If you squint hard enough you can dismiss any player you have a predisposed bias against. Jalen had amazing offensive games against one of the best perimeter defenses in the NBA with OKC. SGA is a high usage volume elite player who occasionally has spurts of good defense. Jalen was going his thing against elite perimeter defenders in guys like Lu Dort. And no he "literally" doesn't do this every season.
This stat doesn't factor in quality of opponents. He literally had Spurs twice, Portland twice, wizards twice, and Chicago. Like even if he didn't play we win those games. show me his on off for April..
In March, grains of salt must be taken. Alperen was isolating Kawhi and Lebron in the clutch and drawing legitimate double teams all season long. A fact that did not go unnoticed by Ime Udoka. Still, something in March is better than nothing all season. Still have a fool’s hope for Jalen. He has earned the chance to show that he is a better option long term than Booker/Mitchell.
15 games in March going 13-2. Phoenix Clippers Sacremento Cleveland Chicago OKC Dallas 7 of the 15 games were playoff teams. We went 5-2 in those games and undefeated in the other 8 games against the bad teams. This has nothing to do with Sengun, why he was mentioned is weird and hints towards a bias. If you think March of last year was like the previous years, again your just being biased because he was impacting the game IN all facets.
Rockets extended a major streak with Chuck Hayes instead of Yao. It’s great, but rather meaningless in terms of assessing talent going forward. Opposing team’s scouting reports had to be flipped upside down, and we were on a super soft schedule in the dog days of the season. Again, a large grain of salt must be applied, especially knowing Jalen’s history. Don’t leave out losing 6/7, too. Keep the whole picture.
Against teams they would have won the first and second time had Green played better, See the first 2 Dallas games. The Chicago games. 2 of the clippers games. Which is what led to Udoka saying in the closing pressers, "I wish he would have done it sooner." Now let's get back to the topic. Homegrown!
our highest leverage game of the season was the OKC game on the road and Jalen was getting doubled by arguably the best perimeter defense in the league.
You can always squint to dismiss a player you already don't like. There is no grain of salt here. I wonder if people even know the month of March was the worst league wide scoring month of the season in 2024. This "March doesn't matter narrative" is absurd. People are talking about March like its in April with the last 5 or so games of the season. Ya when there is about two weeks left teams who are secure in the position they are in start not caring but March is still a month where teams are trying.
Squinting isn't enough to view one of the worst shooters in the league, one of the least efficient scorers in the league, and one of the worst defensive players on the team as a good player.... your eyes have to be closed completely. I do hope most of the cult move on from here when their idol is no longer on the Rockets. It'll bring the IQ of the board up substantially
I don't get how you think I have a Bias when you literally picked a 10 game sample size out of 82 games. He had a great hot streak just like he does every year. For the sake of the Rockets I hope you are right and I am wrong. I have nothing against Jalen Green. I am just being more realistic when it comes to him. I don't see what everyone else sees because he still has major flaws in his game that I don't think he will ever overcome. I wish he had more fire or just showed that he cares more especially on defense. I want to see him ask to guard the other teams best player. I want to see him get more deflections. Like you see Jabari always getting into scuffles and getting up in people's faces at least I know he cares about winning. Part of being a super star means you need that killer instinct and I just don't think Jalen has it. He is wildly inconsistent. His best games are amazing and his worse games are all time bad. Besides scoring he really doesn't do much. Just he way he attacks, I feel like needs to change in general. I think he over penetrates a lot and gets into trouble. I wish he would do the mid range a little more to free up the rest of his game and work on counter moves in paint. Because he tries to go straight up over defenders too often and it leads to bad possessions and this is where most of his turnovers get in the way. Right now I feel like hes very dependent on officials because he drives for contact. A lot of times he doesn't get a fair whistle but we can't have another star here who is relying on the whistle to win because we know how that ends up. (Ala James Harden). Do you not remember he broke Allen Iverson's rookie record for most 30 point game in a row as a rookie? Just look at how he finished the season. Even in year two he played significantly better down the stretch. With a bunch of 30 point games to finish. The common theme is a lot of these teams have clinched playoff berths, rested players, or are actively tanking and he does well. But when teams scheme to stop him or just try his out put is pretty bad...
Dude the month of March is not when teams stop caring. Do you understand how the NBA scheduling works? What you think of March is what April is actually. Yes the last 5-10 games of the season twma that have accepted their fates in positioning start letting their young guys "cook". There was no load managing in March. The players that missed time missed time due to injury. SGA missed the Thunder game because it's march? No he legitimately was injured and came back to play the next game. You think the Thunder didn't care about winning this game? Again if you squint you can dismiss any player you already have a preconceived bias against. When you make blanket assertions I can tell you aren't actually caring about accuracy. Again during a 15 game stretch he played like a MVP. He was a below average starter for the rest of the year. That's reality. You can try to keep on dismissing those 15 games 10 different ways.
Good mix of vet role players in Adams, Green, and FVV so the young core can get good minutes and improve their game. None of the free-agent talent would be good enough to win a title or even deep playoff push so I am glad they did not break up our current team just to land Durant or Booker.
I will admit I didn't yet watch the video or read comments so I am just going off the title quote but I agree with this. I think giving up too much to sign a "star" just isn't worth it in the long run. I think most stars are overpriced in this league especially when you have to trade for them. I hope we avoid that bait. There are a few stars I would be willing to do a lot to go after such as Luka, Tyrese Hal, ect. I don't want to fall in this nba trap of star chasing mediocre stars or stars who are at the end of their careers like Kevin Durant.
Somebody posted a Jalen Green excitement cycle. Sucks -> have a great season end -> sucks again Thats all I can think about when somebody has expectations on Jalen. Lol
The reason I took the Sengun games out is because most people believe he took off after Sengun's injury. Teams know Sengun is our best player and game plan to stop him. Jalen so Here are the box scores in march. He had the crazy stretch mostly against the bad teams after Sengun went down. Look at the rosters that Utah, Portland, Washington, and San Antonio put out there. Tell me they were trying to win? Teams start tanking a lot earlier now for lottery balls. It's obvious. Those teams rested all their regular starters and had no name guys i've never heard of. I think Portland started all rookies against us.... No one is afraid of the thunder without SGA. If SGA plays we lose that game hands down. SO what if he scored 37 points if we lose.
