The total team D is trash can feeder, the entire team of players 22 n younger are only showing flashes And if your 20 yr old is the big reason why you win or lose, then you must have a pretty good young player if that much is on his plate to determine that type of reasoning / outcome The team keeps losing because they are still trying to learn how to win with a core who would be NCAA sophomores right now, in a grown man vet league those youngins have to go thru the growing pains Even the golden boy Bron didn't make postseason first couple or so seasons, and he was way more consistent / better day 1 than anybody on Rockets roster Based on how you rate players they are all a few yrs away from being NBA caliber players
There's no indication right now that Jalen will be a Clarkson or Bradley Beal. He's shown that hed really quick and can drop a lot of points when he's feeling it once in a while. Other than that there's no much of a trend of anything. You are never going to know what you are going to get every night.
Ariza was always a very offensively limited 3 and D player.... Jalen Green is one of the worst defenders in the league...a one way offense only player. If he's as limited as Ariza offensively.... that's really bad. Also, it's "if" not "when" he learns to become an efficient shooter. It's not a given.
I figured. I mean what else can I go on when all you state was you feel like he doesn't care as much. What does that mean? What specific mannerisms are you referring to? Is there a track record of this? What do his previous coaching staffs say about him and his work ethic? If I feel like the narrative of Green being lazy and not caring is coming from thin air ya I'm going to have some assumptions on why that narrative came out of nowhere. Do you have anything? A video clip example? Quote by a teammate or coach?
Sure, and the total team D is greatly dragged down by Jalen Green being one of the most embarrassingly poor defenders in the entire league and by far the worst on the roster.....like, no one is even remotely close to being as bad. When the player with the most shot attempts and highest usage is a highly inconsistent player, then you'll do well when they happen to have a good game and they'll sink you when they struggle. LeBron as a rookie was twice the overall player Jalen is in his sophomore season and Lebron's sophomore season is potentially better than Jalen will ever be overall unless he learns to play even a little bit of defense. Based on how I rate players, there are very few players on the Rockets roster that are net positive players and thus far this season, the biggest negatives have been Jalen, Jabari, and Eric Gordon. Now that's not to mean Jalen and Jabari can't improve, it is just stating the fact that they've been kind of terrible this season.....and I'm not on board with blaming it on anyone and everyone else.
LeBron was twice the player as anybody on this roster in HS Going from 3rd/4th option is a jump n adjustment for any young player just as it is for a young player asked to play diff position Which if the player on a team is getting the most shots then naturally that team is leaning on that player heavily, but usually those players aren't twenty Which is why I mentioned Bron being twice as good and still couldn't reach the playoffs first couple or so seasons The roster is filled with NCAA players and a vet who has tapped out, and collectively they suck on defense, regardless who is the worst of the bunch The two biggest net negative are also the future of the franchise so may as well get the negative out of their system early / now because they are building the future around them and the upcoming pick, which is why they should get the majority of the shots and blame/credit for the wins/losses today and upcoming seasons
No, not really everyone, there are some who are performing much better than Jalen. I'm not on board with assuming Green and Jabari are the future of the franchise, they haven't come close to earning that. Right now, no one has earned "cornerstone" status. Jalen and Jabari have been two of the most disappointing players on the entire team If they want to be seen as the future, they need to do something to earn it. Becoming top 100 players in the NBA would be a good start.
Well they aren't good enough to cover up for the weakest link because they are all avg to poor individual defenders which is why collectively they are horrible You don't have to be on board, Tilman and Stone are running that ship and that ship will sail being its their bias picks under them, similar to how bad Stone wants KPJ to succeed being it was his best trade value wise he has made under his watch Green n Jabari are definitely the cornerstone picks for the new GM, which was signed off by his sponsor who cuts his check, it is what it be Only way they go another route is via injury or by end of rookie deals neither have showed nice improvement, which is highly unlikely but anything can happen TBD
Well I'm not simply saying that I'm personally not on board, I'm saying that I don't believe that is a safe assumption. If Jalen and Jabari keep being 2 of the worst players on the team, the honeymoon period with them will run out and they'll start to be held accountable. Probably won't happen this year, but it could start as early as next year.
If JG/Jabari are the two worst on your team, then your overall team is trash, and everybody would be on notice and shipped out by earliest trade deadline and by latest this off-season Because I find it comedy that two players that can't even buy a alcohol drink and not get into a 21 and up club be the main cause for a team to be like 28/29th in Off/Def That would mean the other surrounding pieces suck hard as well for most part, two wrongs don't make a right, just like comparing horrible players to other horrible players doesn't mean that the horrible player you prop up is better than the other horrible ones
Well, as of right now, they are two of the worst overall players on the team getting more than token minutes. Why would you find that comedy? They are both super young and the Rockets just handed them the keys to the castle without them having to earn it. When it comes to performance, you have Jabari as almost completely worthless offensively and Jalen as almost completely worthless defensively. The team takes a big hit with those two out there on the court so often. Basically when you are relying on players to be good and they are terrible, it drags the whole thing down. Look at the splits, when Jabari and Green show up, the Rockets win, when they play horribly, the Rockets lose....and they've played horribly far more than they've played well. That's pretty much the story of the season thus far. Everyone else (besides EG who is awful too) is doing the best they can to try and make up for the anchor around their necks that is Jabari and Jalen.
Because Stone/Tilman invested high picks in them based on them reaching their potential is why they are thrown into the fire and learning thru experience which is going to be up and down for their selected young cornerstone pieces And being the overall team is super young you give the keys to them by default and build around them during your rebuild construct If one guy who is 19 is struggling Offensively then the others should pick up the slack unless they are limited in doing so, similar to yr older Green struggling on defense But as I said the other parts around them suck as well which is why they rank where they are, super young teams usually struggle, all you can hope for is progress and being competitive and showing passion/love for your craft Which I feel Green n Jabari have in abundance, they are in the crawling phase of career, the walking will come for each by yr 4, if not then you may be on to something Until then nothing we say really matters, its up to the owner and his cohorts
Jalen’s next step is to fix whatever is wrong with his shot. When an amateur like me thinks that I can make some of the shots that he’s missing, there’s a problem. Now, granted, I know he is a much better shooter than I ever will be, but even allowing me to have such thoughts means that he has some stuff to work on
Unfortunately this has been the "next step" since October (though i didn't do any standard deviations I'm just remembering)
Green needs to say F the 3s and take more baseline jumpers - he only takes 1-2 a game but he hits them at a high clip
https://theathletic.com/4058733/2023/01/05/scottie-barnes-evan-mobley-nba-sophomore-ratings/ A year ago, it looked like the 2021 NBA Draft might be special. Ten players from the first round averaged double figures as rookies, with four of them eclipsing 15 points a game — the latter mark being tied for the league’s most by a rookie class since 1992-93 (eight). The top six rookie scorers, all of whom were selected in the top eight picks, were aged either 19 or 20. Surely this class would have multiple All-Stars … right? The only question was whether any of the five players who made first-team All-Rookie could ascend to superstardom. Perhaps this class still will achieve those heights, but 2022-23 hasn’t provided much encouragement. Despite the youth of the class and the strong start it had, the sophomore season for this crew has not gone according to plan. A season and a half into their respective careers, there isn’t one player from this draft whom you’d call a lock to play in a future All-Star Game. Certainly, none of them will be playing in this year’s. Sure, there have been some positive stories amid the downers, but the headliners have mostly disappointed this campaign. Today, I wanted to get into the weeds a little bit and break down where the key players from this draft stand and what’s stood out about their second seasons thus far. I’m not going to get into every single player here — there will be no Kessler Edwards tape breakdowns today. But for the top 20 picks in 2021, plus the others who have been good enough to play regularly, I wanted to take stock of their sophomore campaigns. Whose stock is up, whose stock is down, and what can we say about where these players are headed? (Note that stats are through Tuesday’s games.) Group I: The Underwhelming Top Four Scottie Barnes, Raptors: The 2022 Rookie of the Year has been one of the league’s most confounding mysteries in 2022-23. It’s not that he’s been bad, exactly: He’s averaging 14.8 points per game and two assists for every turnover as a weird hybrid point-center thing in Toronto’s goofy lineups. But if there’s something Barnes is better at this season than he was a year ago, I can’t say what it is. His shooting is still a major negative (30.0 percent from 3), and he’s dropped to just 49.7 percent inside the arc from last season’s 54.3 percent despite a virtually identical shot mix. Because of the shooting, opponents have become increasingly brazen about leaving him alone on the perimeter. If the stalled offensive development is troubling, that pales beside what has happened on defense. The idea behind Barnes was that he was a huge wing who could switch one through five and play disruptive defense anywhere. The reality has been that he is hugely vulnerable in one-on-one matchups; that was a bit of an issue in his rookie season but has mushroomed into a bigger problem. For instance, here’s Barnes escorting Klay Thompson in for a layup: Barnes is 21, he’s huge and he can handle the ball, and all indications are that he’s a wonderful young man. But he still has to develop his skill set at the offensive end, especially as a shooter and finisher, and he has to become more engaged defensively. If none of that happens, he’s still a solid role player, but the Raptors’ future depends on him becoming a leading man. Evan Mobley, Cavaliers: On the one hand, Mobley is clearly elite at the defensive end and is going to have a long, productive career even if he turns into a just-dunks guy on offense. His ability to toggle among different assignments on the perimeter while still offering legit rim protection is one of the biggest reasons the Cavs ranked second in defensive efficiency, even while starting two small guards. He has a real chance of making the All-Defense team in his second season. On the other hand … those Chris Bosh sugar-plum dreams we had seem a long way away right now. Mobley is shooting 22.0 percent from 3 and 70.8 percent from the line; the hopes of him stretching defenses from the 3-point line aren’t coming to fruition. He’s a good touch shooter who looks good dribbling into short and midrange shots, and he’s a good passer for a big man. However, he doesn’t play “big” because he lacks the strength to score on the low block consistently. Too often he gets moved away from the cup or bumped off the ball, like this: Meanwhile, it’s not like he has so much wiggle that he can blow by defenders off the bounce. Mobley’s motor doesn’t always run crazy hot either; he’s not the guy who goes flying down the lane rolling for dunks. So what is he, exactly? Right now, he’s a really good secondary player on an elite team, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. But as with Barnes above, it comes across as a bit underwhelming because his rate stats have hardly budged at all from his rookie season. Jalen Green, Rockets: On the one hand, Green’s first-step quickness and explosion to the rim is undeniable. He looks like a future scoring champ in his best clips and may actually become one some day; even this season, he’s averaging 21.4 points per game. On the other hand, he’s not really a good shooter from anywhere — 32.7 percent from 3, 47.5 percent on 2s — and, in particular, is a bizarrely bad finisher for somebody with so much explosive hop. Green is crazy fast but only plays at one speed, often flying in at full speed when a more controlled attack would serve him better. More jarringly, for such an electric athlete, he probably has more “blown tire” finishes where he fails to elevate than any player in the league. Green’s 58 percent mark on shots at the rim this season is only in the 35th percentile among wings, according to Cleaning the Glass. Here, he comes off a ball screen with a head of steam and room to attack Zach Collins and ends up with a wild fling under Collins’ arms because he can’t get over or around him. You can find a clip like this from virtually every Rockets game: Can we teach this guy a Euro step or what? Green also doesn’t process the game particularly well yet, and on a Rockets team that often looks like they just met a few minutes before tip-off, he often ends up dribbling into tough pull-ups or missing open teammates. Again, Green is still young enough to make good on his considerable promise as the second pick in 2021. But after his strong finish to the 2021-22 season, we haven’t seen any further steps, while the Rockets keep floundering with the same mistakes. Cade Cunningham, Pistons: The top pick in the 2021 draft, Cunningham’s second season was a wash after an early shin injury resulted in season-ending surgery. Truth be told, even before that, he wasn’t exactly carving up the league. In a dozen games, he registered a PER of 14.6 on 49.2 percent true shooting, with the Pistons again force-feeding him crazy high usage despite meh results. For a guy with a sweet stroke, Cunningham also has been weirdly unable to cash in from distance, making 30.9 percent over his first 76 games. One wonders if next year would go better if the Pistons would stop using him like he’s Luka Dončić and instead try to mix in more opportunities in the flow of the game, especially catch-and-shoot 3s. Group II: Trending up Franz Wagner, Magic Alperen Şengün, Rockets Trey Murphy, Pelicans Santi Aldama, Grizzlies Group III: Treading Water Josh Giddey, Thunder Jonathan Kuminga, Warriors Davion Mitchell, Kings Corey Kispert, Wizards Group IV: Trending … not up Jalen Suggs, Magic Ziaire Williams, Grizzlies Chris Duarte, Pacers Moses Moody, Warriors Tre Mann, Thunder Jalen Johnson, Hawks Group V: Bustville James Bouknight, Hornets Kai Jones, Hornets Tier VI: Past the top 20 I’m not going to break down all of them. However, six players have been notable enough to warrant further discussion: Herb Jones, Pelicans Quentin Grimes, Knicks Jose Alvarado, Pelicans Bones Hyland, Nuggets Ayo Dosunmu, Bulls Austin Reaves, Lakers
