The way he closed out the Warriors in the last game is the template he should use and study. Keep yourself in the game during the first 3 quarters, hit a shot here and there but mainly be somewhat of a decoy. Then when they tire out in the 4th, take over and finish them off.
I think saying that about a 23 year old player is pretty silly. I’m not a huge fanboy of Jalen, but he still has tremendous potential to be that guy regardless of how he plays in this series. Whether we like it or not, the refs are going to have a huge say in this series. I believe anytime Jalen goes into the lane he will be met with extreme violence and he will not get the call more than a few times a game. On the other hand, any holding of Curry will be called early and often, and frankly, holding Curry is the only way to suppress him. I can’t stand him, but he has been one of the 2 most impactful players in the game for a decade. The Rockets are super high on Jalen and he will be back next year.
Stop, just stop with the excuses, there have been ZERO superstars that all of the sudden get it in year 5 - lots of guys are good players, but ZERO dudes get it after 5 years as a pro. Jalen isn't it, never will be it, but he is a good NBA player. Just stop trying to make him into something everyone else can see he clearly isn't... He isn't a leader, he isn't a consistent bucket, he isn't a great passer, shooters, not great at most things...but he is a GOOD player. Why can't that be enough? DD
I think the probability is more than less posters here will like your post and stance if they read it. I think the more loud Jalen supporters are in the minority, its just the majority of posters are silent or show up during the down times. Whereas the supporters are here much more frequently on both the ups and downs. None the less thats semantics, and I 100% agree with you that statistics and advanced statistics are very much important. I used to think they were much more important as I was a huge believer in numbers and had to watch them fail constantly underneath Morey and Harden. At the end of the day the eye test DOES matter and, imo, its best served to hold a balance of 50/50 stats and eye test. Men lie, women lie, numbers dont lie, IS a lie. Numbers do lie, quite a lot I have found. They can also be used to tell almost any story you want, so we have to be careful with the use of them and HOW we use them. In this regard, i think but idk, is more so what math was leaning towards trying to say. Jalen has struggled vs GSW , even last year we lost all 3 games vs GSW and Jalen was under average for all 3 games. The main common denominator I find though is poor shooting from 3. Is an 8 game sample size enough to determine that GSW just HAS Greens number defensively? Is it a large enough sample size to attribute hes gonna have a poor shooting night vs them or is it statistical luck? I would say somewhere in between. I dont think Jalen is gonna shoot 25% from 3 on only 5 attempts a game this series. But I am also not naive enough to think hes gonna shoot 40+% on 10+ attempts a game either. I believe much more in the season long number of 35.4% on 8.1 attempts per game. wild hypotheticals arent worth discussing tbh, but no way Jalen isnt playing much, he just likely wouldnt get the 33mpg he gets now. Well the skill that Jalen brings that no one else has isnt based on effiiency. So having lets say a better defending version of Jalen who is more efficient but lacks any creation, wouldnt benefit us nor would udoka want that imo. If that was the case Tari Eason likely would be starting. Only disagreement I have with this ranking and tier system is Tari and Jalen. I think they should be swapped. Think Tari is a bit overrated because hes a fan favorite, and i obviously believe Jalen is underrated as hes the local fall guy. My reasoning is Jalens offense skill and output vs Taris heavily outweighs Taris defense prowess advantage over Jalens. My only other potential qualm is wanting to put fvv in tier 3 because how bad hes been this year, but its hard to argue hes not still tier 2. This is probably my biggest argument with this entire post and why I wanted to respond. I think it should be quite obvious that our biggest path to improvement is replacing FVV in the starting lineup. Whether thats Amen next year, allowing Jabari to start. Or bringing in a huge upgrade in the next summer or 2 ala LaMelo or Tyrese or Ant or Ja. I would actually love to keep fvv at a lower cost and off the bench to be honest, but just doesnt seem plausible. I think keeping this exact team and just moving brooks and fvv to the 6th and 7th man roles would be sick for next year. Pushing Amen, Tari and Jabari into the starting lineup. I respect this post so I am going to interject my own thoughts.
Andrew Wiggins became an all star at age 27 after years of being told he was an underperformer and a bust. He was more than a good player he basically got a max or near max extension and prob shouldve been the Finals MVP if everyone was being honest. If you look at what Tyler Herro is doing now it is clear he is a star and his performance is levels above what he has done in the past. Jalen Brunson entered the league at age 22 as an older rookie and only became a superstar on the Knicks at age 27. You have been here for more than 2 decades you should know the peak of players happens past age 25. Just like any job in the world you dont expect someone to be the top 400 people doing his job in just 1-2 yrs.
Steve Nash, 2x MVP - breakout year 5 Giannis Antetokounmpo, 2x MVP, 1x finals MVP, Champion - breakout year 5 Stephon Marbury - breakout year 5 Jalen Brunsen - breakout year 5 No pLaYer HaS eVeR evEr BroKeN oUT iN YeaR 5 - people who believe KPJ (year 6 trade filler and benchwarmer) has "star potential."
Not a superstar, and no making an all star game at 27 doesn't make you one. Jalen is a good NBA player, maybe an all star game or 2, but he is NOT a guy that you would hesitate to trade, there are much better options at SG out there. Zach Lavine is a good comp for him and Jalen isn't as good as him yet....even and may never be.... Jalen is paid about the right amount there is a reason he didn't bet on himself by going to RFA, he knows he is a good, not great player. The only player on this team that MIGHT be great is Amen......with Reed and Cam still TBD...but unlikely in both cases. DD
I don't even get the logic. Let's say no one has ever broken out in year 5 - who cares? There's still nothing to say no one will breakout in year 5. Look at the music industry. Ten years ago it was absurd for someone to expect to break out in their 40's. Now because of YouTube and Tiktok, it's a fairly regular occurrence for someone to make a career out of it. Same with basketball players older in age. A player's prime now can extend to their early 30's and you're seeing players as important pieces in their mid 30's. Just 10-15 years ago the stats would have deemed age to be a hard cap on late production. Even father time is losing ground. If you look at the actual context of Jalen's pre-NBA career and his first two seasons, I challenge them to find a player more likely to be a late bloomer than him. It actually makes complete sense that his past + unexpected work ethic would result in an unusual trajectory of development. Have posted about this many times.
you dont think Brunson is a superstar? that may be your wildest take DD. The guy averages 26/7/3 on 49%/38% with a ts% over 60. Last year he averaged 29/7/3 on 48%/40% with a ts% of over 59. what does it take to be a superstar to you? is this one of your silly arguments where "theres only 5 superstars" or " superstar gets thrown around too much there can only be a handful". Brunson is 100% good enough to be a #1 guy on a championship. That is a superstar.
Jaylen Brown (5th year made All Star game) https://stathead.com//basketball/ve...layer_id2=greenja05&p2yrfrom=2022&p2yrto=2025
All players who took several yrs to become stars. All were younger than Green, except T-Mac. They were the same age 1) Chauncey Billups -5yrs 2) Zach Randolph - 3yrs 3) T-Mac - 4yrs 4) Steve Nash - 6yrs 5) Jimmy Butler - 5yrs I'm not saying Green is going to be the next Steve Nash, Butler or T-Mac but at 23yrs old and avg 21ppg, 3.4 ast and 4.6rb and playing defense, I'll take it! Our problem is we look from afar and think its easy, because they make it look easy. ITS NOT
How to build around "that guy" is an interesting question. It's fairly easy to build around heavily ball dominant offensive guys like Harden, Luka, Ant or SGA ..... but Amen is a whole different discussion.
Have you ever considered not being a total ******* for a day? Or would that be asking too much from you.
This is what you call doubling down, on everything. Yam Whitmore- Killer instinct Kevin Porter- Good person Jalen Green- This is more of a shift from him being wrong to being less wrong. He is a caricature. You see a lot of older people that live in basements doing this with the internet.
Yeah it's been a really bad match up his entire career. It's always been a concern for me as a Jalen fan because I ****ing HATE Steph and co, and it seemed like we were doomed to continue that trend. Then Amen showed up and finally gave us the solution.
Very well-reasoned arguments. I think FVV is a better player currently than Jalen Green. I think Tari Eason is as well. Jalen's ability to create offense is hugely necessary but I think FVV and Tari contribute more to winning. I don't really have a problem with your tiers though. That's fine. That said, I wouldn't have a problem with the Rockets trying to upgrade FVV. I think trading FVV is much more difficult than trading Jalen though. Teams who want to rebuild and are willing to send out a better PG than FVV probably don't want Fred's $40 million+ clogging their cap space. Jalen Green would be more desirable for a rebuilding team than FVV. Jalen is young and has a lot of potential. He's also fun to watch. Fred is a winning player but rebuilding teams wouldn't want him. If we were to somehow trade FVV for a star PG- say Tyler Herro or Tyrese Maxey- then the on-court fit with Jalen would be awkward. If we acquired a better offensive initiator at point guard then Jalen would be a poor fit next to such a player. We'd then be better off trading Jalen for a wing who is a more efficient shooter and stronger defensively. I don't really have much of a problem with anything you said though. "Like" button pressed.
A lot of people seem to dislike this particular poster but I think he summarizes the argument nicely. Jalen is a good player. He's just not a franchise player and is unlikely to ever become one. It would be a safe bet to predict that he will never play in an All-Star game. He's still a good player.
