Guys, please don't drink the Jabari Kool-Aid again, at least yet. How many times has he followed up a strong run of games by falling into the dumpster? Hopefully we get a couple of rounds in the playoffs to figure out where all the youngsters stand.
I think JSJ gets too much love for little things and small sample sizes (e.g., guarding Curry for 5 seconds, of which Amen came to double for the last 3), but overall, he's having a good role-player year. I think he's only been in the dumpster for a brief period of time this season, but it was bad.
Player who can swing the first round: Jabari Smith Jr. He has been very average this season at essentially 0.0 net points per 48 minutes at both ends of the court. But he was bad against playoff-level teams and bad in the clutch -- and he actually led the league in "threshold losses," games in which the Rockets "would have won" if he hadn't played. We don't really know who the Rockets' leader is, but they need Smith to step up if they want to get out of the first round. -- Oliver https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/48447222/nba-playoffs-2026-preview-teams-postseason
I think fans are eagerly overlooking when he strung together good shooting games against mediocre competition while against the top teams he was not always there......so can't trust either, fan boards and the media. Fans overly want him to succeed, and the media landscape does not care about him at all unless he is a 20 and 10 machine.
Jabari stepped up.last year in the playoffs, and will do the same once again. His game is made for it....on both ends. As he gets older, and progresses, this will become more evident. He's shown marked improvement across the board lately. Look for an impactive performance.
Seems to imply games where the player was such a negative that the team wouldve won had they not played. If Jabari led the league in such a stat, I immediately question the stats viability because Jabari and Amen tie this ship together defensively while the "3 Disasters of Defense" figure out who's going to commit the more critical turnover and/or forget their assignment.
Why do people say this? Aside from his cold streak of like 9 games, he’s been a model of consistency this year.
Yeah I’ve been one of the louder Jabari critics over the years but that sees like a dubious stat . But oddly enough a lot of advance stats are agaisnt Jabari’s favor..
I'm pretty sure JSJ had a shooting slump that did not coincide with playing just great teams. I've not felt JSJ's bad games coincide with competition other than being in a starting lineup that just isn't as good as the best teams in the West. JSJ's primary value skill is 3 point shooting and threat of 3 point shooting, and he shot significantly better from 3 versus the West's elite than he did on average. The only time I recall him struggling against a Top team in the West was versus SA in which Wemby guarded Amen (by guarded, I mean ignored and just sat in the paint) while the Spurs tried to deny Durant, Reed, and JSJ shots from 3. I would not put that on JSJ. This isn't to say I think JSJ is great. His three-point shooting needs to get better, such that on average it is at least 38% instead of just streaks of greater than 38%. I just don't see his shooting slumps as competition-driven. Preferably over 40%. Looking through his worst shooting games from 3, I see one SA game and a ton of Port, Sac, Was, Phil, Utah games. I wrote most of this post before looking at his game logs. If I had to guess after sorting looking for his worst games, I'd guess he typically shoots much much worse against worst competition than he shrinks against good competition.
His shooting is fine, it’s just limited on scale. It’s the defense, his inability to be the initiator, the overall speed, fluidity, and athleticism gap that kills us against the top teams.
While Amen has always scored well with the analytics people, and Dean Oliver who wrote that ESPN blurb is certainly one of those people, Jabari never has gotten analytics love anywhere. I even once watched a couple of games focusing just on Jabari and honestly I kind of agree with this sentiment. He is not nearly as dominant on defense as his size would suggest, and on offense his overall passing/dribbling/decision making is at best passable. And he's not an intangibles guy either. He definitely doesn't belong in the same sentence as Amen on defense.
He is taking more 3s this year. Even at 36%, it helps spacing the floor and upping the team TS%. I wish his average could go up to near 40%.
Amen is the best perimeter defender in the world so it's unfair to compare Jabari to him. If you just stuck Amen on those Suns teams that Durant was on, they win 50+ games due to his impact. Jabari isnt an All NBA level defender but he is a positive and the 2nd best defender of the starters whereas last year he was the 4th best. Implying that the team is better without him though is an insane take which is what this "statistic" seems to do. These stats always inflate certain things (Reed is probably a more impactful defender on a lot of these because steals and blocks is a lot easier to track then getting blown by which he does a lot but youd have to have someone actually talley that by watching every game and thats work so they wont do it) and they paint an incorrect picture. Jabari for all his faults is this teams canary in a colemine. If he plays well, they win. If he doesnt, they lose.
For a 6'10 defensive and rebounding role player that is really good. People want him to succeed as he is on a cheap deal and his archetype is something every contender is looking for.
If he had been drafted 23rd or signed to the DFS contract, people would love him. At some point fans have to get over the ‘but he was a 3rd pick’ … it is not relevant to the present or future.
I think expectations relating to Jabari's draft position are a thing of the past already. He's on his second contract and even at $25M/yr I think most people see it as good value. He's just so young that there's still the possibility of untapped potential.
he was already at 36.3% 3FG% in his 2nd year I was kind of hoping he gets closer to 38%at the very least this year oh well. but I trust he steps up in the playoffs which is more important
