Rockets need to consolidate their talent, but everyone is too young for us to really know their value. If we trade one of the core 7, are we selling late Kodak, or early Apple? Tari might be our best all-around player next year, Amen's defense with Jabari's jumper. If I had to trade one, it would be Jabari, and I would be nervous about him taking big steps forward for his next team.
I swear sometimes I wish the pro-Tari folk would get their wish and have Tari start in place of Jabari so they can see what it would look like to see him going against starting 4s in the NBA. And what our offense would look like with him at the 3 point line.
The offense would be worse, but the defense would be better. We've seen Tari work in closing situations. Jabari has better potential, and may be better this season. Prior seasons, Tari was better when healthy. Jabari has played more because the Rockets think he will be better and he's been healthier.
Not sure if you're implying I'm one of them? I like Tari at 3, the 4 would be for going small. I know, we are stacked at the 3, which is why I said I would like to see a consolidation trade. I don't want to trade any of the core 7, but if I had to, Jabari and Cam would be at the top of the list. I also think both players have have All-Star potential.
Read the last sentence of my post and previous posts in this thread, I said the same thing. It's too early to give up on any of the core 7.
I'm not talking about anyone in particular. I've seen people in passing say they'd start Tari over Bari which I think is absolute lunacy. Tari is a chaos merchant that comes in and feasts on second units. He's a reserve and plays like a reserve. Can't shoot, can't finish at the rim and can't defend 4s or 5s. He's good for coming in and changing the pace of a game. Like a defensive oriented Jamal Crawford.
amazing that you gathered that from the 20 games he played last year Copernicus. The advanced stats from.the last 2 years show that the Rockets beat the **** out of the other team when he's on the floor - in general. Part of that is no doubt feasting against reserves but part of that is that he is an instinctive, disruptive, high energy defender in a way that Jabari Smith will never be and just crushes the hustle metrics That moves the needle a lot more than a guy who is just average to meh on offense and defense like Smith - no matter his draft position
Jabari is Thaddeus Young. for ppl who start crying, go look at his career stats, that’s where I see Jabari at.
Yeah I have 0 worries with Tari guarding starters at the 2/3/4. Passable at the 1. We've seen him do that off the bench (against starters) relatively often and he's looked great. Just needs to slowly improve his 3PT shot. That will open up a bunch of easy finishes off close outs. Last season he only played with us when our transition game was horrible early in the season, would have flourished when we picked up the pace in March. I think Brooks should watch his back. Tari will challenge for that spot as long as he's healthy. So incredibly similar to the start of OG's career. That's a $30-40m player. On Bari, I'm quietly confident about his defensive development under Udoka. I see him ultimately becoming an elite defensive PF.
If you are listing reasons why Jabari is better than Tari, then you need to exclude shooting. His outside shot has been better than Jabari's since day 1, and still has the higher career 3%. A far cry from "Can't shoot".
I view the game in a manner that I want the Rockets to score more points than the other team. I'm mostly agnostic with whether this is done by offense or defense. The Rockets overall were usually worse on offense than defense, but this was very personnel dependent. When Tari was on the court, offense could have used a little bit of work, but defense was dominating. When Jabari was on the court, offense or defense typically needed work. Some of this was that Jabari is not ready defensively to play the center position even though the offense was silky smooth with him at the 5 most nights (i.e., the Rockets defense sucked with him at the 5, and offense wasn't great with him at the 4).
A reserve is correct if you are going for there is one reserve he plays like. He plays like a 3/4 version of how Isaac played last season. Other than that, there aren't many players that play like Tari or that can cause a ~0.500 team to win minutes almost as well as the NBA Champs when he's on the court. Maybe it is just random chance that the defense plays better with Tari on the court than when the DPOY is on the court for the best defensive team. Granted, I do think there is some randomness there, but I do think a lot of it is that Tari is one of the best defenders that isn't a center.
