Jalen Green's thoughts on James Harden coming back to the Rockets

...and he did, in his 2nd season in the league he was on the all NBA first team and was a DPOY candidate.

There's a reason Mobley is by far first in the draft class in win shares while the guy we took ahead of him is 20th in that metric despite it being a compilation metric....meaning the more you play, the more opportunity you have to increase your number, and Green has played the 4th most minutes in that draft class.

The debate on this ended a really long time ago.

 

So that's the excuse for why they couldn't hit wide open shots?

That's why Jalen was so pathetic defensively?

 

New day, same ole BTG

 

A so called debate is never over in two seasons, but seeing you are of the microwave fast food middle school of thought, that would make sense in your sports world

Win shares comes from winning games (as a team), so them getting Mitchell and Garland taking a step up is what helped that tremendously along with the other Footer helping anchor the interior, who i think Allen may have been a all star sub or close to being that last season, and Mitchell was a multi all star in the West so it was basically a given he would continue that in the East

Thing is I mentioned leading up to that draft it was back n forth with Mobley or Green as my personal pick, and I figured Tilman would go for the offensive / sell ticket - jersey side of the coin

which in the end for all the great defense, offense wins games, as showcased somewhat in the Nuggets/Lakers series where I think the Lakers had a better overall team defense rank, but the Nuggets had too many offensive ways to overcome that stout Lakers defense scheme

similar to how the Knicks did the stout regular season Cavs defense in the playoffs

Mobley didn't do anything special on defense to me, because it was his calling card coming out of NCAA and it carried over the NBA (good for him and you), which Mitchell/Garland and that guard heavy squad did all the offensive heavy lifting, which left Mobley to focus on what he does at high level (defend) and get spoon fed on offense by those same guards, which i guess you can toot your horn about a player sticking to his strengths and being carried by others for his limited offense prowess, nothing more nor less

you have to give it at least 5 to 10 years to say something is what it is, not 2 years, it's a marathon not a sprint, being all health is equal

and I thought the playoffs is more important than the regular season, so Mobley is just a regular season performer and doesn't show up when the team needs him the most in the postseason?

you make it seem like Mobley put up 25 and 12 with DPOY Finalist on resume in regular season, but more like 15 and 9 and being spoon fed for most of all his buckets, and did even worse in his playoff debut, which I don't knock him personally, just asking you about it since you claim he is such a great player and his Win Shares are so amazing, which should have carried over to the Knicks series easily

 

Yeah. The reason is that Mobley is on a structured, winning team that wasn't tanking. Hard to have high win shares when the high water mark is 22 wins for the year.

 

You really can't tank when you pick good players, tanking is only possible when you either pick the wrong players or you pick guys that need several years to be NBA ready.

Also, you realize Jalen Green isn't the only player on the Rockets from this draft class right? While Jalen is 20th in the class with 4740 minutes played, Alpren Sengun is 6th in the class with only 3660 minutes played.....on a team with a high water mark of 22 wins.

In short, the excuse for Jalen falls apart with ANY level of scrutiny.

See above as to why your excuse for Jalen falls apart.

When it comes to the debate, it can end in a hurry when the gap is THIS extreme. Would you argue that we need more than 2 years to settle the debate as to if Green is better than Nix?


How many more years are we going to have to make excuses for Jalen until either you guys accept reality or he finally turns into a net positive player?

 

The first part isn't really true. It's very easy to manipulate lineups and gameplans so that teams don't win regardless of who you draft. Also I think Sengun is the best player on this team and likely will be the best of his draft class.

That being said it's harder for a SG to have that kind of impact with no structure than it is for a center. Especially one with Sengun's IQ and feel that's extremely rare for a player of his age.

The difference is that I don't hold that against Jalen as much. Especially since Mobley wouldn't look nearly as good in a Rockets uniform.

 

Okay....so the manipulation was to play Sengun and KPJ, the best two players on the team, less while playing Jalen and Jabari more. When that's the recipe to tank, what does it say about those two?

Again, at what point are we going to expect at least halfway decent performance from the guys we took top 3?

 

Trash at developing talent? When was the last time the Rockets were focused on developing young players and weren't in a win now mode? YAO MING. I'd say he developed just fine. Jordan, Hakeem, Lebron, Yao didn't need their nuts coddled to greatness. Ja Morant, Anthony Edwards did work without "real coaching".
Right now Jalen Green's worth is only based on potential and nothing he's really produced after year 2 on the court as of yet.

 

Telling what happen and like it is doesn't mean an excuse, get out your fantasy land for once

Drafting a raw player straight out of HS (15 or so g league games) is not the same as drafting a player who played professional overseas and won mvp, but I Am glad they got both of them and they will grow and prosper as a tandem

Its like Luka wasn't your avg prospect when compared to his class since he was playing pro ball since early, which is good for developing and confidence etc

The organization decided to tank for their lottery picks they had control, which is why now they are calling it phase 2 because the tank method is null and void and this is the final draft of phase 1, go debate with Tilman/Stone about why they decided to do that

And since you love advanced stats, show where in history of the NBA where a fresh out of HS guard and one and done 18/19 yr old tore up the league winning wise, if you can do that, you got me on this convo, I'll wait

Once again you are trying to always sneak diss with the Nix comparison, which is KPJ backup, who neither really made a difference because the Rockets sucked with both operating the team, KPJ just has more experience than Nix at sucking at it

But you were harping about wait until KPJ comes back from injury and they would start winning more, that's what I mean by kindergarten mentality, Nix just happened to suck worse than KPJ, but neither was moving the needle in securing wins, no matter who started at PG

 

I’m gonna go ahead and take my chances and say, I don’t really care all that much what Jalen thinks of personnel moves.

 

As much as I will hate Jame Harden's contract if he comes to the Rockets, Green is not a ball handler and the Rockets badly need one. James will complement Green's game more than KPJ. Might help boost Green's game in many ways but winning-wise, I hardly think they will make any noise in the playoffs if then even make it.

 

I didn't say what the manipulation was at all. The manipulation could have been to not utilize the players to their strengths and have them decide to figure things out with no guidance. In fact that's what we did. It says a lot about the coaching we had and our desire to possibly stunt the progress of the team in order to acquire draft assets. Hopefully the residual damage isn't lasting with Udoka at the helm.

 

Too bad it's Windbag reporting it. I admit I was thinking the same though, so could be a broken clock situation, I suppose.

 

Again, please point out where he was transparent about this since I requested it before when you said I hadn't even bothered to watch the video if I didn't see him clearly say he didn't want Harden back. Then proceeded to not even provide a timestamp for that occurring in a 45 second video. Do you know what a leading question is? For example when a lawyer says "Objection - Leading"? Paul George spoke for about 40 seconds about how negative bringing Harden back would be and about 5 seconds of how Harden could positively impact his growth, Jalen Green said I agree to the points he was making because at face value they're true, plus Jalen Green may be the chillest player in the NBA he's not going to start an argument on a podcast. If George had spent 90% of the time talking about the positives and 10% on the negatives, I feel confident Jalen would've said I agree each time as well because at face value those points would also be true. Which is why the "it goes both ways" kind of eliminates any "he's so transparent about it!" It's concerning how many people can't discern the bias in the way George spoke about Harden's potential return. We were taught about context clues in first grade. He will get less touches, and learning how to deal with "double teams" which I would sincerely hope he already knows how to do, and after ALLLL that time (The 90-95% of the video where Paul George is saying nothing but negative things about bringing harden back) He still says "I agree, it goes both ways" and somehow you have interpreted that as being transparent that he hates the idea of bringing back Harden. If he were being transparent in the way you are suggesting he was he would've said "I agree, I think bringing back Harden would hinder my development."

 

Isn't it so true of sports news though? I don't think the average basketball fan understands that more articles stating the same thing doesn't mean it's more true. So when more and more articles pop up they feel a momentum towards a truth and ESPN are experts at creating that momentum for clicks.

ESPN serially plays god in the "where there's smoke there's fire" theory. They know that they can create infinite smoke without fire. They know that fans believe there's fire behind the smoke. That's the most profitable path for ESPN. They will always take the most profitable path.

Then there's the final step. Even if it wasn't ESPN faking it and - in this case - let's say several different members of Harden's team were leaking this to the media... that doesn't mean it's more true. All it means is that Harden wants ESPN to promote it. The only way to prove it's true Harden is coming to Houston is verified sources.

So does that mean he for sure doesn't want to come? No. It just means we don't know and neither does ESPN. What we know to be verified is not much but at least we know it. We know two different Rockets don't seem on board with someone coming in and taking over the offense. Now they don't have final say but they also won't say something in public that's so out of whack with their recent discussions with the front office. That is as close to the truth as we've got right now.

 

It could be that Harden is not playing any games. He clearly loves the city of Houston, but seems to be happy in Philadelphia as well. Maybe he is just human and wants to see what the offers are and will then make a decision as to what he deems to be what makes him most happy. I hope they don’t tie up 40m for 4 years on him, but if they do it will still make for a much more entertaining year or two, than what we have had recently. Houston can also be a facilitator to get Harden to another team like the Lakers or Clippers which might be an even better way to use our cap space.

 

For the most part, but have to be careful when it can hurt the team in the future. Let’s say they do sign James Harden, this would create a slightly awkward situation with the up and comers that he’s supposed to lead and mentor publicly indicating he didn’t want him there.

He could have simply said it’s up to management to make roster decision and he’s looking forward to playing with the group of guys who end up on the team, whoever that may be.

Not all transparency is great. For example I can be at a grocery store and see an unhealthy humongous lady complaining about something and I could feel telling her “maybe you should stop being a fu**ing fat b**ch and you’d be happier” which would be transparent from me, but probably not great that I said it. Extreme example of course, I agree transparency is good, but you also have to know when to be polite without lying.