NBA teams defend based on relativity. Green isn't Luka but on a team like the Rockets, compared to the rest of the roster outside a couple of dudes, he might as well be. When you undervalue Green so much, you will become perplexed on why teams double Harden. Teams just don't double him. When he has the ball he always has a primary defender and at least one big and or wing ignore their primary defensive assignments to cover Green's driving lanes because they are afraid of his propensity to beat perimeter defenders. "Poor ball handlers" are players like Brown who at Green's age averaged more turnovers than assists. Green for his high usage and time of possession for a player his age does not turnover the ball much. His low assist numbers are more of a product of him having blinders when driving to the rim but even then his assist to turnover ratio is not deplorable like actual poor ball handlers at his age like Brown.
That applies to all ball handlers. The goal is to make them give up the ball to someone else or, if lucky, cough up a TO. Case in point, we saw defenses to the same with Harden on this team.
@NewAge just to show you an example of an actually poor ball handler: Jaylen Brown as a sophomore averaged 1.5 minutes per game with the ball in his hands. He averaged 1.8 turnovers. That means he averaged 1.2 turnovers per minute with the ball in his hands. Green as a sophomore averaged 5 minutes per game with the ball in his hands. He averaged 2.6 turnovers. He averaged .5 turnovers per minute with the ball in his hands. Hell I'll give Green the handicap and compare him to modern Jaylen Brown fully developed, much stronger so he gets bumped less with 6 years of NBA experience. Jaylen Brown this year has 3.7 minutes per game with the ball in his hand with 2.9 turnovers per game which is around .8 turnovers per minute with the ball in his hands. For reference Trae Young, an elite ball handler averaged 8 minutes per game with the ball in his hands with 4 turnovers per game. Which is .5 turnovers per minute with the ball in his hands. But for a player like Trae Young I acknowledge that since he is a high level passer, a larger portion of his turnovers probably come off passes than players like Brown and Green but for Brown and Green, a star like this really determines their ball security. You can tell the type of dudes who just use causal narratives rather than actually watching games and carefully looking at context. Yes if you believe the standard narrative you would assume Green is some inefficient high turnover guy. Green really isn't very turnover prone especially given the role he's given at such a young age.
Traps are inherently dangerous because the defense is compromised and are used sparingly. Guys like Harden and Curry will hurt you with the 3ball, so it is a "pick your poison" decision: do I send double coverage and expose myself, or keep single coverage and suffer from a 3-bomb. That is what made the Harden and Curry teams so lethal. With a 20-win team, if you are in a tight possessions game, it makes zero sense to trap Jalen Green, he's not really a threat, make him make the play. Whatever the rest of the cast is, you don't expose yourself to a possible layup by sending a trap. But if it is a game in Houston, you've been to the club till 3 am and playing the lowly Rockets, you take a shortcut and try to punk the kid to cough the ball up. There is a huge difference between Harden/Curry desperation trap and Jalen Green opportunistic trap
Then don't trap Green? He isn't a turnovers prone player and if he's as bad as you say he is, then let him do his thing off the dribble one on one. They want the ball out of his hands. In fact listen to opposing announcers when teams do this to Green and they are like "ya they want the other guys to try to create their own shot and not let Green"
yes, Jaylen Brown is a poor ball-handler, always has been. That doesnt mean blitzing Green is not a decent opportunistic gamble, these things are not related. If I am coach and seen film of him with that shaky handle, I'd blitz him. He'll burn me now and then, but is the right gamble. Never liked the idea of Green handling the ball so far out, that was a dumb Silas thing. What you want to do with Green is to get him a lane, he's a blur and is lethal. I hope Udoka finds a way. The Green off-the-dribble game is trash.
You are doing this thing where you are restating your premise that Green is a poor ball handler and I'm showing how that he isn't but you just completely ignore it and move to form a new premise regarding what team defenses are thinking built on the previous premise of Green being a poor ball handler which we are still disagreeing on. He isn't a poor ball handler. We haven't finished that part yet as you've just completely ignored my post in regards to why he isn't.
Dude, nobody wants the ball out of Green's hands. What teams did, successfully at that, was pressure and punk a bad team. Grinding out a solid fundamental defense against one of the worst teams in basketball is just needless aggravation for teams. Results are results.
I'm not even saying Green is some star right now. I'm saying the RELATIVE difference in talent on the court is what is causing it. Would the Knicks being doing that double if it was Towns in that high post area at the ft line instead of Garuba?
Teams want the ball out of Green's hands if the players on the floor are Garuba, Nix, Smith etc dude. Yes absolutely they do and youll even hear opposing announcers even explicitly say "x coach is trying to take the ball out of Green's hands and letting x(someone like Nix, or Tari etc) create for themselves".
Even when you apply context to the specific Knicks game I showed the clip of, you can easily tell the purpose was to take the ball out of Green's hands as in that first half he was getting to the line at will and scoring 16 pts in the first half with like 0 turnovers and then they magically decided to do these doubles and traps in the second half where he proceeded to score 2 pts. Apply Occam's razor and figure out the purpose. Aw man, a dude who had 0 turnovers in the first half carving us up. Ya let's trap him because he's "turnover prone". Okay bud.
LOL what now? First, just because the team playing us is probably going to the win does NOT mean they should or would do things that take them away from what they would normally do to win. You win by doing winning things. What you are suggesting amounts to playing DOWN to the competition and that's how the Rockets actually ended up getting some of their wins. Secondly, we have all seen Green go off just as we have all seen him make some clutch shots. It makes absolute sense to do everything they can to try and take Green out of his comfort zones especially if it potentially causes a TO.
Agree 100%, people need to stop making it a Jokic or nothing story for Sengun. I'd much rather have a Dream/Jokic hybrid in the post using superior footwork to do whatever he wants. He'll never be the athlete or defender that Dream was, but he's finally somebody who can learn what Dream has to teach in the post, and he has the grace and footwork to actually apply the lessons in game.
There's not THAT much of a difference between those guys. Defenses are happy if ANY of those guys you just listed, including Jalen Green, have the ball in their hands....it means some embarrassing low efficiency garbage is about to happen, or a turnover. Also, he wasn't being trapped to get the ball out of his hands necessarily, he was being trapped because he's an incompetent ball handler who was likely to turn the ball over if they trap him.
I don't think Green is a terrible ballhandler, but that criteria is far too simplistic and heavily biased towards players with more time of possession. A bigger denominator (time of possession) is going to drastically lower the ratio. For example, Klay Thompson averages 1.7 minutes with the ball in his hands and 1.8 turnovers, more than a turnover per minute. Does that mean Klay, with a very low 8.6 TO%, is one of the worst ballhandling shooting guards in the league? Maybe, but all it means for sure is that he rarely dribbles. You even acknowledged that the stat doesn't account for different roles, as it puts Jalen on par with Trae in terms of ball security even though Trae's usage is much higher and he's playing primary playmaker for the Hawks.
I think part of the reason Sengun always looks so much smaller than what they claim his heigh to be is that I think the fact that he has a really long neck makes his practical height much shorter than his actual height. His body and shoulders are at the level of someone who is 6'9, even if his extra long neck makes his technical height 6'11
I mean Klay is one of the worst ball handling guards in the league definitely. If you allow him to pound the rock bad things usually happen hence why he's an a time elite catch and shoot player and time of possession barely makes a blip on those type of possessions. It's when he does stuff that runs the clock on that time of possession that leads to turnovers
It has actually come up quite a few times in response to when people argue that Jokic is bigger and stronger.
