Offensive Shortcomings - A Deeper Look

We dont shoot well and have no spacing. Our starting backcourt is not efficient. Add to that Brooks has settled down after a hot start, sengun has pleasantly been better from deep but not great still. Jabari is our best shooter.

Defenses are clogging the lane/paint and its harder for our offensive spacing around Alpi, who is our only true goto guy rn. FVV cant penetrate and break the defense. Jalen can do that but cant convert it at an effective rate.

We run a lot of PnR and DHO, but the defense is sagging and playing under and we cant punish that with our lack of shooting.

What this offense needs is what Jalen "could" be but hasn't been. We need someone to penetrate and break the defense and either score or find the open man.

Until then, we hang our hats on defense.

 

Dillon in his last 10 games is 15/51 from 3 for 29%.

 

I don’t know how we gonna squeeze a win against Bucks and Cavaliers with the offense we been showing. Tari gave us 2 wins and Brooks had a game of the season to save us tonight. We need both Sengun and Jalen going 45 combined to have a chance

 

People can call me a hater or whatever, but Jalen Green has to be able to do more.

If we don't get offense from him, or from trading him later in the season I don't see this team being anything better than mediocre on the offensive side of the ball..at best.

Sengun has been bad the last few games, and our offense has largely been a dumpster fire. If sengun isn't excellent this offense is among he very worst in the league.

 

So if before the season someone told you that by game 20-something we'd have an elite defense and a mediocre offense, you wouldn't have considered that a massive success?

What you're saying about Jalen needing to step up is true, but he's not the reason why we're not an elite defense and an excellent offense (i.e. a contender). There are major other reasons for that.

 

You are right he isn't the reason we have a sub par offense.

If he isn't gonna be better then we need to find somebody who is because this team needs a top perimeter scorer...badly. None of the other players have the potential to be that guy. Maybe Cam Whitmore or Amen Thompson is that guy and Green can hang around as solid bench offense.

I'm not judging the team on what they are now, the season is a resounding success. I'm judging them on what they will need to be in the future to actually contend for a title, and we will need to be far, far better than we are now on the offensive end. If Jalen Green doesn't have a noticeable jump by years end give me an outlook on what his long term role is on the team after this season? He's not a PG and won't be switchable wing defender.

Jalen Green has to be a great scorer if he's gonna be a player you build around

 

Yeah we hold teams to very few points but we also get held under 100 points more than all but 3 teams. I know defense has been a priority and has been shockingly good, but we're soon going to have to dedicate some attention to fine tuning the offense.

By mid season practically the entire roster will understand the defense and they will be executing it more swiftly. This is a good time to start thinking about how to deal with some issues:

- The pace is very slow and I don't understand why. It really doesn't suit our more athletic guys. We have a young roster and can do some more damage in transition. We need to ask FVV/Sengun to pick up the pace of the offense and get closer to league average (currently one of the slowest teams in the NBA).

- There's a major problem and I'm not sure what the reason is: FVV, Tari, Amen, Bullock, Jalen are all below expectations when it comes to getting points at the rim. Everyone is struggling. Is it related to pace (playing vs set defenses)? Spacing? This is the biggest major component that our offense is severely lacking in (getting points at the rim from the perimeter). It's a fundamental part of a good offensive diet and we ain't got it.

- Mid range jumpers are totally out of control at the moment. Too many players taking them too often. Even if you support taking them, you must admit there's no reason all these players (FVV, Jalen, Sengun, Brooks, Jabari) should be taking mid range jumpers so often. None of them are very good at it compared to league average. You should be well above league average to be taking mid range jumpers regularly in the NBA.

- Jalen has to get his shot selection under control. He's shooting by far the worst from mid range and from 25+ feet. Let's do less of that. He's shooting best at the rim, let's do more of that. He's shooting very well when he's close to the 3pt line or near it. Let's do more of that. Attack the rim more aggressively, being selective there is not working well.

- FVV should be taking less shots (do not reduce 3pters). Jabari should be taking more.

So many improvements coming.

 

It's not just ball movement. It's player movement too.

When you have a passer like Sengun, you need to MOVE. Use screens to get off ball guys open.

 

Hater.

Jalen averages something like 17.8 points on 14.5 attempts. His percentages aren't great, I'll give you that but even if he averages one more bucket a game... 20 points on 15 shots is unquestionably good. He may not be as far off as some think, at least on the season sample size scale. His last handful of games were unquestionably bad, but I think that may speak at least a little bit to how he was playing okay before the recent skid.

I think there's a notion that he was about to be a 25ppg scorer, perhaps we should reassess our collective expectation. Of the 16 (17 if you want to include Bane at 24.9ppg) players scoring 25 or above, the fewest attempts per game belongs to Damian Lillard with 17.1 (Lebron next at 17.2). Point being... Jalen is not at that level, nor should we be expecting that. He's not a superstar and he simply does not take enough shots to put up that point total. It's obviously not his role either, he'd have to start shooting quite a bit more. Even to ask for a 20ppg average, of which there are 39 (and zero Rockets) Jimmy Butler's 14.6 fga is the lowest. Looks like the majority of this tier have attempts in the high teens which would be a pretty stark uptick. Butler shoots a noticeably larger amount of free throws too.

The Rockets have embraced the balanced attack. Jalen is doing ok but that pre-season notion was that he would be an elite scorer. That's what 25ppg means. All-star. Is that the bar we've set? All-star at 21 or bust?

Like I said... his December splits are cheeks. But the guy isn't performing as badly as the hivemind thinks.

 

Dude there’s a reason Cam is in the G league. Why would you give him 18 min a game when he hasn’t even played any meaningful minutes yet or proved anything?

 

I agree with most you say but FVV isn’t a good 2pt shooter. Yes the issue is not too many guys that can handle and get into the paint and finish or draw fouls. I would say implement Jalen more. Right now he isn’t a major part of this offense and it’s evident.

 

Disagree with you. Green was a pretty good iso player last year ranked 58th percentile while his frequency in iso plays were less than some of the top tier players including lebron, booker, fox, tatum, and pg13. That’s because he had better and1 rate, shooting foul freq etc. Udoka needs to unlock Green.

 

lots of haters on this fan site. As you recall several fans mocked his personal style, interests, and physical appearance criticizing and demeaning him for things such as his nails, clothing, social media. So is the hatred really just about basketball? Because a lot of fans call him weak physically and psychologically. Not sure what inside information they have to come to this conclusion. So at this point you have to think is this just personal and bigoted hatred?

 

The issue is a combination of both the offense and Jalen’s own lack of aggressiveness.

A lot of the 2 man FVV Sengun action is away from Green as he is in the weak side corner. They run some sideline PNR with FVV on the wing and Jalen is away from the action completely. They also run double drags up top or dribble handoffs with FVV on the wing and Jalen is again on weak side corner. There was one play when he actually had a high screen from FVV. He got into the paint but since Sengun was in the paint Biyambo came out to deter Green. On the break FVV plays conservatively and doesn’t look for Green when he has the seam or when he is free for a lob.

But I saw last Game they were trying to get the ball in Jalen’s hands as he took the ball from the back court several times. They set double drags for him or high screen up top. He makes the right reads most of the time deferring to Sengun or passing out to the open shooter but few times I thought he could have been more aggressive. There was a play when he came off a double drag and split 2 defenders but could have taken it but passed back out. Another one he got a handoff from FVV up top and beat his man but JJJ was there. I thought he could have used his body to draw a foul and this is where physicality in his game needs to improve.

 

I watched closely last game and the spacing was bad on several plays. Sengun would get the ball in the low or mid post and there would 2 guys bunched on weak side wing standing next to each other.

Also they played 5 out a couple times with all 5 guys on the perimeter and Sengun up top since he can drive on most centers. Sengun drove top key one play but I think they should use this set more to get Green to the paint.

They tried to get the ball in Jalen’s hands last game bringing the ball up backcourt or getting him off wing handoffs from Sengun or FVV. He got some handoffs top key from Sengun allowing him to get to the paint. I just think Green needed to be more aggressive on a few of those plays. Also would like to see him coming off curls or tighter handoffs on mid wing areas. FVV came off double drag to the right to find Brooks on a short skip type pass on top. Brooks was wide open for the layup. Green could be used for these plays as well.

On the break FVV needs to look up and find Green in motion and up top for the lob.

 

Probably some of that too.

I just don't think people have realistic expectations. I think a few are completely lacking context as well. A 25 ppg scorer is elite of the elite, best offensive players in the world territory. Even 20ppg, firmly upper echelon. I don't feel like a lot of people understand how truly special those players are, how few there are, how they get to that point total, etc.

On average, Jalen is playing well and for whatever reason people get defensive and emotional about it.

 

Didn't you say Dillon Brooks was one of our worst signings? Now you're coming for Jalen. What have you been right about?

 

There's a bit of a difference between a prediction based on past performance and analysis of current performance.

I definitely wasn't a fan of the Brooks signing based on the guy he had been to that point in his career, there was no question about what he brought to the team on defense, but he always tried to force too much on offense. Thus far this season, he's stayed pretty much in check and it has been awesome to see. He's taking 3 fewer shots per game than last season and scoring about the same number of points....that's awesome. Right now he's completely blowing his career best TS% out of the water, something I didn't predict would happen.

Funny enough, I've pointed out that he's very much exceeded my expectations since basically day 1....you know, because by then it went from the prediction stage to the analysis stage.

Predictions are insanely difficult, analysis, not so much. Most people are capable of realizing what IS happening, it's different predicting what WILL happen.

Will I be wrong with predictions? Of course, so will literally everyone.

When it comes to Jalen, my complaints are about his performance on the court, not any kind of prediction. There's obviously hope that one day he becomes a completely different caliber of player, but right now he's absolutely terrible nearly every night.

Also, it's not an opinion of mine that he's terrible, it's objective fact backed by literally every metric that exists.