My read on Simmons was always he made sure to get in an extra dig or two on the Rockets to prove his friendship with Morey wasn't influencing his thinking, especially as a guy who made his bones touting how access to athletes/coaches never sway his opinions. Well, that, and I think he genuinely didn't like the Rockets' style of play.
Eh, at least he made the list. Honestly with the short resume and poor W-L record, not much to complain about. He’s shown flashes, but I won’t complain about disrespect until he’s proven his consistency over a longer time period.
It is not nearly as easy of a decision as you would make it seem. Franz is only a few months older than Jalen, but better in nearly every statistical category. You might think that Jalen has higher potential, but should higher potential affect current rankings?
Look at both their road/home splits. Then look at how many home games each played.... That should answer everything.
Their defense regressed since last year. Some of it is Paolo and BolBol playing. Other was chemistry issue with Fultz coming back. Wagner is a bright spot for them. I get that Wagner is nice, and his stats are 'nice'. My point is their record is same as ours (a bit worse right now), if Ringer guys are strictly looking at upside, they probably should have lumped other young-ons too. They ranked Paolo and Wagner 20-30 spots ahead of Green; so there's the wide margin; meaning they don't think it's that close. As some of the other posters said; it's just few guys' opinion, so we don't have to take it super seriously. When I first clicked on the article: I ctrl+F on "Herb" Jones to see if he was on the list. Herb didn't make the top 100. Funny how things have changed for Simmons (Ringer) since last year.
Trade value podcast from Simmons. Had Jabari in the mid to high 40s. Had Jalen in the low 30s and said this will for sure be the last season Jalen isn’t in his top 30. Had some pretty complimentary things to say. No mention of KPJ….
That logic doesn't make sense for "trade value". Trade value implies trading for a player and what you will get out of them for the rest of their career. Green is in the zone of untouchable because any player the Rockets would trade straight up for Green the other team will say no such as Giannis or Embid or Tatum etc. And the guys other teams would trade for Green aren't players Rockets are willing to let go of Green for.
It’s definitely no exact science. Especially because it’s just him and his buddies pretty limited perspective, just an interesting listen. He runs through plenty of scenarios if you listen. He had Green higher in the list than Lebron. Saying Houston fans would absolutely lose their **** if they announced today they traded Green for Lebron.
I agree something special is happening. My real fear is that the Rockets trade a young guy and he becomes a superstar somewhere else because there is just no way to know just yet how good any of these young players will become. They need to keep all these young guys for another year or two before moving any of them. Just the young guys...you can trade Eric Gordon etc. any time.
Based on this years' stats only, I have Jalen top 70 so it's not way off. But have KPJ and Sengun in my top 100 as well and they aren't on the list. I do have Franz ahead of Jalen but he has closed the gap significantly since last year, based on current trajectory I'd imagine Jalen will be better than all current Magic players by next year, possibly with the exception of Paolo.
Why focus on the number rather than the analysis / judgment, which is very positive and spot on. I don’t care about people’s lists, I care about their take and this is a good one so we shouldn’t get our boxers in a bunch.
The list is about individual players, but it’s hard to separate them from the team. On the initial glance, I don’t know that there is anything too egregious. However there are a few things that stood out, more relating to team composition. The Lakers have two players in the top 10 and are still a lottery team The Magic have 3 players in the top 100, while the Rockets only have one, but the Magic have a worse record The Celtics have (by my quick count) 8 players in the top 100, six of whom are ranked higher than Jalen Green While you are always going to be able to pick these lists ranking individual performances apart, I think they can be pretty interesting for looking at the makeup of a team: how balanced they are and whether they are living up to what should be expected of them.
That's ok, it's been a rugged start to the season for the team and Jalen. It makes sense for non-fans to see him this way right now. I wonder if there are many 20 year olds who have been top 84 NBA players, especially ones who hadn't been to college like Kobe, T-Mac, Garnett. I'm guessing not more than a handful in NBA history. Let's see where he ranks to end the season. I bet he's top 50 by the end of it. The rest of this season is going to be extremely interesting, watch him destroy expectations again.
