I think he was drafted to make open + difficult 3's and play great switchable defense. He's almost there.
I know after games the past couple of years we’ve been down on the team but our core is all 21 and younger. IMO expecting them to breakout in year two or three is still going to be high expectations. I do hope we can continue to exercise patience. Green, Sengun, Bari, Whitmore are all going to need reminders how young they are. Same for Tari and Thompson but less so with these two as they seem to impact the games in so many different ways.
Jabari has logged 60 minutes of SL action. OKC is up next. Curious to see how Smith leads the team. It's fascinating how quickly our lead story went from seeing Amen play to Jabari's breakout campaign. I'm sure someone is already considering giving Jabari the MIP award. But I don't think they offer a trophy for guys being better than they were in last year's summer league.
Jabari couldn’t even hit wide open 3’s last year so for him to be knocking down shots and looking the way he has (actually dribbling and handling the ball) makes all rockets fans excited . I don’t care if it’s summer league.. I see major improvement ! His confidence keeps going up
If we are nitpicking, and there's really no reason to do that, Jabari looked a little soft on some rebounding effort. He was standing. Everyone else was hitting the boards. And there was a 5 minute stretch where he fell in love with the jump shot again and was missing, and at the same time standing, not moving, out at the 3 point line. The difference of course is that now he's attacking with purpose. Still needs to work on finishing but it looks so much better now that he's attacking and it's translating to points. And importantly he knows, when it isn't falling, right back to being aggressive.
I always thought the "he can't dribble" thing was overblown. What is pleasantly surprising to me is how he can finish at the rim at a much higher clip than expected. One glaring weakness coming out of college was his at rim percentage with his size.
I feel his shooting has a bit of Melo feel to it, which is once he gets inside the 3pt line it looks sweet but at 3pt range it looks a bit iffy. There's definitely still room for improvement on the 3pt shooting front but on the flip side we may look to run more plays for him in the mid-range since that shot looks amazing.
These young guys are our future. Not FVV (who was enlisted to lead) or Brooks (who was enlisted to get into fights). What made last year so frustrating for me was watching Silas waste the development of the young guys. Jabari feels like a really "good guy" whose killer instincts are there but require coaching and reinforcement to release. If any 2 of our cast reach anything close to their potential, become All-Stars in the next 3 years, I think we are going to be OK.
I always wondered why Silas didn’t run plays for Jabari to shoot the mid range ! It was so obvious last year that the mid range shot is his greatest shot ! I hope IME takes advantage of his mid range game .. and I’m sure he will!
Amen getting hurt is actually a really big blessing to Jabari. Not that Amen would have been a detriment to Jabari, but it seems like Smith really thrives in dribbling before his shot. Him carrying the ball up from like the mid court setting seems to be the success model for Jabari. I don't think putting him in the Kyle Thompson, running off screens, is going to result in success. He now has the absolute brightest green light to do whatever he wants for the next couple games. Let it rip, Jabari!
I just figured rookie year want to limit what's on his plate. Plus Jabari's handles last year looked really bad. Regardless of whether it's his own limitations or Silas being an idiot, I think that will change this year.
Tbf he barely did it in college and his handles looked absolutely atrocious early on last year, he lost the ball even when just bringing it up the court sometimes and could barely create separation. It is rare to improve that much in a year, so I'm happy this worked out.
Sure, Jabari was an obvious pick at our 3 spot, but the trade up to get Sengun (who Clutch would still trade and make a good argument, in my opinion) was an unexpected move and a good one, as was getting Tari. Picking Green instead of Mobley could and has been argued as a move in the negative column. A strong argument could be made that Stone blew it there, but if he takes Mobley, I would bet that he doesn’t take Sengun. Since I’m a fan of the Turk, and since there is still a chance that Green will bust out and become an elite All Star scorer, I’m calling that even and a possible plus for Stone. Likely an absurd take on my part, but I think Sengun is special. Not so sure about Jalen. He has a lot of work to do. Just to be clear, I think Stone is awful in other aspects of the general manager craft and wouldn’t be at all unhappy if he was replaced.
Well to be honest I think dribbling is overblown. You don't need to massage the rock for 30 secs to score a bucket. Vezenkov became Euroleague mvp by scoring not dribbling. I remember multiple posters saying handles are almost impossible to improve so I think what improved for Jabari is his court awareness not really his dribbling.
