Jalen is a jumper away from being a legit star. Lets hope that extension was because the improvement has been seen.
"Metrics" lmao. If Cade played for the Rockets they'd have crucified him already. They love to sit back, not watch any basketball and read their "metrics" like good little Morey worshippers though...
We'd played it down the middle. I'd rather we'd push our chips all-in. What I do like is that we are gonna wait until a reasonable development age rather than debating his development pre-maturely. It was just too early to define the product. Personally, I think he's a lock. And that means we're gonna get caught with our hand in the cookie jar at the end of this agreement. It doesn't matter if he can shoot, he just needs to score. The League has proven that time and time again.
It honestly wouldn't surprise me if he blows up to all-star level, gains consistency and then we can't afford to pay him the max after 2 years so he opts out and goes somewhere else like a post-Lebron Lakers or (and I'd hate this more than almost anything) the Warriors.
I'm always shocked at the kids gloves people use for Cade. Every excuse for Cade is one they won't given to Jalen. "He's on a bad team, bad system, bad teammates, bad coaches" etc etc but we don't wipe away Jalen's first two seasons because...? I think the truth is that we watch Jalen night in and night out, and watching a kid play on bad teams for two years is disgusting lol. If any Rockets fan actually sat down and watched 15 Pistons games in a row (much less all of them), they'd be hard pressed to say Cade is that good at basketball. Plus, the already apparent lack of athleticism and being prone to turnovers on top of injuries is really alarming. I'd NEVER want a point guard who turns the ball over, can't beat anyone off the dribble, and can't stay healthy. But this board seems to love players they don't watch because they can't pick them apart as easily.
Context is irrelevant to these people, they don't watch basketball. They watch the odd Rockets game and then choose whichever nonsense estimate or "metric" supports their argument that day. You can't really take them very seriously.
I doubt he even watched the Pistons games AGAINST the Rockets. It's all just "the metrics" with that guy.
Those who at least attempt to inform their opinion with objective metrics end up with an infinitely superior opinion to those who just get really angry at math when it disagrees with their subjective opinions that are based on nothing more than bias.
Is there really a (large?)group of people who choose to use their limited spare time talking hours and hours of basketball year after year after year on this message board who actually don’t even watch basketball? Would be pretty crazy if so.
I think this is absolutely the case, but mostly, these are people who don't watch any other team except for the Rockets. I mean I can't watch every game either, but I try to dedicate myself to at least 3 full games before I have an opinion on a player. The issue isn't that people don't watch games, but it's that they spout off random opinions as fact with a lack of evidence. To compensate, they pull up some random stats that fit their preferred narrative, and now all nuance is lost. People who write about the NBA can't watch every game, but I think we have to start being honest about how limited our information is about players we're comparing. The "idea" of Cade is probably WAY BETTER than the reality of Jalen. The reality is, Jalen has shown amazing highs and crushing lows, and we don't know where he will fall between those two points. What I do know, is no one in the 2021 class outside of Sengun has shown that the highs can be as high as Jalen's. Maybe not even Alpi for that matter. Jalen has those games, weeks, and one beautiful month where you see he has unbelievable tools to work with that could be something special. That's the best I can say about whether or not he's worth it. But no GM in the league would turn down a chance to see if he can really pull it off, the potential is just that high.
Here is the context with Cade and Green. If Green was on a roster like Cade's where there were no expectations to be competent on D and be allowed to "cook" and not care about wasting energy giving effort on defense, deffering on ball possessions to more experienced and efficient playmakers like Fred that might interfere with a young player who is used to dominating the ball that can lead to not getting into a good rhythm; I'm confident Green would expand on his sophomore season of 22 ppg on 54% ts and 3.5 apg to something like 25 ppg on 55% ts and 4-5 apg and then the media perception of Green would be at the same level as guys like Barnes or Cade but the team would be on track to win in the mid 20s and Green would never expand his game to be a competent defender.
The problem with Cade was always that he was not put in a good team environment and that he was kind of soft. But him being a triple threat was never in question.
I can get behind the idea that many posters here only watch the Rockets and very likely not every game, but zero basketball at all? No way. I’d also argue a person who strongly values metrics but can’t catch many games could in most cases do a much better job of judging nba players than a NBA fan who watches as much basketball as they can and downplays metrics.(Because like you said, no fan can really watch enough of every team)(or has a computer brain who could catalog and recall all that information from watching a seasons worth of games) All that to say I don’t believe this boogeyman that some have invented exists. The “nba fan” who spends endless hours on a message board discussing basketball who employs stats 100% and literally does not watch a single game to come their conclusions on nba players.
