I think some people need to go back and watch the games again. Maybe once, possibly twice. See so many ridiculous takes that can be squashed once viewed. Does it take an audience and a projector to point it out?
Dude he made cross court passes, he lobbed it to guys, he hit cutters, he hit the cross court pass. He's doing fine considering his age and that he's been in the role for less than two years. He's never going to be a 7+ assists per game type of guy, but he doesn't need to be in an offense that has a lot of movement and passing. There are plenty of games where I have my doubts, but this was not one of them.
I don't understand why you think this is an attack on KPJ. Think of it this way: KPJ last game played one of his best games all season (clearly the best game in his recent stretch). He scored 36 on 13-26 shooting, was 6-14 from 3, had 2 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 turnovers. KPJ this season has proven to be one of the best three point shooters off the kickout pass where he just catches and shoots and when he's aggressive, attacking the basket, he can score in bunches most nights. Why wouldn't you want that KPJ all the time? What is the point in hampering him with PG duties where he has to run an offense and make passes that he is going to fail at? His 4 turnovers last night were mostly him passing last second while being aggressive, not him doing the traditional PG thing. It seems pointless to me to keep running KPJ like a traditional PG. If he's a "non-traditional PG," I'm okay with that, but let's just call it how it is: he's at his best when he's aggressive and playing to score. That's when he excels. That's what we should want from him all the time. Is that a knock on him somehow? If so, I don't see it, unless you are doggedly committed for some irrational reason to KPJ being a PG no matter what.
He only had 4 assists because no one other than KPJ and a Green were hitting anything. He should have had a lot more.
Top 4 pick and i'm hype. I don't personally believe any of the top 4 will be busts. So i got no favorite. I can only be disappointed by us dropping out of the top 4 or being top 4 and picking someone completely unexpected or trading away the pick. I don't mind giving KPj another year as i don't even expect us to not be back in the lottery anyway, however, Ivey is a real possibility and i don't believe they will choose KPj over Ivey as a prospect. Tillman $ sign eyes + knowing he will have to pay KPj soon while KPj still displaying maturity issues this season makes it a very real possibility these are the last few games we see KPj in a Rockets uniform. I have no problem personally admitting i've not seen KPj as part of the future and saw him more as an experiment due to his talent level but high risk due to his maturity problems. The same risk Cleveland took at the end of the 1st round when no one else wanted to take that risk. He proved them wrong and it cost us almost nothing for a player that could have easily been playing overseas if we didn't give him the chance. All is well in Houston as long as we have no expectations of winning and letting him do his thing, but i personally would have tested him by asking him to run the show with the 2nd unit and see how he would react emotionally and not taking offense to being benched. I do not believe he has earned the franchise and fans comfort level with the idea of handing out a big contract and commitment to him, but he absolutely deserves another year to run it back - preferably with more authoritative decisions to test his maturity. You absolutely have to see if there's another Cleveland locker room incident waiting to happen once things don't go his way. If it does go wrong. That's starting to look like narcissistic injury and rage due to a fragile and entitled ego, and no longer a young kids mistake chalked up to immaturity that time with John Lucas will help him grow out of.
I just don't see why most think he would accept any role, he does not seem to be selfish none of his outburst has been about playing time or starting, and I don't see anyone beating him out anytime soon he can play with another PG if that guy makes the team better.
If people knew how to take care of their bodies and knew how to work on their game to be efficient, there would be fewer and fewer busts every year.
This 6th man nonsense should stop. The org obviously wants him as a starting PG, either get with it, or get going. DD
The fact that so many people are adamant about it is actually bizarre. Why can't it play out on its own and let someone actually beat him out instead of creating a ceiling for him.
But who is the PG that is better? If we're replacing him with Scoot Henderson in 2023 then great I'm all over that. But why create another hole unnecessarily? Rockets BIGGEST problems are protecting the paint, transition defense and switch D.
Boils down to if u want a traditional pg running the offense or kpj imitating an inferior version of harden offense. Folks wanting kpj to play sixth man aren't considering it a demotion, it's potentially where he would shine best. Man is skilled at offense and wouldn't have to focus on playmaking as much. Can literally focus on scoring. Folks pointing at the assists numbers and clamoring that kpj is good enough r outright ignoring how vanilla our offense looks due to his lack of creative playmaking abilities. We had folks for years btch about how boring iso heavy harden offense was as the main pg, same folks praising kpj for doing a poorer job and with less points If kpj can put up the points, I wouldn't care if he was the faux pg. Man is averaging 15 pts...... Like I said b4 man is gifted at offense, he lacks play making abilities. Spent years listening to folks complain about harden as pg and the moment I want a traditional pg to see what's the hype all about folks get triggered. I still think it's wiser to draft a big man. Defense is quite lacking
I agree. I’m not totally against moving KPJ to small forward if we aren’t a better team next season. I give him a pass for the atrocious lineups snd shooters he was given at the start of the season. Jalen was timid snd not good either. KPJ was bad cause everybody was bad Our backcourt is talented enough for me to start my real judgment on KPJ from all star break until end of next season but we have obvious front court issues now The two 6’10 forwards in the draft should be the teams only major move. Sengun will obviously need help in the paint with more athletic bigs so knock out a couple birds with that top 5. Trade up if you have to If we get Ivey then we will have to wait another year to address our power forward issue unless Wood stays
I agree with a lot of this. I do not consider creating open looks for Sengun and Tate behind the 3 point line playmaking. The Nets switching defense basically killed KPJ's ability to create anything easy for teammates except 3PAs except for a couple of plays to KMJ and an alley-oop or 2. I don't care if the PG is traditional or a combo guard, but the PG needs to be able to make things easier for his teammates by either drawing the defense through scoring or by playmaking easy baskets close to the rim or 3 point shots to dead eye three point shooters. If KPJ plays offense like he has the past 4-5 games, he's probably fine at PG, but better as a SG or a SF. I get that KPJ is the best PG on the team playing this season. If Rockets play another player as the starting PG next season, it would have to be someone not on the team. My biggest problem with KPJ is that other than really recently he seems to have a lot of games when he does some things good, but others bad. Despite him improving his 3 point shot, his TS% efficiency hasn't improved as he has dropped off at rim, in paint, and mid range. I expect his problem inside is that he's the PG and another PG isn't creating easy looks for him inside. Here's to hoping that the last 5 games are the KPJ going forward.
There's only 2 games left. It just makes me wonder y folks r so happy with kpj at pg when he's literally imitating an inferior harden, something that has been btch about for years. If he has the creativity playing making of sengun, I wouldn't complain so much. But our offense is more basic than harden's. Lack of pnr, lack of alley oops, less utilization of corner 3s, kpj can't bait fouls as well or even shoot ft as well. Sure it's his first year doing it, but do u really need more seasons to b able 2 use pnr/alley oops as a 3 year vet?
