But Udoka didn't. In the game where he benched Jalen Green, he replaced him with Jeff Green while Tari Eason got his typical 20 minutes.
Most contenders have bench players capable of turning the game around. Tari and Amen are going to be those guys for us this year and next. Ime is playing this perfectly.
Jalen has been benched a few times. Sometimes Tari gets those minutes, sometimes jeff, sometimes Holliday.
No he isn't, because there are players on the bench that are better, and make the team better, it will last a bit, but players will soon notice and stop passing him the ball - and that is when it all breaks down, right now he is trending towards wide open Westbrook territory where you actually WANT him to shoot. DD
Yes, sometimes I do, thanks for noticing. Ime, whom I love as a coach is not perfect, I have seen him be outcoached several times this year, Atlanta comes to mind, he fails to advance the ball when he should he has poor combinations in there, he is still growing as a coach, his attention to detail is good, but not great yet. So yeah......love him but I don't have 100% faith in him yet.......because I see some of the cracks...sorry you can't. DD
Nobody is perfect, but if the Rockets had taken your advice over the years we would be the laughingstock of the NBA. You don’t have the stomach for a re-build or the patience, except for KPJ of course. Mastering the rotations while developing players is what a real coach does, not totally screwing up your second unit for some mythical prize of being in the starting unit. Ginobli was the second best player on the Spurs throughout their dynasty, but Pop (who is also imperfect) kept him coming off the bench for most of the dynasty. We are way ahead of schedule, Jalen is improving and we are beating really good teams. Yeah DD, Ime does know better than you all the time. Show us your coaching resume. Did you make it as high as junior high?
We would be the toast of the league with more than 2 trophies.....we would be the best franchise of all time, and you would be buying DD'Rox t-shirts from every street vendor in Texas. Popovich is a far superior coach to Ime - Ime is still learning - he is off to a great start but he misses several small things that help - I am sure he will get there. As for me, I have more than a 90% winning ratio as a coach - went undefeated for 3 years straight.....coaching is not that hard, but it doesn't pay a lot until you get to the top....I am already at the top of another industry. So, yeah, go buy my t-shirt - enjoy watching a **** JALEN fall further off the map and cost this team what it could be.....until Ime recognizes it and does something about it before his team starts to do it on their own. DD PS. A lot of this post is in jest - and for fun, but the Jalen part is true.....And Eason should be starting over him, right now - which I pointed out more than a month ago, and got ridiculed for.....
xxx You're still just as wrong about starting Tari in place of Jalen as you were last month. Udoka is playing the long game and will continue giving Jalen rope for a while. This is the right thing to do. The transition from lineup experimentation to hardening into their best rotations will began soon enough. If Jalen doesn't start contribute enough to winning, his minutes and role will decline accordingly. If he were further along, it would make better sense to start Cam in Jalen's place instead of Tari. You never know: There are 55 games left in the season and things could go a number of ways by March/April.
I think Jalen will eventually find his shot. His FG% just can't stay as bad as it has been in the last month or two. Season average will still be bad, but I predict he will be signifcantly better the second half of the season.
He hasn't improved his shooting efficiency though. It's actually declined every year. TS% / EFG% 2021 54.7% / 50.8% 2022 53.8% / 48.5% 2023 52.4 / 46.4%
The (unlikely?) hope is Jalen can finally figure out the offense and be more selective with his shots now. He can focus on FGAs he is more likely to convert since the Rockets can win without him shooting a lot.
That's still the hope. I just hope he doesn't turn into a "I'm gonna take all the shots I can to get more points" kind of player if that shooting doesn't get better.
I disagree with you with starting Eason over Jalen...Eason is the spark plug we need off the bench and Jalen is a streaky scorer so giving him the early game action actually helps him get into rhythm. If Jalen is hitting, he stays in the game, if not he sits on the bench in the 4th. Tari is the perfect spark coming off the bench for us. He brings that same intensity as D. Brooks where the intensity never slows when our 2nd unit comes in...At the end of the day, it's all about who is closing out the game in the 4th for us and right now Tari is more impactful than Jalen when closing out games for us.
This won't happen under Udoka. If Jalen doesn't follow instructions, he's outta here. Jalen's freelancing that turned into a complete flameout in the 1st half against the Pels had Udoka's approval. Then the rope was pulled 6 mins into the 3rd quarter and the Rockets won their most inspiring game of the season.
------ if that's true, then it's contradicted by this... Jalen's freelancing that turned into a complete flameout in the 1st half against the Pels had Udoka's approval. Sure, he benched him later, but if he approved it to begin with, knowing his shot efficiency is the worst out there, then it's concerning. I hope he doesn't give him that approval again until he (who knows when after 3 years) becomes a proficient shooter.
