Well, he has this streaks when he shoots 50% and then his fans decide to blame everyone and force us to apologize to him. Every 10 or 20 games when the competition is mediocre. Rinse repeat every time again......cycle continues. Oh the second coming of Jordan and Kobe......here we go again attaboy.
That's the difference between Sengun and Jalen. Sengun plays 5 bad games and it's an outlier performance. Jalen plays 5 good games...and it's an outlier performance.
The main difference is, if Alpi has a 5 game shooting slump, he still gives you plenty of other stuff - rebounding, box outs, screen assists, deflections, passing, steals, blocks, effort - Jalen...not so much. When Jalen's shot is on, it's nice.
If Sengun had Jalen's inefficiency from the field I'd want him gone. Neither are exactly Draymond Green. They're at best passable defensive players that need to bring it offensively to hold value on a basketball court. Sengun does and that's why he earned the contract. Seems like he's back to normal. Jalen also seems like he's back to normal. The difference this year has been Tari Eason and Amen Thompson being available. That's why we're 6-4 and not 3-7.
Jalen has played well in 50% of the games. That much better than the 30% of games over the past several years. That is improvement. He also is playing better defense and rebounding well. Many good NBA players are inconsistent on offense. If he keeps this up, it is satisfactory year over year improvement. Amen and Tari should be playing 30+ mins asap alongside of Sengun and Jalen. These 4 are the cornerstones of this franchise and our hope for the future. We are wasting time with the over-reliance on FVV and Dillon.
"Played well" is shooting beyond 45% from the field. "Passable" is above 40% from the field. Jalen has done the first one exactly twice in 10 games. The second 3 times in 10 games. So he's playing well 30% of the time. His defense has been better but ultimately it's the fact that Jalen and Fred can't seem to play well on offense that finds us constantly in these 1-2 score games that we're eventually going to start losing at some point. Can't keep winning this way. Jalen and Sengun are offensive centric players that need to be good offensively to stay on the court. They aren't Chet Holmgren or Amen Thompson or Jrue Holiday. If they aren't bringing it on offense, they shouldn't be on the court. Sengun has for a while now. He's had a few slumps here and there but he's performed at a fringe All-Star level for over a year now. Jalen? Not so much. We'll see if Sengun can finally turn into a Top 20 player in the league. He killed Detroit with his middies. Need more of that.
Despite Alpi having shot like crap to start the season, he is one of the three guys who have carried us so far. I know certain people liked to quote Cleaning The Glass for on/off stats a lot when Alpi was the King of Counting Stats last year, and they needed something to support their narrative that counting stats aren't everything. So here we go, after 10 games of the season. Note: According to this, Alpi has been our second best defender behind Dillon, in terms of on/off. I would expect Alpi to be at the top of this list once his shooting reverts to his previous years' averages - it is not to be expected that his FG % will stay so low. In any case, this confirms the eye test that Tari has been amazing! If you look at Stathead Advanced Stats and Defensive Win Shares, it looks like this: (Note: Alpi and Tari head and shoulders above the rest of the regulars in terms of BPM.) Similar picture when you look at nba.com official +/-. The three guys who have been carrying us: Tari, Alpi, Dillon. Pretty sure that once Alpi's shooting stats return to his normal averages, he will look better here, too. P.S.: Jabari has not been good this season. I appreciate Jalen's slightly improved 3-point shooting and defense, but are people still really saying "This is Jalen Green's team"?
I doubt he will get more than 28 minutes today. I would predict that Jabari gets more minutes than he does. I guess Steven Adams will be back as well.
