Is it for timing/cadence maybe? Different points in the motion .. “1 2 3 shoot” that he could internalize in game? Keeping the elbow in is a good start.
Jalen seems to understand what beats defenders. He’s got all the tools. He gets shafted on a ton of calls driving too. He needs to make more shots near the rim, continue to attack and get to the line and make a few extra 3 pointers per week. Defensively he’s still soft in certain areas, but if anybody will hold him to task in that department it will be Udoka. It’s been a wild ride when you can show folks hour long highlight reels and historic milestones and they would rather scoff and use efficiency metrics as predictive and diminish any sort of positives along the way “there are none” they would say . We will all find out soon enough. Jalen Green is quite literally an eye test vs stat test experiment.
You have to admit it's a very unusual situation. A kid with no fundamentals gets drafted and gets no fundamentals for two years. To make matters worse, he's allowed to repeat bad habits at a volume that few players his age were ever allowed to reach in the NBA (if any). For two straight years. Starters minutes and starters shots with no accountability and horrible culture. Just about the worst possible way to start a HS'ers's career. By the end of Silas tenure, Green had gone a combined 4 years waiting for a decent coach with a good track record of developing players. Imagine how ingrained the bad habits can become (and Udoka recognized it on day 1). Horrible mismanagement by his agent and all organizations involved if you ask me. They certainly share a large portion of responsibility. So if a great coach comes in and emphasizes unselfish two way basketball, it's not surprising that he would need the most work. Yes it's hard to improve a player's defense and passing and shot selection and rebounding and finishing all in a single season. It's been neglected his entire career. He had a lot of learning to do and it feels like Udoka did the right thing focusing on defense, effort and unselfishness just as much as he did on offense. You can't expect Udoka to do magic. Considering everything Green had to improve and the fact that his offense improved towards the end of the season tells me we're on the right trajectory with Green. Udoka always says habits take time. The situation warrants unusually late development. It just makes sense. Kobe needed 2 years to understand winning basketball. Green will need 3. I think that's fair.
I think my theory of them working on his core strength to exhaustion is the goal for a lot of these drills. That starting position is telling me that they want him to stress out his core and try to do these basketball moves with a fatigued core. Hopefully this is what helps with his consistency. I have a feeling hin trying on defense a lot for the first time in his career made him tire out more on offense affecting his shooting.
Seems like that is a point of emphasis and rightfully so to help him finish through contact and not get bumped off his spots. Some of that will happen naturally as he continues to fill out and get stronger. The beauty for me is that he is working on those aspects that everyone has criticized him on (at least in these two snippets) 0-3 finishing and 3pt shooting. At least we arent watching a dunk practice.
Trying the CP3/Kyrie hang dribble stuff I see. Looks a little awkward (like when Alpi was trying the Dream Shake with Hakeem). Handle needs to be tighter. Jalen with fundamentally sound basketball would be a sight to see. Good to see him wanting to host a mini camp and keep the group tight.
