There needs to be a rule. Jabari is only allowed to pass or shoot. No dribbling. I’m not kidding. He is a fine three point threat, and an equally bad dribbler of the ball. I struggle to identify anyone in the league who is as bad at dribbling. It is like he has two left hands. And this is coming from someone who likes Jabari.
He ain't nowhere close to KD-lite and never will be. KD could dribble and actually cross-over defenders. There was as time in KD's career where peak LeBron could not stay in front of him. Jabari still can't dribble hardly any better than Yao Ming. Jabari is just a catch and shoot guy. Run him off his spot and the defense immediately has the advantage. Unfortunately, everyone seems to know this but him.
Miami Bosh was the best Bosh. Its not about being a #1 scorer, its about D and spacing and working the elbow, paint, and 3s. Bosh in Toronto was the man, in Miami he was the ultimate Swiss Army knife as part of a team. Incredibly valuable and versatile player. Can guarantee you now if Bosh didn't get blood clots and didn't take Riley's call he has multiple chips with Rockets. I still think Portions would have been gone and replaced by Ariza. That D team would have killed with the ultimate stretch 4/5. He was Morey's golden unicorn that he ultimately failed to get and then led to his fatal mistake in Ryno.
Thank you. I die a little inside every time I see this brought up. In one year at Auburn, Jabari shot 188 threes. In two years at Texas, LA shot zero. Jabari has already shot 1,048 NBA threes, 300 more than LA shot in 16 years. At the same point in their careers, LA had taken just 37 threes -- that's one attempt every 6 games. Even in his twighlight years with the Spurs when he did integrate the three into his game for a whopping 70 games, his volume was half of Jabari's. These two guys are nowhere near similar enough to warrant a meaningful comparison.
Jabari's got size and is gradually learning how to match up against many of the 4/5s. He's also good enough to switch and defend at the 3 while providing a massive size advantage in certain matchups. He's not perfect, but he's still only 21 years old. At his age, Aldridge was a rookie, while Horry was in his senior year in college. (Two guys he gets compared to on this board.) In a few more years, I think he could take his game to another level.
He's shooting 50.0% from 10-16ft this season--midrange isn't usually a good shot, but that's getting into the range where it's pretty efficient. I definitely agree with OP that I'd like to see a few plays each game designed to get him that shot. I think he could bump his scoring average up to 16 points per game or so given starter minutes.
Yeah this is why I dont Jabari getting ignored as much lol. If we featured him he would easily score 15 ppg and then resigning would be a headache.
I don’t believe that for one second. Ime doesn’t care about any of that. The Rockets offense has flaws, but they aren’t on purpose.
It is a fine line but I wouldn't be shocked to see from Stone's perspective. It would be either bust after the contract or he blows up (relatively) after the extension. Traditionally he would thrive with the Cavs and under Atkinson a lot more for sure. If CP3 can make David West, a decent player an All Star, a lot is possible.
I'm EXTREMELY anti-midrange but when a player is near the 50% mark I make the exception. That's a valid fallback shot which is a viable alternative to a pass. Below that number it's really dumb not to pass the ball to anyone else. Jabari should only be taking 3's and short midrange jumpers. He's a classic example of goal-orientation delaying a person's progress. He's fixated on being a wing player and it's made him look far worse than he actually is as a PF/C. The handle was always going to take 5+ years. The jumper could have been tightened by now. It's ok he'll win back that starting spot next season.
It's actually criminal that they haven't been running pick and pop sets for Bari at this point with his shooting splits tbh. He could get either shot from a couple of simple actions with either Jalen or Fred just depending on where he faded to after setting the screen. I actually think he'd naturally take some shots from the backcourt in this scenario too and one of our big problems is both our guys shoot way too much for their percentages. Solves 2 issues we have and it should already have been super obvious to the coaching staff. I genuinely have no idea why we don't run it except maybe that it's just not fashionable these days to have different people setting screens or something? Weird.
When we drafted him, I thought he'd be a perfect Pick n Pop big man. I still think he'd be effective in that role when Sengun is not on the floor.
The crazy thing too is that Udoka will call play, it will work, and then we never do it again. So many times this season Jabari will have like 1 shot in the first half, then Udoka decides to get him involved. The first play out of halftime is a play drawn up for Jabari. Gets the ball in the mid post, 1 dribble turnaround jumper from like 12 feet, swish. Defender can't contest because Bari is like 8 feet tall, almost nobody can contest his jumper. And then we never do it again for the rest of the game. He won't touch the ball for the next 8 minutes and then goes to the bench. Why??? Why don't we ever go back to it after it works?
