Jalen Green is young and raw and playing in his first NBA season--how can people not expect him to look like ass early (with some flashes of his incredible athletic ability) and improve over time? He's been better in his latest stretch of games, as the stats mentioned earlier show, and this was 100% predictable.
From the g-league or college there is a leap in the speed of the game to NBA also from those levels there’s a leap in the physicality of the game . even as a #2, green still had to adapt to this . It’s not something that takes only a Few games . The physical aspect will take even longer . I’m excited to see his full skillset being displayed. Of course , he needs to continue to hone his craft. I don’t think it’s our plan to let him slack off either . We haven’t had guys this young on the roster in a while ... and when we did have youngsters they were playing next to james harden . the closest we’ve been to having Jalen green was when we had Jeremy lamb lol . or many people like to compare to Steve Francis .. but Francis was out of college and they are different body types and sizes . on a side note , how sick would it be if green grew an inch or so . I feel like all of our young’s guys have a chance to keep growing ... Cept maybe Garuba .
I think guys here got carried away with how awesome he looked in the summer league (offensively). He's struggled to adjust, but a lot of that has to do with the constant 2 big lineups, I don't know where but I saw that his shooting splits were a lot better when there was only one big on the court
Morant was at 18.6 pts on 6.9 makes and 15.1 shots per game. (Thru 17 games his rookie year) Green is at 14.5 on 5.1 makes and 13.3 shots per game. Green is a little less efficient but also chucking a little less than Morant was. All in all he's falling short of where Ja was but Morant also wasn't on a team competing for the worst in modern history.
That narrative was so 4 months ago, those who pushed that laughable BS have been pretending they never said any of that stuff for a month now.
I'm not disagreeing with your numbers but let's not lose sight of the fact that most rookies outside of maybe the Lebron James of the world are net negatives on their teams when they first enter the league. That is especially the case with high usage types of players as opposed to players who function within their teams (at least as rookies) as role players. The problem with Jalen is the skills we need him to work on are almost entirely contextual in game. We need him learning those things in games - reading NBA speed defenses, developing report with his teammates, learning how to be a leader on the court. He's not going to get those lessons from the bench or playing in scrimmages. I think the other important things to note here, is Houston is in the "Storming" part of the Tuckman's stages of group development. What we are seeing on the court right now is an entire roster who is having to figure out how to work together more effectively and generally that is going to take a little longer because we have so many relatively inexperienced guys on this roster that a lot don't come into the situation with an idea of "how it should be" that is born from NBA level experience. As a guy who has worked with high performing teams in different industries for decades, I can tell you that there is no team immune to the effects of reduced productivity and effectiveness at this stage in a team's development. In other words, you can't judge an individual's effectiveness at this stage - we need to at least get to some stasis(norming), before we can start to be a little more objective about improvements within it - both individual and as a team. ...but that's okay because what we are doing right now is building towards the future - if we wanted to put out the best lineup we could muster every game it would most certainly look different than this rotation. THIS is about accelerating learning of our core at the expense of wins or effectiveness at this stage - slowing down now to speed up later.
That was the reason he was so NBA-ready and why the Green gang said he should have been picked over Mobley. Don't act like you did not see that in multiple threads.
Okay? And why should I care about that? Green isn't going to be more NBA ready playing 14 games in the gleague bubble tournament. Back on topic with Morant and Green... There is a large difference between entering the league at 19 vs 20 because that's when young adults start filling out their frame with muscle. If Green came at 20, you'd see him be slightly heavier with more muscle mass and that would make a pretty large difference in how he started his rookie campaign.
You’re right, I did see that argument plenty. Even from Green himself, but he was trying to sell himself as the number 1 pick so I’m not too mad. Plus I’m sure he believed what he was saying. People had to have been in his ear telling him that considering he had no real base of knowledge to compare one to the other. He should’ve definitely went to college. Look how much more NBA ready Jalen Suggs, Corey Kispert, Jared Butler, and Davion Mitchell look after playing against the very best the NCAA had to offer and going all the way to the championship game in the tournament. Fact is it doesn’t seem like either is a clear cut advantage over the other at this moment. None of those guys are excelling offensively right now even after reaching the pinnacle of what college basketball has to offer. Nix is back in the G League and we don’t know what Kuminga is since he’s on a stacked GSW team. Also 11 games in, Cade Cunningham has a worse overall field goal percentage and 3 point percentage than Jalen Green.
Nobody should be basing anything on offensive stats. Nobody should be judging anybody at this point, it's just amazing the narrative around Green was like he was somehow so much more advanced than Mobley.
No there is not a large difference from 19 to 20 individuals are all different especially considering their frames. Was Ja that much different from 19 to 20? Will Green be that much different in 1 year? The crazy part is the anti-Mobley people kept talking about his body as if he was a finished product. High center of gravity!
