That's a bigger philosophical question. I truly don't believe anyone is what they are. Anyone can change anytime. Doesn't mean we can change them. But they can change themselves anytime they decide to. However I think what you're trying to figure out is my line with Jalen. For me, he has till just before the deadline to improve his overall scoring efficiency i.e. better shot selection. I'm extremely happy with his development in the other 60-70% of his game since Udoka's arrival (defense, rebounding, passing, driving, transition, etc).
The difference is that Amen has no good 3 pt shooting games. Jalen has several 30pt games at over 50% from deep. There's zero proof Amen can shoot well, there's plenty of proof Jalen can (like, to the point very few people in history have those same level of performances that Jalen has.)
Damn if only we had a SG who the HC and GM and PG rave about his mental toughness and resilience. Oh wait..
Avoiding bad shots is an easier, more doable route for sure. I don't have a detailed analysis of how many bad shots he is taking and how many of these are avoidable, so I can't comment on how much potential there is there. I can speculate that Udoka did not ask him to take less 3s because the other options are not more efficient and spacing is not good generally anyway.
Thing is though, you're making this **** up about Jalen in your head and claiming it as reality. None of his coaches have ever said that about him. In fact, if you were to compare their histories before the NBA and came up with the notion that Amen has some clear advantage over Jalen, you'd have to be smoking crack. At no point in his history was Amen ever considered the same level of prospect as Jalen was, all this narrative about him not caring about basketball or having weak mentality or anything else doesn't bear up to any scrutiny at all, and is mostly just manufactured by CF members, many of whom are either hardcore stans of other players, or really dislike someone painting their nails. Sorry but, "depending on who you ask" doesn't hold up at all when the ones who believe in him are the professionals and the ones who don't are random CF nerds.
I wasn't claiming anything about Amen, or comparing him to Jalen. Amen is not comparable to Green as a shooter as of now, in fact you can hardly say he can shoot. Considering Jalen's performance, the 50% from deep games doesn't matter. By the same logic he has many more poor shooting games, and one can argue that he will miss 1 more 3 every 2 games and be a 30% 3 pt shooter. The average is what matters and he has been pretty consistent there over 3 seasons. The other people who had similar highs never had similar lows. So it is premature imo to put too much weight into any two extremes. The average is more telling. That is who he has been for now. A 33.8% 3pt shooter who has a (much) higher variance on his performance compared to most nba players.
But isn't that the million dollar question? If he doesn't improve his efficiency in the first half the season then what could we realistically trade him for. His value will be all time low. It's a huge gamble to take on. We definitely disagree on his defense, rebounding, and passing. He excels in guarding the quicker players but there will always be guys who physically just overwhelm him. I also just expect someone with his speed to have a lot more steals. I think strength and size will always be his biggest issues.
You're correct. Jalen's worst zones (shooting like 20-30% and taking significant volume) are: - Defender 6+ feet away but Jalen is near the logo - mid range shots outside the paint Most of his 3PA were when 4-6 feet open and IIRC he made 38% of those. There's our beacon of light. That's why you can believe in shot selection. Takes like 3+ attempts in that scenario alone. You're correct about Udoka too, several times he mentioned he wanted Jalen to take those 3's. Never wanted him to reduce it. The reason he cited is that defenders are going under the screen on the perimeter, so he thought it's the "right" shot to take. The reason defenders are doing this is their scouting report says to limit his drives and also because the paint was packed to an unprofessional degree. This was a bad idea and Udoka realized it shortly after declaring we will pay with more pace and space moving forward to suit these athletes we have. IMO he should be taking no more 3's than Ja Morant and the team should open the paint for him like Memphis does for Morant.
It's not a gamble at all whether you traded him last season, this summer or at the deadline you'd get 1-2 picks. The drama about this has been exaggerated. To me we've paid capital to dump 3 FRP's already. One more would suck but we'll live with 6 high level prospects who can't all get paid either. You're assessing his defense. I'm assessing his development. Even among Tier 2 haters, it's widely accepted he improved from dog **** all the way to below average defense in year 3. It's very rare for that much improvement to happen in one season. Defense is half of all basketball impact so that's a gigantic improvement. Same with rebounding and passing which came on late in the season. Steals: me and Udoka are not interested. He doesn't like gamblers and neither do I. It's fake defense most of the time, even if not all the time. With Green I'd much rather he stay safely near his matchup.
See, that's the issue. The effort and hustle and toughness are not there. Boxing out, stepping-in to stop the ball, maybe taking a charge and chipping the manicure, fighting through a screen. For this particular team his act has been very toxic and infuriating. It's a young team, everyone is trying to make it in the league, and we have this guy who plays like a ballerina, is only looking to score, and to top it off is not very good at it. It's just demoralizing for the team and infuriating for fans to watch. Now, if he were to become this super-elite offensive weapon and if he was on a veteran team, it's a bit different story. We have seen it here on the Harden teams with P.J. Tuck, Ariza, PatBev and Capella: everyone is a pro, has gotten their contracts, and they know what their role: play good D and get out of James' way. The system works, the team is winning, their role is defined, recognized, and rewarded... so yeah, they are are OK with Harden taking some plays off on the defensive end. But with this weird kid, who hasn't proven anything? With a bunch of other kids who think they may be as good or better? It's pure cancer for the team. And then, there are degrees with the offensive superstars. Steph Curry has limitations but he is always giving an effort. Harden would take plays off, has lateral mobility limitations, BUT he would huff and puff against bigger players in the post, in fact one of the best post defenders when he was here. The worst is Dame Lillard: a pure one-way player, who gives you nothing on D. Jalen Green's D is worse than Dame, even though he is not even 1/10th of the offensive player Dame is...
You forgot game time Stamina, there is no way he is that inconsistent when he is a very good stamina player. Stamina affects his Speed, Dribbling, Shooting, Finishing and overall Movement. Right now he is a Short Burst Player, Player Exploding over 10 Games type. Player playing 2 Quarters out of 4. I expect him to get better under Udoka but when he is over his prime he is going to have problems with Stamina again.
This isn't true though, that's the problem. Have you even looked at the stats? For example, Jalen's never had a 0pt game, Booker had 5 in his first season. Jalen's never shot 0% from the field, Beal did it 3 times in his first 3 years, Lavine did it 6 times. Most of his comps absolutely had very similar (and in fact, worse) lows to Jalen. They also never actually hit his highs either, he did it a lot more than they did in the same time frame.
That's not what you said in your reply. Here's the quote: Someone is neutral/positive about two years and ecstatic about 40% of season 3 then becomes whiny about the 50 games he took to adjust to a serious coach and winning environment for the first time? Where does the "ecstatic about 40% of season 3" come from?
It's more than that. The extra 3pt made is not insignificant like the reasoning implies. 3 points per 100 possessions is the difference between a good offensive team and a mediocre offensive team. The basic issue here is that over a large sample size, the seemingly small differences between averages is actually a huge difference over a long period. That's why there is a huge gap between a 33% shooter and a 38% shooter over a significant period of time. They use the "extra 3pt made every few games" to make it look like it's no big deal. It is really a big deal.
booker had 5 zero point games playing less than 10 minutes, and taking 1,1,2,3,4 shots. Jalen never had a game where he only once took less than 7 shots. So this kind of low is not very meaningful imo. Similarly for beal. Similarly for the highs, those players played much less games where they took over 20 shots. So i don't expect them to have highs in absolute points. My measurement of low is not number of zero point games bur rather games where a player shoots poorly, like under 25% or 30%, whatever mark you want to set. And setting the same mark for both players isn't an apt comparison because the efg% rose like 4% . The main point is Jalen is shooting below league average and these guys were shooting above league average. I don't think there is any other player historically shooting this much below league average and taking as many attempts as Jalen. That's why I am not much impressed by most points by a player under 23 type of list. The reason I am hopeful for Green is that he showed some learning capacity and coachability. In the end it all comes to efficiency though. There has to be actual results. I think he can be a great player but the development will be slow.
Reading is fundamental. Average consistently = every month. Obviously someone else won the player of the month, you didn't have to go looking so far.
oh i thought consistently meant throughout the season, though embiid was better every single month then jalen's one good month, as was obviously jokic
Last 20 games plus his 10 best games I estimated to be 40% of 82 games. Genuinely, I'm not sure what you're asking or getting at.
I haven't checked but I'm 100% sure they didn't average those stats and win 11 straight games every month. In fact neither of them won 11 straight last season.
