That means you give him half a season under Udoka to correct 2 years under Silas. Which is fair I think. I think he'll take off in about ten games. He's got to get benched a couple of times, he has to see his starting spot come under threat, he has to get more instinctive with our offense/defense. A few more realities have to kick in for Jalen. The big one is: "it's really hard to be a well-rounded excellent two way player". The basketball Jalen played before the NBA was too easy and fuzzy. It's no surprise people are panicking on him, by season 3 SG's are usually starting to get more consistent and know their identity. It's not the most fair thing in the world to ask the player to make up for that, but there's no other choice really. Jalen has to step up pretty soon or questions about his career will start to become legitimate. On the plus side, I'm pretty confident he will step up. Hard work always gets rewarded and he has been both a hard worker and a good soldier for the majority of the season. We have good culture/vets/record/staff now so potential tends to turn into talent in this kind of environment. It's slower than people would like but on the whole you can see him improving week to week. My only concern with him is his finishing at the rim which is lagging behind everything else. It's really the key to him taking the next step, and I think it's worth investing time in that to see how good he can be by the end of this season.
From the beginning, I was Team Mobley. But since that draft, I've at least always qualified it by saying "I still think there's a chance Jalen ends up the better player." But I'm getting to the point where I'm not sure I believe that anymore. His effort on defense has improved. And he's doing more of the little things well. But his one supposed elite skill as a 3-way scorer isn’t looking so elite nearly 2.5 seasons in. His shot mechanics are all over the place. He can't figure out the pick and roll. And on nights when he can't hit a bucket, he's not really impacting the game in other ways to not be a net negative. I'll continue to root for the kid, and I still want to see him succeed. But if he can't be more efficient and productive than this, I'm running out of patience. At some point this season, if he doesn't improve, Ime will have to consider giving more of his minutes to Tari, Cam and Amen.
Yes I'd really like Udoka to crack down on some of this stuff. He's unusually good at making them when he takes very few of them. Then he gets overconfident in them and it breaks his rhythm. From 10-14 feet he's hitting 60% on 0.5 attempts >> he should try get more of these, great for smaller/skinnier players From 15-19 feet he's hitting 30% on 1.7 attempts >> these need to go, that's bringing inconsistency to his offense, very streaky shot From 20-24 feet (At or within 2 feet of the 3PT line) he's hitting 47.5% on 2 attempts >> he should try to get more of these From 25-29 feet he's hitting 30% on 4.7 attempts >> His shot is not good enough to be extending this far at this volume yet. He has to learn these things, there's so much room for improvement in his attack strategy. His game is not tight yet but hopefully they're working on it and we'll see the results soon.
I don't get why people are so obsessed with Jalen. He will either play like a max player or he will continue to get benched in the 4rth. The reality is Stone has drafted well enough to have replacements for him: Tate, Tari, Cam even Holiday any of these guys can take his spot in the rotation. And if he gets replaced he Def won't get a big let alone a max extension from either the Rox or anyone. So just let the kid be. Let him play and either improve or not. Let's see what happens in 2 yrs. Personally I think he has improved a lot and is just scratching the surface of what he can do.
I think it's pretty obvious, actually. He was labeled as the first cornerstone of the rebuilding process and a scorer who would be the key piece on a future contender. We see flashes of that, and it's not unfair to want or expect more from him as a former No. 2 overall pick. Especially considering how amazing Sengun has developed from that same draft. Jalen being a bust would be a setback. Not only does him playing poorly hurt them as a playoff team this season and as a tradeable asset, but the longer the Rockets hold out hope for him, the more it hurts the development of guys drafted behind him who could benefit from those minutes.
It's not Jalen's fault he got picked 2nd, that's on Stone. Sengun breaking out is his own thing and also isn't Jalen's fault so not sure why your even mentioning it. It's like if you have 2 kids if the other kid aced all his test you don't compare him to your other kid that's just bad parenting. Jalen is running his own race and his stats are decent for a 21 yr old. Certainly he is better than Cade who is no 1 and IMO also better than Mobley who is no 3. Secondly Ime clearly isn't out to coddle people, he plays them based on performance and what they can do for him so this setting our kids back narrative is also false. Ime plays who he think can help him win the game. In the case of Jalen he has been hot and cold but he also helped the team win a lot of times already. Eason has been great and if Jalen continues to play bad and Eason continues to ball out will see a swap in minutes eventually. That's just the nature of the NBA the players who ball out more play more.
There's the disconnect for me - You are content on waiting two years to see if Jalen might work out, I'm not. I'm looking at the rest of this team playing great defense and playing consistently well offensively game to game. They are 11-9 despite Jalen playing poorly in about half the games. Imagine where they might be with someone playing reasonably well consistently over that time period .... We might be looking at a record closer to that of the Thunder and fighting for a home court spot in the playoffs instead of being tied with 3 other teams for 7-10th, all play in spots. We gave these cats 3 years to suck and tank it up .... It's time to get back to winning. Can't afford to give Jalen two more years ....
He’s a make or miss player. If his shot isn’t falling he has nothing else to offer. He’s below average at every other facet of the game. That’s why the other guys were still in after having sub-par offensive games, and Jalen was on the bench. If Dillon isn’t shooting well, he’s still playing defense. If Jabari isn’t shooting well, he’s still grabbing boards. If Jalen isn’t shooting well he’s minus 14 in an 11 point win.
We literally do this in sports all the time. As fans, if we're not rooting for our teams, then we're comparing athletes to other athletes. It's a fair exercise when you make millions of dollars to put a ball in a metal circle and so much of your legacy as an athlete and as a person in general is based on the statistics you produce. Jalen's stats are still below average. Your Cade argument is fair, but he's also played just a little more than half the games Jalen has. I'd love to know how one does the mental gymnastics to justify Jalen > Mobley right now, though. Mobley may not be an elite scorer or have realized his potential offensively, but he's unquestionably a better, more positive overall player than Jalen at the moment. But how does this make Jalen busting not a bad thing? Just because the Rockets have guys who can step in for Jalen and Ime is a good coach willing to sit struggling players doesn't somehow magically negate Jalen being awful. Your whole premise of "it's not a big deal if Jalen busts" requires us as fans to just be fine with the fact that he was a huge asset investment as the No. 2 pick; to overlook the poor, inconsistent play on a winning team; and to pretend like players with Jalen's potential grow on trees. Question for you: What happens if none of the other young guys other than Sengun pan out? What if Amen, Cam, Tari, etc. end up being equally disappointing? Will it be a big deal that Green busts then? You're not even really considering that possibility, but you should be. Every draft pick is a lottery ticket, and every ticket you don't win is a setback. Just because you have four other lottery tickets doesn't mean one of them is a guaranteed winner.
Agreed. I'd give him until the bulk of this season. If through 60ish games this year he's still this wildly inconsistent, I think you have to consider benching him and playing the young guys instead who can play winning basketball and have a positive impact on the floor. Four whole years is a long time to wait for a No. 2 pick to develop when you have a winning basketball team. And I'm not expecting him to be putting up 30 a night, but games like last night should be a very rare occurrence. It's not for Jalen right now. In 20 games this season, he's scored 12 or fewer 7 times. And he's had six games where he averaged worse than 33% from the floor. If he's that much of a minus in a third of the games he plays, that's not good enough. Through 20 games this season, most advanced stats show he's made only marginal statistical improvements from last year. And when you consider how poor his numbers were last year, again, that's not good enough.
Sobering reality check: Jalen is getting outperformed on a per-possession basis by Immanuel Quickley. Of course, Quickley is a couple years older and has an extra year of NBA experience under his belt, and that matters a lot. But yeah, that's where we're at right now. 20 games in, on offense we're looking at essentially the exact same player Green was as a rookie. I really want him to break out and show some signs of improvement, but right now I'm not seeing it. We'll have played about 50 games by the time the trade deadline rolls around. I hope his production is up by then. If not, Stone is going to have a tough choice in front of him.
If Jalen wasnt a rocket nobody here would look at his history up to this point and say "lets trade for that guy and make him our starting SG and give him two years to dick around to see if he eventually gets it" The only reason people use age and time as an excuse is because we drafted him at #2 and people are attached to him. Look how the same people that say Green is still young talk about Cade who is actually in the position of trying to learn how to run a team. JG is struggling just to play decent defense and be someone we can rely on to score. Not even asking much of this guy and hes coming up short.
The Rockets need a reliable top scorer opposite Sengun, and they need it really badly. Aside from maybe Thompson eventually, none of the other guys have that kind of celling IMO. Smith and Eason are guys that can score points, but will never be a "get you a point" type player. I totally get wanting to roll with Green to see if he can take that next step given he has the ceiling, youth, and is already here. Nothing more frustrating than selling low before the player blow's up. The thing that's so alarming about Green is his static level of performance. People will try to defend him by comparing his production to other 3rd year guys who became great, but virtually all of those guys were on an upward trajectory to hit those 3rd year numbers. Green looks like the exact same scorer he was the mid way point of his rookie year.
Good post as usual. I just really don’t know why we have to put a 10 game or 20 game time limit. He doesn’t hit RFA until the 26 season. Slow and steady progress is fine. I trust Ime to continue to work with him to make him a productive NBA player. Trading him now or even in 20 games makes no sense, given the poo poo platter we can get for him. We do not need any crappy FRP’s. I would argue we don’t need any FRP’s. So unless you can package him with FRp’s to get something really special back (seems very unlikely) there is absolutely no reason to move him. If anyone is worried about Cam getting minutes, you can reduce Jalen’s role until he earns it back.
Agree with reducing his role. Rockets need to treat Green the way the Clippers treat Westbrick and have him be a 6th man to play against lesser talent. Move Cam or Amen into the starting role because they are more rounded players. Team does need to make a move of some sort to get a legit offensive threat as they have lengthy periods of putrid offense.
Jalen has to the end of this year to show that he has it figured out. That's it. There are way better shooting guards out there. It's the richest position of talent in the NBA and when Holiday is out playing you you may not be long for this league.
