Lol BrickAri. That's a good one. Will be calling him this until proven wrong. You sir are a gentleman and a scholar.
I don't know if its mental or fatigue or if he is working to change his shot. But whatever it is, it did send him in a downward spiral. Last season the same thing seemed to happen to Green and his injury seemed to help out with that.
Jabari is shooting 90% from FT range and 30% from the field/3. Which of those feels like the outlier? Jalen looked wretched last year too. He is forcing his shots again, is impatient at the rim and doesn't look like he has a place in the "system" quite yet. But last night was a step in the right direction for the team as a whole. He'll be fine.
No lies where told, however I still think it's way to early for cause of real concern. He will pull it together. I think we where expecting an immediate impact and we are getting a slow build up. Fact Bari needs to be more aggressive then it will fall into place.
Yup! Eventually those shots will start dropping. We saw the same thing with Green last season, where he was singlehandedly building project homes with all the bricks he was laying down. My guess is that it's a combination of nerves and stamina; tired legs and getting into your own head about your shot can make your shot off and flat. That said, which are you going to place your bets on... a handful of games at the start of a rookie's season or their entire body of work before that?
Looks like he's trying to prove himself. There's times where he goes awhile without getting a clean look and when he gets the ball, he rushes to get a shot. Body language is awful. Not just from him but from everyone. Several times, he took a shot - relatively, good shots - and at least three teammates on the court slouched their shoulders. It's like they don't believe in him right now either. We were told they would run a different offense but it just looks like their playing pickup ball. Everyone pick a turn to try and score.
He's reportedly doing a lot of strength training to gradually put on muscles. This could be messing with his shot as well. Whatever it is, he's in a pretty bad slump, and he'll have to fight to not let it get to him mentally. And maybe throwing the young rookie into the deep end and asking him to sink or swim isn't the best approach. For now, it could be better to cut down his minutes, have him come off the bench and not go up against the opposing team's starters night in and night out.
Like I said the shot will work itself out. The problem is he soft AF which is totally surprising to me. Like I can live with going 1/10 but having 0 free throw attempts when you shooting like that means he was either not trying or afraid to put his body on the line. He is a 6'11 big boned beast but he is more afraid of contact than Jalen Green how does that make any sense? In contrast Banchero is the one fearlessly going to the rack every chance he gets. Really uses his length and quickness to go strong to the rim.
He just doesn't have the skill set right now to break down the defense and draw contact at the rim. Hence why he has a very low free throw rate. The guy is purely a catch and shooter who can't put the ball on the floor at all.
I don't see how coaching will make him hit open shots and jump higher and finish stronger at the rim. But I hope you're right.
Then he wasn’t paying attention. He’s shot this shot maybe once or twice a game. Needs to do it a lot more.
He's not "soft AF", he's just a 19 Y.O. kid who hasn't had the ability or time to put on mass and understand what contact from 250 lb NBA players feels like. You're also asking him to do things that he doesn't even need to do quite yet. Jabari has a dog mentality and always will. That's part of the reason he was ranked so highly. Of the three, Chet and Jabari have a much better "killer" mentality than Paolo. Paolo just has an NBA ready body and his skillset matches. Which is why, surprise surprise, most people said he was going to look better right away vs the other two. Going up against the world's best is a shock to anyone, and very very few rookies have consistent seasons. Paolo will struggle as teams begin to pick up his tendencies. Then you're going to get "wHaTs WrOnG wItH pAoLo" posts. Nothing, he's just a 20 year old kid learning NBA adjustments for the first time. Also the Magic are just as bad as the Rockets. The reason Jabari was in contention for the #1 pick is because he could easily be 6-10 Klay Thompson with better defense. At his peak he's Kevin Garnett with a better 3 pointer. This is still true. If he's still having issues in his 3rd or 4th year (coughcough) then we can say there's a bigger issue at hand.
