coaching. It is essentially year one of Green, after he spent two years breathing nba atmoshpere. That 2 years should help him advance quickly this year though. Reliable shooting for Green is a must though. I can see the concerns there. It was a similar situation with sengun's shooting. Posters arguing he won't be able to shoot well ever because his % was low. But he literally did not try to shoot at any point in his career, and his form was not bad. The info we had was not negative info, it was quite different than centers with bad shooting forms, who don't shoot because they can't.
“Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them…”
Jalen's gravity as a scorer has won us two games. I'm so far a little disenchanted with how he's started the season but subsequently proud of how he played yesterday. The Kings defensive game plan was to shut him down and he beat them in the end with passing out of their traps to Sengun and then to open shooters. The give and go with Sengun iced the game against the Hornets as well. Cade is chucking in Detroit and they're losing now. I think he's alright and at least showing maturity letting the game come to him.
He is a nice NBA scorer, he is not an all star level player, and is looking like at best he MIGHT make an all star game or two, but is not a dude. He is a tertiary player - and isn't looking likely to be a star - too bad that is what you want from a number 2 pick.... DD
I really really really want to hold out hope for Jalen. And I definitely think it's fair to give him time to adjust to the Ime Udoka system, but damn Jalen makes it hard sometimes.
Jalen is coachable that’s all we can ask for. Last night changed my thoughts of him. He is not Kobe but he is playable. In time maybe even starter worthy. He has changed my expectations of him. Good job Mr. Green! Go Rockets!
I wish Jalen growth aligns with Antman. This kid literally took the franchise and put them on his back! Hes had more help but still his mentality vs Jalen’s is night and day
When I saw Jalen make that quick pass to Jabari, my initial thought the moment the ball left his hand was "Oh here we go again, butter-fingers loses yet another pass and generates a turnover.", only to be quickly stomped out when I saw a cutting Jabari for the dunk. Needless to say, my expectations need to be raised.
Jalen isn't the Rockets' franchise player (that's Alpi), but he has taken some inspiration from Alpi, and I like it:
I mentioned this last year, and people pointed to the stats and how they were similar in second year. Ant is just on a different level and you sense he has the ability to will a team to wins, which is what a star player should be. He is also one of the funniest players in the league, very enjoyable to listen to post game or random interviews, you can tell hes actually very smart and his confidence is real. Ant is the one who was mentally in a better place than vets on his team in high pressure situations, he was the one leading in those situations. Their personalities are almost the opposite. My hope is that Amen ends up being that guy for us, his personality is closer to Ants. Amen and Ant seem to be competitive about everything they do in life, i think this is a quality you want in a player.
