Would you rather have Jabari or Mobley in 2026-2030?

As stated in the thread, value matters. Mobley, in a vacuum, is better than Smith, but not at his salary and not for the Rockets.
Mobley is making over $46 million this year and it will go up to $61 million by the 2029-30 season.
Smith is making *half* that salary through 2030-31.
Smith is two years younger. Smith shoots the three better on a higher volume.
I don't believe the Rockets would not trade Mobley for Smith straight up right now, even if it were possible.

 

Mmhmm



Wardell Stephen Curry II 38% from 3 @$55m or


Isaiah Reed Sheppard 42% @$10m

 

It's already been said by others, but Bari is a better value and I also believe a better fit with our young core. He also seems to have a better attitude than Mobley and that's huge for a team's growing culture.

Bari still frustrates me sometimes, but he's improving and his trajectory is definitely on an uptrend.

 

I like Mobley, sure, but he was way overpaid.

I don't know how Stone sweet-talked our players (outside of Eason) to sign for lower than they might get on the open market. Maybe the "what if I get hurt in the season I'm sulking and trying to inflate my numbers, then no one will pay me s**t" factor?

 

Bari. I would have taken Mobley over Jalen, but either way, both their contracts are hideous.

 

Steph Curry to Mobley is like Jay Z to Soulja Boy.

 

It almost feels like the front office is intentionally holding guys back from getting a super max, they didn't really give the keys to Alpi on teams he probably should have, kind of feels like they are holding Amen back a little, a bit of a conspiracy theory here, but also fits into the team ball dynamic they are looking to build. They did seem to give Jalen free rein though, if he had performed I think they would have been happy to give him his super max, the expectations for him were just so high coming into the league.

 

He's 38.4% from 3 for the season on high volume, and you're not ok with that for our 6'11" power forward? LOL that's low key hating...

 

Depends, the Scouts had him at 40% shooting and high level scoring which had him at a possible Number 1 Draft pick for months......now we know he ended up at 3.

From that angle, he is not there.....they literally thought he was a sure fire star player.

 

He ended up at 3 because of the Banchero hype. But tbh Bari is low key a more winning player than Banchero RN.

Banchero picked up some Jalenesque bad habits and is now extremely inefficient, a bad defender and with a broke 3 pt shot.

Even in his statement game where he put up 23/15/10 triple double he still has negative bpm lol.

 

I don't give a **** where the scouts had him shooting

Dirk Nowitzki is a career 38.0% three-point shooter (3.4 attempts)
Larry Bird is a career 37.6% three-point shooter (1.9 attempts)
Nikola Jokic is a career 36.5% three-point shooter (3.1 attempts)

The 22 year old Jabari Smith is shooting 38.4% on three pointers this year on 6.1 attempts per game. I'm sorry, but whoever is trying to somehow justify that as not quite good enough and that it should be higher is STRAIGHT UP HATING lol

 

Bari is a better fit and contract, but his draft peers were Ranchero, Chet Abe Lincoln, Keegan, Ivey, Mathurin, Sharpe, and JDub. Outside the OKC guys, we didn't do too bad.

... And the OKC guys: Chet ~$50m per, JDub ~$57m per. While they are locked in, they are in the same expensive Mobley tier. (technically cost more than Evan).

 

It is almost like comparing James Harden to PJ Tucker and arguing that PJ is more of a winning player. Sure Banchero is having a down year, but we knew for a while that Bari's ceiling is a good role player and Paolo already took his squad to playoffs as the main guy.

 

I was pissed when the Rockets drafted Jalen Green over Mobley. I have not moved on from that position

But Mobley will make 61m in 2030 while Jabari 25m so in that context it is a no brainer to keep Jabari assuming he remains healthy

 

I think about Al Horford a lot when I think about Jabari’s trajectory as sort of a superstar role player ultra versatile big. So it would almost be like comparing 09-11 Joe Johnson/Banchero vs Horford/Jabari in terms of value to winning.

Obviously JJ was the better scorer, an all star, and the core focus of their offense those years, but you can’t discount how important Horford was his entire career.

I think a similar story will be told in future years looking at these two players side by side. Jabari is going to have a very long career assuming good health and be considered an Invaluable piece to many winning teams. I think Banchero could have some very impressive seasons and he’s more likely to be in the running for mvp these next 5 years but I would say it’s more likely that he has a shorter run with his peak years.

All things considered, yeah most teams would be foolish to not pay the extra salary and take the swing for the fences with Banchero the next 5 or so seasons of course. Let’s not fool ourselves there.

 

If Harden was as inefficient as Banchero then he would be a scrub like Banchero. Taking a team in the East to the playoffs isnt that impressive to me. I remember Harden took a Rockets team with Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon to no 3 in the West, now thats def impressive.

Dude has a career TS% thats lower than Jalen Green and career 3 pt% at 30% lol. As a rookie Banchero was so much better than Jabari it isnt even funny however Banchero hasnt improved at all in 3 yrs while Jabari has made modest improvements every year.

 

Banchero hasnt shown any improvement from his rookie year and isnt an efficient first option scorer. He isnt worth the max IMO like compare him to Jalen Johnson JJ is better and cheaper.

 

I always thought Banchero was fools gold and was relieved when he was picked no. 1. I wanted Chet, but knew that wasn’t going to happen. Jabari was the right pick and is still only 22 and improving every year. It was an excellent pick. Every draft is different and people saying he is not performing like a 3 pick needs to are being ridiculous. There is no standard performance level for how a 2 pick or 3 pick should play. Sure a GM can make a blunder, but the hate toward the players for not performing to the standard, of which there is not one, of their draft position is for the emotionally immature.

 

This was the exact scenario many of us predicted when the discussion between Jabari and Banchero played out.

He is one of the least efficient scorers in the NBA and the Magic have had a losing record when he plays the last 2 seasons. Banchero "has" to be a star player because he brings very little if he isn't handling the ball. And maxing out a "star" who isn't actually good enough to be one can be a disaster for a franchise.