I think he profiles as exactly the type of guy you're describing that this team needs. If, at age 22, he's already solid-average or better at basically everything relative to other power forwards, I think you can project him to be above-average at everything in three or four years. I'm not sure what you're thinking is an "excellent" starter, but to me, that qualifies. Not everybody on your team can be an all-star, but if he ends up being our 4th or 5th starter, he will be one of the best in that category in the NBA.
The Stats are saying the Rockets lineups are different but the various 29 other teams lineups that they are playing against are all exactly the same. It looked like we play different teams all the time with different strengths and weaknesses, some of whom are better than others from my eye test but my eye test must be failing if these stats say they’re all the same.
Jabari is our most critical piece on offense because he’s our only real floor spacer out there. When he isn’t hitting 3’s, our offense really suffer because there’s nobody out there to respect and the court shrinks. 5 out doesn’t work without the threat of Jabari. We can’t afford no off nights from him once the postseason starts. He is our x-factor or trump card and I say that as a poster whose probably been more critically frustrated by Jabari then Any other of the youth core
“Relative to other power forwards” is a huge distinction. The 24’ Celtics teams power forward was Jayson Tatum. They played 4 guys in Tatum, Brown, White, and Holiday that Jabari does not project to become above average at most of what they do. They are all fast, can pass, can switch onto anyone on the perimeter and pressure the ball, they can catch on the run, they can grab a rebound and turn and go, take it up quickly themselves, all 4 can initiate off the dribble and get by guys 1v1.
I'd say Bari has shown some real signs of being able to handle the ball and create a little bit of offense this season. His passing has improved too. He's never going to be a #1 or #2 option on offense, but I'd say he can certainly be the 4th option if he just improves a bit more, maybe even the third depending on the level of improvement.
Luka leads the NBA with 33.5 ppg. That's not 38 vs tanking teams, 31 vs elite teams, 35 vs playoff teams, etc etc etc. It's 33.5 ppg. I'm not going to pretend you understand stats very well after your post so I'll keep it simple. The gigantic positive impact Bari has on these lineups is so large that it would easily account for any margin of error you think might exist in the data. You could reduce his impact by 50% and he would still profile as our best team-defender. That's insane. He's already a solid NBA starter. We are demonstrably worse without him. If he's redundant w/ a ~ 40 yr old basketball chemistry terrorist I'm ok getting rid of the terrorist instead of the 22 y/o. And I'm also ok with letting him develop more here regardless of playoff performance. Agree w/ the laterally slow observation. But, personally I think he's a well above avg to excellent team defender and the defensive rating stats support that.
I think there’s this ranking thing going on that doesn’t tell the story and isn’t going translate to conference finals ball. if we compare Jabari to other power forwards, give him check marks for offense and defense, give him a big check mark for shooting, look at his regular season numbers and how well he does against the totality of the league in an 82 game season he’ll get a high rank. Could argue he’s ahead of a guy like VJ Edgecombe or close to Derrick White in a ranking. I think it’s going to disappear when we get to playing the best teams 7 times in a row. What happens to Jabari’s numbers when we meet a team that doesn’t have to double KD and Sengun, they have defenders to guard straight up. What happens against outlier speed like the Spurs. What happens when Anthony Edwards, Luka, or SGA start guarding Jabari and not leaving him. He becomes the one they start hunting in ISO’s, they already played Reed Sheppard off, they’ve already seen that he’s beatable in game 3, it’s game 4 now. Is Jabari still confident dribbling around those guys.. I think his player type is concerning and for a big series I’d much much rather an Edgecombe or Derrick White fast do it all guy. The argument for me has never been whether he’s good or not. He’s good. I just think he’s better as a trade piece than as championship level starter.
Not every starter can be an all star obviously, that’s a bit of a strawman. I would take championship year White, Porzingis, Jrue and possibly even Al Horford (short contract, rare skill-combo) over him right now. Philosophically, I don’t believe in investing 7-8 years in developing your 2nd/3rd best role player. That’s a replaceable player and we have much larger priorities. I’m sure you’re right that Jabari will be better in 3-4 years but I don’t have any concerns about acquiring that guy in 3-4 years. It’s a plentiful prototype. Would much rather use him to upgrade one of our top 3 players either by packaging him or acquiring an extra pick. I’m happy to downgrade from Jabari Smith to say Derrick Jones Jr if I can also get a #10 pick in that trade.
I can see your point. Going to be interesting to see how things go for him in these playoffs, especially if we get to the 2nd round and face one of the better/healthier teams. I'll just add a few things. The first being that his height at 6'11" is a huge advantage that we shouldn't forget about; he can basically always get his shot off unless he's being guarded by a player with ridiculous physical attributes like Wemby or Chet. It also makes him more of a rim protection threat than most power forwards. And two, again, he's 22. I don't think his whole story is written yet. He seems to have a good work ethic and a strong desire to win. There's some improvement left in there. Three, I think you're overstating at least a little bit how stacked the top teams are. OKC, yeah, I will concede, their depth is insane. But even they are not immune to running somewhat-limited roleplayers out there, like Hartenstein, for as good as he is at what he does, he is not exactly a guy you worry too much about creating his own offense. But when you get into teams like Boston, Denver, San Antonio, you're talking about guys like Sam Hauser, Cam Johnson (used to be MPJ when they won their title), Harrison Barnes, etc. I think Jabari can easily hang with and probably end up being better than that level of player. I would be willing to trade Jabari for the right return. The trade you suggested would be kinda borderline for me. I wouldn't be jumping to pull the trigger, but I'd consider it, depending on who's available at #10 and how the front office feels about that guy relative to Jabari. The type of trade I would be more eager about would be for a guy like Trey Murphy. I think it's going to be harder to find a trade partner that makes sense than you might think, though.
The Rockets do not have the top-level guys that OKC, Denver, SA, and Boston have. I'm confident JSJ can compete or be a little better than the backend starters of the top teams. Rockets need either better top-end talent or will need to win huge outside the top 3 players. I like JSJ's ability to use his length to shoot over most players. I think he still needs to shoot a little better if the Rockets are going to have Amen as a guard or SF and start JSJ once Durant is gone. Durant and Reed may generate more gravity than any other two teammates in the NBA, but the Rockets still feel cramped most games. It is going to be hard for the Rockets to replace Durant's spacing.
Yeah, kind of back to the same topic we always get onto, we don't have a good enough "franchise player". I don't really see that as Jabari's fault, though, and I think he fits into a lot of teams. I'd like him to shoot it better, but I do think he will do that as he gets older. The obvious fix for when KD retires/is traded would be to find another guy who can fill his shoes, and ideally is actually a better overall player than a 37-year-old Durant. Easier said than done. Barring that, I think it's back the other topic we always seem land on... at least one of Sengun or Thompson needs to get a lot better with their outside shot and basically take their game to another level. Or I guess you can try to hope on Reed being a Curry level movement shooter. I think all three of those are pretty unlikely, but maybe in aggregate there's a chance one of the three pans out?
Jabari’s height advantage over Julian Champagnie, Keldon Johnson, Devin Vassel, Dylan Harper, Ajay Mitchell, Cason Wallace, Alex Caruso, Jared McCain, Tim Hardaway Jr, Christian Braun, etc. shows up some times and when it helps, it helps a Jabari shot. Those guys speed advantage over him, can help their entire teams flow, it can spark a good team shot rather than just their own and the frequency of it is inherently higher. It might just be a different style of play, but a lot of times it looks to be a superior style of play.
I was not thinking of drafting anyone with that #10 pick, rather to package/reroute it with our existing picks to upgrade one of our top 3 players. Not interested in crossing my fingers and waiting for 3 years of development again. I don’t think we’ll have an issue finding a trade partner if Jabari is as good as we think. We can conceptually find a problem with any trade idea but ultimately trades are regularly taking place and in every trade we have to negotiate to make sure it’s good for us. Trey Murphy is a good player but I’d rather hold the trade chips and just wait for a ceiling raising player. These become available roughly every 6 months and no one ever sees it coming but times have changed and it’s a regular occurrence now. I want someone who’s good at getting to the line and making 3’s. I have a feeling Anthony Edwards will not be happy in the city of Minnesota forever (yes I know it seems unlikely right now).
It isn't JSJ's fault. It just makes it that, depending on him as a starter and keeping the young core intact, likely isn't that great long term unless something changes dramatically either through internal development of JSJ or others or through bringing someone in that can be a star. I do think the Rockets have been betting on the aggregate. Even with Reed having a good year, I think this has been a very disappointing year for the young core, specifically Amen and Sengun as the guys that entered the season as the clear best 2. I thought one of them would be better than Durant this year.
You listed all guards, they typically have a speed advantage over Power forwards, especially 6’11” power forwards. This is actually normal lol
I would say the most disappointing thing is that Sengun didn't carry over his play from the first month and what he's shown the past couple of weeks or so throughout the entire season of basketball. If he'd done that I'd think he was on track to be a superstar--I momentarily thought he'd made the leap, but called it too early. With Amen, my disappointment is more specific to his lack of improvement as a shooter. Everything else has been fine for a third year player, I think? He's made at least a moderate leap in the other categories, along with some expected defensive regression given his higher usage/minutes load.
