There is nothing wrong with Booker, he is just not a Top 3 or Top 5 guy. He is always going back and forth between the No 1 and No 2 option. He has come an extremely long way and is one of the craftiest guys out there. I think he is more Drexler than a Hakeem. (I do like that player type a lot though) I doubt that Phoenix would do Jalen Green for Booker straight up ....they would want all the picks and another young prospect.
I think he'll have a pretty good season, up his value, be traded by the end of the season. I guess I'm a hater, but I don't believe him as a long-term piece for success of the team. I know his preseason numbers looked great, and more than just numbers, I think he actually played well - defense, being efficient, etc. I still don't think his consistency will be there throughout the season, and Rockets will be better served trading him when his value will be there. Just my opinion, happy to be wrong
I guess we will all lose a player that we grew accustomed to and grew to respect and to like in the process. That is what the league is about, unfortunately. Some former players come back which makes the reunion even sweeter.
Your message is unclear. Are you saying he’s never posted big numbers against good teams or hasn’t posted big numbers consistently against good teams? I would like to add that what you’re saying is a huge misconception among many people in terms of the belief that a player putting up big numbers against “bad teams” does not hold as much weight or isn’t a big accomplishment as against “good teams”. The fact or phenomenon that a player has several great performances should be enough of an indicator of that player’s abilities and talent level regardless of the opponent. If it were easy why aren’t every SG in the league putting up several 30 or 40 pt performances in their careers? Is Austin Reaves doing this? Andrew Nembhard? Many fans and members of the media seem to think it’s easy winning games in this league against a “lesser” team. Reality is these teams and players are professional and there’s extremely good individual defenders on lesser teams like Caruso or Smart and teams with losing records with good schemes and paint defenders like Brooklyn. Besides Green dropped huge games on good defensive players and winning teams like SGA and Dyson Daniels.
There is no misconception. What is the goal of every NBA team? Winning a Championship. Who are you playing against in the playoff or playin? Winning teams or teams with winning records. If a player can post good numbers on bad teams but not good teams, he's not likely to help the team to achieve the goal. Nobody is stupid enough to say Jalen never post good numbers on good teams, but we need to look at his trends and his splits. Corey Brewer posted a 50+ points game on the Rockets, should teams hand him a max contract?
Goodness, the Corey Brewer example is so stupid. Brewer scored 50 points once when he was 28. Aside from that, he never had a 40 point game OR a 30 point game. It's the most statistically irrelevant outlier ever. Conversely, at 22, Green has had seven 40 point games and thirty-seven 30 point games.
Great work here bro and I know this information can give a person optimism but you are forgetting something. Jalen Green is the only player in this group that plays long stretches of games against easy teams. I'm not sure if the other players even have easy games, maybe their games are only against elite teams. The NBA conspires to do this and somehow they have gotten through to Udoka because either he's ACTING impressed or he is dumb enough to believe it. Udoka does tend to be wildly optimistic and charitable with his praise all the time so it just makes sense. The NBA top dogs are known to love the Rockets and rig the league in favor of our players. Sigh. If only there was a single good thing Jalen Green did in his career. Sorry to break it to you but he's the same player we drafted and I made sure of this by doing a deep comparison of his FG% and 3PT% across 3 seasons. That's science we can't argue with science.
Interesitng choice of players you picked. Andrew Nembhard did it on the biggest stage last year in ECF finals, he was having phenomenal games and almost leading his team to upsets without Halliburton. Look at a guy like Cam Thomas, he had so many 30/40 point games. No one thinks he's gonna be a star. His own team just keeps benching him. There is so much more to basketball than scoring and Jalen doesn't really do anything but score inefficiently. If he got his percentages up I can see a world where he earns a max but he is just way to inconsistent. Scoring that much is just about opportunity the other young guys are not in the same position as Jalen who came to a terrible team and let him shoot. Austin Reaves literally plays with Bron and AD. He has no shot at even shooting that much. A guy like Payton Pritchard literally scored 50 points last year when he got the opportunity,
This argument used to have some validity. However, it really doesn't anymore. After the All Star break last season, when Green found his footing, he consistently put up #1 scoring numbers for a good team trying to make a playoff push. He proved then he is absolutely capable of being the #1 for a good team. The question is no longer if he can do it, but rather will he continue to do it on a consistent basis.
Tbf: Let's stay grounded. The highs are high and coming more often, but the lows have been low and frequent too.
This is a weird split for NBA stats. Basically, Green has one simply amazing 10 game split, a couple of 10 game splits in which he was decent, and 5 piss poor 10-game segements including one after his simply amazing one (not counting the last 2 games).
With a player like Green who is near the top of at the top of their team in usage rate and take up a large share of their team's offensive possessions while at the same time being below league average efficiency individually says a lot about how important him breaking down defenses is for this current roster.
I simply responded to @Risingred who said that Green has not had big games against “good teams”. I spoke of the misconception among fans that players can easily score 30 or 40 a game. Again how many games have Green’s peers or a starter at any position put up several 30 or 40 point games? Starting minutes comparable to Green? The Pritchard example is irrelevant to the discussion since that’s one game. Whether he can do that consistently we do not know. Likely not. And we do know he isn’t a good enough scorer to be a starter in this league. Cam Thomas has shown the ability to score at a high level. I specifically said ability. This conversation has nothing to do with defense or how good a player is overall. @Risingred mentioned huge games against “good opponents”. Whether you think Green is good at anything else besides scoring is another discussion. And no. It doesn’t work like that my friend. Basketball is about ability. If you have the ability to score you will get fed. Reaves simply hasn’t shown to be a dominant scorer. And there simply is no evidence he would put up big numbers if he were on a team by himself. Misconception
You have a low standard for being consistent. We played 27 games after all star break last year and he was good in 10 maybe? Average for like 5 and terrible for the rest. And yes we have beat this like a dead horse. Once we played real playoff caliber teams he was atrocious. So he hasn't proven to me that he can be a true number 1.
