If you think that he will continue to shoot 22% from three, sure. I think there is a 38%+ three-point shooter in there to be developed. I'd do it now while he is on his rookie deal before I have to decide on him in a 2 years.
You take the good with the bad, he is an incredible on ball pest but I am not too eager to call him the best team defender. He is too emotional for a veteran where he goes for the erratic play like flying around Curry late in games.
I agree he shouldve played it better. When i first saw it i thought he was playing draymond way too high as well, but i think he was trying to get into position to show or pick up curry if he had taken the screen. I think once Curry rejected the screen he probably shouldve blitzed him and forced him to pass it and make someone else make a play. But i dont think he was actually playing draymond way out there. He was trying to defend the screen.
I think Jabari and most of the young players are still learning team defense and often time they are confused. Team defense has a lot to do with coaching. You have to know when to stick with you man, when to switch, when to double team, when to help, when to show, when to drop, etc. To me, it is already better than last two seasons. But expect a lot of mistakes going forward. It ain't gonna be fixed overnight.
Come on man - you can't call someone out for empty stats when you make an empty post. There was nothing Jabri did that was terrible here. Curry has legit range and it appears Jabari's responsibility here is to cover space on the other side of a Green pick(that Curry rejected twice) - that's why he is so high. Dillon's only job here is to not let Curry beat him right and he gambled on Curry's ball show that allowed him to step into an easy shot. The play looked to be a double screen up top to get Curry on to Sengun after the 2nd screen(from Looney) and I'm guessing Jabari was going to blitz Curry so he never got to accept the Looney screen to get Sengun on him. That seems like the appropriate play here - you would much rather Jabari on an island with Curry at half court than Sengun. We don't for sure know what the defensive scheme is here, but it sure seems very hard to pin this on Jabari because Udoka has experimented far more with meeting guys at the level defensively than Silas ever did - especially with guys like Curry coming around the screen.
Yeah, he definitely will make guys with weaker handles feel under pressure with his aggression, but my problem with Brooks is he plays with that same aggression even when his matchup can easily take advantage of that - that's why he ends up in the very best offensive player's highlight reels. His style of defense causes problems for 90-95% of NBA players but that 5-10% will make him look bad when he overplays. Brooks needs to work on the situational awareness of how he needs to defend Curry on the perimeter separate from the average guy...unless he was deliberately trying to keep Curry away from the screen(where he would have been picked up by Jabari or worse yet Sengun) but even if that was the case, I'm sure there were better ways to do that then throwing his body so hard toward a shifty player like Curry because at that point he was just plain out of control.
It was just one example of how much he backtracks. Yes he had to improvise a bit to cover someone else's mistake but he just doesnt seem to have any urgency to stop anyone. I did a film study blog on his defense in more detail so far, should anyone care to read it https://www.teaandrockets.com/post/jabari-smith-the-case-for-the-defense
Who kidnapped this guy ? Shoot the 3 ? Yep. Have a fade away jumper ? Yep. Rhythm shooter...you bet. Shots in corners ...yep. Drive the lane . Uh huh. This is what I watched all year at Auburn...Ky., Alabama, Ark., LSU...it didn't matter. Auburn had better ball movement than the Rockets a large part of the time. Defend and block shots..Yep. Distribute..yep that too. I can't tell you except that he was much, much more in the Auburn offense then he is with the Rockets. He is more than just a floor spacer. I'm not saying he's the greatest thing since cotton underwear but he can do more than he is right now. JMO.
Sadly, I think Jabari is obsessed with proving he can be an on-ball scorer more than anything else. My hunch tells me he’s the type of player that reads what people say about him very often and is trying to prove some mythical idea wrong. He’s not loving his bread and butter right now. The jumpers he takes are too contested or too difficult so he will not make those consistently. He’s not good enough to beat most starting nba forwards off the dribble. He’ll be fine once he stops running away from the fact that he’s an off ball scorer and defender for the foreseeable future. That’s all we need him to be. We’d love for him to do those two things well and then build the rest of his game around that. Make wide open jumpers, pass off quickly if you’re not wide open and play defense. That’s it. He will catch on sooner rather than later. I keep forgetting he’s a kid who grew up rich. There are some difficult lessons coming up for him, but we will all benefit from them.
Yall lose with these comps because it shows you don't know how truly bad Bennett was. He was at least 15x worse than Bari is.
I don’t watch college ball but I know the best college defenders probably would get destroyed by the worst NBA players. I’m sure there are outliers, but in general he’s going up against guys who would be lucky to play professionally in Azerbaijan, let alone the NBA. But I get what you mean, he’s better than what’s being displayed and how he is utilized. But outside of wide open defensive collapses, I haven’t seen even a handful of plays where he has displayed an ability to drive. Did he display any handling ability in college? I’m not impressed with Jalen’s handles either.
First of all...I personally love all basketball but IMO college is a better product vs. NBA. And I love watching the Rockets.The best college players can only compete against the best in college while playing college ball. For all but the once in a generation players, their is absolutely an "adjust" to the NBA game when coming from college.There just is. It is a very rare player who transitions from college to the NBA without a hitch. I mean yeah...I saw him shoot from every spot on the floor. Maybe it's just me but I don't think the Rockets do all that much to incorporate him into the game plan other than as a floor spacer who is shooting 3's. There are many corner threes from both sides of the floor in the highlights...I don't recall many shots from there at all.Yes, he could drive as well. Yes, I saw evidence of him having handling ability...wasn't his strongest suit but yes he had that ability. When the ball goes into the paint ...there is little to no kicking it back out to anybody. Jabari has a big part in why he hadn't performed as hoped...but he hasn't been utilized as he could be either.
Nice game from Bari last night I thought. Started to see more flashes of the guy we saw over the summer. Hopefully he can build on it going forward and get some consistency. A consistent Bari is a hell of a threat, his mechanics are pure.
He had a total brain fart in the first quarter after arguing a foul call where he didn't even know the shooter was taking only 1 free throw and allowed for an easy put back. I think that actually woke him up a little in the game cuz you could see his effort was up on the next few plays as he was flying around trying to grab all the rebounds and make up for it. That's the effort we need from him every game. Also love how in the second half when he didn't box out FVV chewed him out. That's the kinda leadership we need for Jabari to become great.
