Obviously, I'm not comparing Jalen to people with injury risks or extreme behavioral problems but if I have to make that disclaimer, then fine. I would think that's understood but since everyone turns into Amelia Bedelia to try to win an argument on a message board then fine - I'm comparing Jalen to other players with no obvious red flags off the court or from a health perspective.
@ThatBoyNick Come on guys - context matters. Malik Monk playing 13 minutes a game against backups is not the same as Jalen being the handed the ball as the primary creator on a dysfunctional offense(read Silas coached) playing 30+ minutes with the opposing team's best defenders being locked on him for all those minutes. You think showcasing those numbers makes you look smarter and the irresponsible way you are using them to support your narrative just proves the opposite.
Lol wut. Dude averaged 9 ppg, the same amount of turnovers as assists and on worse scoring efficiency than Green at the same stage. Wtf are you talking about?
Yes and No. If all those guys do as well as we hope, they are all going to want to be paid when their rookie contracts end. And given when they came into the league, it will all happen for them about the same time. Unfortunately, we cant pay them all. So its unlikely we can keep all of them long term.
That’s not it. Behavior risk was mitigated by the options. KPJ was a better player than Green, much better. Not sure at all that Flash&Trash guards on bad teams get MAX… Christian Wood, while not a guard, was also our best player in his extension year and was talking MAX. We didn’t give it to him, and it turns out he’s actually a MIN player. I’m holding the line on Green, highly doubtful he’ll get a MAX offer sheet in RFA, but if he does I have the optionality to think it through then and match. You give MAX extension to franchise guys, Green is not, despite his talent.
One is in an appropriate role, the other is simply given a much larger role than their talent supports. If you put Monk on last year's Rockets and let him chuck as much as he wanted to, you'd see 20+ points per game too and he'd do so more efficiently...while playing better defense, still bad, but better.
Which is why we'll have to pick the best and let some of the rest go. Right now, no one is a for sure keeper, the hope is this season we'll start to pencil in some names as for sure keepers. I think Tari will be one, but not a max type guy, we have some time when it comes to Cam and Amen, but the time is starting to run out for Sengun and Green so you'd hope the team knows one way or the other by the end of the season.
I think it's too early to judge JG because he's been in a completely dysfunctional environment his first 3 years. We don't know how he's going to respond to having a legit HC for the first time. One who holds him accountable, demands unselfish and smart behavior on offense and legit effort on defense. JG defintely has a lot to prove, but I'll wait until mid/late-January before pronouncing judgement on his ceiling. Last thing: Max offers are not limited to franchise players. The team must decide whether to "overpay" or to sour the relationship with the player and possibly lose him for nothing.
Respectfully I disagree and I don't think Monk has ever showed anywhere close to the promise on the court that Green has but I'm totally willing to let this year's performance be a make or break moment for Green - and you can 'told me so' later if Green doesn't show improvements in efficiency this year. Again, it can't be understated just how atrocious Silas' offense was around Green - the guy was going 1 on 4 because his team was just standing around because Silas' "offense" was just stand around and let one player try to break down several guys in one on one AND if the situation calls for it make the right read. I do agree that Green was simply not cut out for that role(neither was KPJ) and Silas shamefully stuck with the offensive system designed for ball dominant savants like Luka and Harden but I can see that if you don't understand how usage and system has a great impact on Green's subpar numbers then you would think the problem is Green and not exceptionally tone deaf coaching. I don't expect Udoka to get it all right either and Green certainly has a lot to work on as well, but judging from what Udoka has said and shown in preseason so far, I think it's fair to say there is far more awareness this year being given to maximizing the skills players do well and minimizing the things they don't do well which is really about a good 'system' driving better efficiency. A good examples of this is how Udoka has already made Sengun look better defensively in pick and roll coverage by just having him meet the offensive player on level rather than sinking and recovering on the other side of screens. One just has to watch the Lillard torching Sengun game to see how clueless Silas was there.
Fair enough, so long as we can agree that this year there won't be any more excuses made for his performance. If he finally starts looking like a quality player, great, if not....we need to start having a discussion about what his proper role really should be.
…some of the points I responded to Bobby on are true here as well(Silas’ trash system making everyone look like trash) but I'll add that the decision of whether or not to max has NOTHING to do with whether you think they are a cornerstone of your future team. He is an asset we have invested time in and have intentionally lost games for the opportunity to pick. The investment in him at this point is super high so Houston has to see a return on that investment at all costs - otherwise we have been tanking for NOTHING. If you don't believe he is a necessary part of our future, you still have to look at the market to see what teams are willing to pay for him and try to extract value for him that way and that could mean you sign him to a max with the intention of trading him for someone else's max contract or several role players/picks. I think you'll find that as long as he is an offensive player other teams have to scheme for(that is certainly true today), then there will probably be multiple teams willing to give him a max just on the chance that maybe just maybe Houston's office and coaching situation is really poor...ultimately I think Jalen's decision making and consistency have been problematic in the early part of his career but then again that's the problem with most young players so I would think there would be more than a few teams willing to bet on Houston's organization incompetence and/or young players being young because despite all the less flattering parts of his game, Jalen still looks like a guy who could lead the league in scoring one day and you rarely have the opportunity to acquire players like that.
I can't promise there won't be excuses - if Green tears and ACL tomorrow then I would say we are still sitting at TBD status BUT I do think with a new coaching system and given Green and his teammates time to learn and operate in that system I would expect Green to be significantly better player on both sides of the ball in the back half of the season....however I do think we may start the year off "rough" given the first 25ish games on the calendar. ....but hey - I'm willing to admin when I'm wrong unlike a lot of people here. I still think Green is ultimately a max contract guy in the near future more likely than not. He may not be the best player here, he may not be the heart and soul - hell we may even trade him if Cam turns into the supernova he looks like, but I think he is good enough to be a max contract guy somewhere.
If he tears his ACL tomorrow, it'll mean he misses the entire season and for sure means you don't even consider giving him a max extension, you make him play his deal out another year after this one and see if he's worth it then. What I was more talking about is if he has another season shooting 33-34% from 3 and a 54% TS% while being a defensive liability, it's not going to be blamed on anyone else this time around....we'll have to accept that it's just him not living up to the hype at least for now while keeping hope alive for that 7th year leap. On the other hand, if he manages to turn things around and finally live up to the hype, that'll be awesome. I just want conversations to be based on what is rather than delusions or hope of what might be one day if things completely change.
[QUOTE="Bobbythegreat, post: 14860335, member: 53688"...time is starting to run out for Sengun and Green so you'd hope the team knows one way or the other by the end of the season.[/QUOTE] I don't think that time is running out for those guys but they have to put in numbers this year. But also Smith looks like he will attack Durant/Ingram style this year. Top 3 scorers will propbably be JG,Smith, VanVleet. The other 5-7 guys will add to the mix. (10-18 points each). Spurs games will be great for us..
