Kinda tells you that the issue was coaching schemes. Also says that Dylan Brooks and FVV are going to make a MASSIVE difference.
^^ nice post and decent logic idk if I would go as far to call jalen green a “premier” sg . I actually thought his best defensive position would be at the 1 . Up until now (maybe) he has not had the size or strength to bother 2/3/4’s etc . I’m sure we can put him in better positions , I’m sure we can put better players around him . but , doing those things does not guarantee that he will be good . What if he was in those positions defensively because other teams were hunting him ? I think the line about “often guarding the other teams best player” is also a bit hyperbolic we had Gordon and kpj at the beginning of the year who wanted that challenge and took it most of the time and Jabari and tari tried to take on that mantle as the season went on . I don’t see dawg and effort. He’s got defensive effort like he’s a premier shooting guard . None of the team success to show tho Seriously , someone post a clip of jalen diving on the floor for the ball .
@O-dawg and @fchowd0311 your cherry-picking of stats and clips and the invectives towards me only trying to mask what is completely obvious even to you: a complete zero on D. On this both the commentariat/ eye test and the advanced aggregate metrics like RAPTOR and DARKO are in complete agreement. You live in Denial Land, desperately trying to subvert the obvious reality.
Another arbitrary standard. Nothing guarantees something in the future, but if anything can be guaranteed then having easier defensive assignments guarantees better defensive output even if his performance does not change 1%. Having said that, it's false that Green guarded the best players often. He had some of the easiest defensive assignments on the roster last season. That was not the problem. The problem was that he was young, skinny, never played for a defense that can hold up and never in his entire life been coached to play successful team defense. Other players have the benefit of college or other coaches or a normal G League tenure. Green was a HS kid with 1 month of G league bubble experience. He walked into a team that didn't care to coach defense, didn't punish bad defense, had no decent wing defender, had no decent POA defender and no rim protector. Every defender on the roster looked worse than they are for that reason. The logical thing would be that regardless of his willingness to play defense, his defense would be a catastrophe. The same as it would be for a 20 year old Kobe Bryant. I'm not saying here that he's KOBE. I'm saying if you think Kobe ended up a pretty good defender, then try to understand that his defense would also be catastrophic if given 32 minutes at age 20 on our roster last season with our coach and our GM. That's why Kobe came off the bench when he was Green's age and still sucked at defense against bench players. That's also true for 20 year old Booker, Lavine, Beal who sucked at defense but somehow ended up worth the max or near it. To treat things as though Green f'ed up real bad and only massive individual defensive improvement could make him worthy of a big extension is just an imaginary position. He has to improve just like anyone who came out of HS and never got taught NBA defense and that's a normal learning curve for a star scoring SG. He's not Paul George like you want him to be, he's more in the mold of a young Kobe Bryant - mostly flashy scoring, not a triple double threat, a long way to go as a defender though willing to give effort. The only good defenders on our team are the ones who showed up as good defenders before joining the Rockets. In fact Gordon, KPJ and Tate all regressed as defenders under this regime. The data you're looking at is massively flawed because the GM forced things to be bad. Oh and YES, the youngsters lost motivation towards the end of those 2 years of brutal tanking. Nothing to be ashamed of there, no one has experienced this level of tanking but the Sixers and Rockets. We pushed it past the limits of human nature. Competitors are not meant to be cool with forced losing. Luka refused to tank 10 games. It will get to them and we discovered it's roughly at the 1-1.5 years mark that those competitors either implode or try to focus on the positives.
Gotcha, so you see clips of him not being a zero on defense and you've been provided stats showing you that he's not a zero on defense but you still maintain your stance. But we're delusional? My bad for trying to have a rational conversation with an irrational person...
The RAPTOR and the commentaries told ya? Wow man that's awesome. I might change my perceptive in things now.
Grant Hill wanted Green. Said even though he wasn't featured much he showed a lot for the limited touches he had. Considering him for the Paris Olympics senior team.
These two are going to be our offensive hubs next season and I think the Green-Sengun PnR might become our most used play. Udoka can really build around it tightening up their execution and adding possibilities for kicking out to open shooters/cutters when the defense collapses. If the play breaks down, they're our two best iso scorers and can make something out of it. This summer is too long!!!
Franchise duo confirmed, but seriously they seem comfy running that two man game, hopefully that synergy carries over and up a notch this upcoming season
Sengun is such a competent roller, you don't have to be necessary a lob target to make plays out of the roll. Green makes good decisions from the PnR, much, much better option for us than Green iso and his aimless weaves through the defense..
There comes a point in time where you say: yeah videos don't mean anything, but there are just so many videos of him working this summer and he had to at least show up to all of them. It's becoming undeniable that he's been working out a lot this summer. First his own trainer workouts, then with Udoka/staff, then with FVV, then Team USA, then some random runs with KD and now Rico Hines. We're starting to cross into "he better get some rest" territory.
It's about that time. Whoever hasn't had a chance to kick Jalen Green while he was down, trust me time is running out. How confident are you feeling after the kind of summer Green put in, the culture Udoka will bring, signing veteran role players who can shoot/defend, cutting out KPJ, Jabari/Tari growing up and getting a real PG? It's going to be a great season.
Well, we're going to have to wait for the process of redemption to take place. I'm not sure when that will be. I don't plan the timing of the chapters, they just kind of happen.
