I wouldn’t apply this thought universally…it wouldn’t be an unbendable rule for me…but generally speaking, I agree. And I coach tournament basketball through a nonprofit with my son. I see it up close a lot…way too much “throw the ball up and go get it” to favor athleticism over skill. Kobe said it better than I ever could:
If you look at the last decade, the answer is MAYBE. https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/every-nba-top-3-overall-pick-ever
I think good coaches understand what motivates their players. Every player is likely different - being the alpha, appeal to their ego, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, guilt. I don't know what Green's personality is, but the one certainty I've come away with from the beginning of this season is that Udoka is a phenomenal coach. After the difference I've seen between last year and this year, I trust him to do the right thing.
Well I guess that means our drafts will be Ime driven which is nice, but he has to figure out if the Stone and Silas drafts were any good. Well if no star is available take the best player.... DD
I expect all of our young studs to blossom when they're around 26-28 and are on teams not named Rockets.
I was referring to what motivates the players. If benching is a stategy that would work well in making Jalen better, then bench him. Some players may respond very well to that. Others may not. I'm saying that "bench him" sounds great on a fan bulletin board, but if you don't personally know the players, then you're really just guessing.
Main problem with Jabari and Green is not lack of fundamentals. They are physically very raw. Add inexperience and you got softness and lack of confidence. Jabari is 20 y.o. in his 2nd year. He's showing progress, he's shooting better, defending better, penetrating better. Shows a good character and personality for a young man. Chet will be the best player of that draft class (we didn't have the chance of drafting him). We'll see if Banchero is a better player than Jabari in the end (I'm talking about winning impact, not just numbers), but Jabari is going to be a much better player than Murray. Let him become a man and we'll speak. Jalen case is more worrying to me. He has the skills (I disagree with you there) and I don't think the readings or the IQ are his biggest issues... I think he's Ok at this stage of his career there. He's just soft, weak, and probably needs to change his shooting mechanics. But he's more than an athletic guy. He has creativity, he can see basketball plays.... his handles are soft, unsecure (small hands factor there?), has a high center of gravity, he's just very weak with the ball, but we have seen him being capable of making very good reads and very different passes off p&r. We've seen elite dribbling moves, great footwork at 1on1, at finishing... We're not talking about a Gerald Green there, he's actually a very talented young player (he has no confidence currently and confidence can make a big difference, but he has the talent level. Does he have the tools?). What I mean is, one can understand why he was a consensual elite prospect for the experts.. (...) At the same time, one wonders if the mental factor or the measurements (wingspan, hand size..) were overlooked... You wonder if the fact of not having played at college, contrary to what was thought at the time, made him a big favor at the draft process... Because I see many players in the NCAA physically more mature than him RIGHT NOW. It's like he had the perfect excuse playing the G-League to justify his rawness, a kid vs grown men, but what if NCAA players can already expose his true and current level of readiness? Today, I think he probably shouldn't have been a #2 pick, based on how raw he was and regarding doubts on his mentality and competitiveness. The path to fulfilling his potential is longer than what was thought at the moment. But the basketball talent to become a star, including the potential skillset, is there.
I still think Jabari can be an impact starting caliber player but he listened to his critics too much and thought he needed to develop a handle and be more like paolo. Instead what he needs to do is focus more on 3 and D become the best version of the player he was that got him drafted so high. If jabari is an elite defender and elite shooter he wouldnt even need to try to dribble much and have handles. If he was just good at the things hes supposed to be good at jabari would look a lot better. With Jalen, it looks like he hasn't improved much or has regressed in many offensive skills. He'll get more time to improve himself so pur opinions dont even matter but id be ok if they gave up on Jalen at some point in the near future. I just dont think hes going to be a very good player.
TBH, it's really just so many young American plays that lack the fundamentals because they grew up watching Curry. You notice all these Euros entering the league play a lot smarter than their American counterparts. As good as Sengun is, we really failed to draft a generational type player with our rebuild. Everyone knows 99% of the teams that win the NBA finals have an MVP or top 5 player. I really doubt any the guys we're betting on can achieve that outside of Sengun and even he has his weaknesses.
Imagine dck riding a guy for 3 years who lacked the basic fundamentals to b a pg. Proceeds to complain how we didn't draft players with fundamentals.
I look at it like the Astros rebuild in the early 2010's. You accumulate the talent, you develop it, and most of all you give it time. The Astros drafted a fair amount of high floor players who didn't pan out to ****. Most of the championship era players from the farm were raw, high ceiling guys (Correa, Tucker, Yordan) augmented with some high floor guys (e.g. Bregman) The current group of rockets have had very little time/development in a legit coaching/development system. Be patient.
I would rather have Alpi/Jalen/Jabari than Mobley/Alpi/Murray. i think Green seems confused at his place in the offense and that is a good thing. He hast to do more to be a bigger part of it than the 3rd option he us right now. So the answer is continue to play better on defense and rebound. I think he has been significantly better on D. we actually don’t have to decide anything this year we can let him go to restricted free agency and essentially let the league make that decision next year. we are really playing well and all of these guys have a tremendous amount of run way to improve. This applies to their physical development and sure fundamentals as well. I really like Mobley and Holmgren. I think that these are players, that impact both side of the ball in a winning manner. I think Green and Smith still have higher ceilings.
Jabari is the BPA over Murray. Murray is 6'8 and one of the oldest players in the draft. He had 3 yrs college experience over Jabari. He had a terrific rookie season but I guess is having a horrible year now cuz he is shooting 28% from 3 and only 49% TS... He is basically playing like a scrub. And again, he is 3 yrs older than Jabari. Jabari was publicly known as the BPA at 3, unless you have ability to see into the future the only guys you will pick at 4 will be Jabari, Jaden Ivey or Murray. So far I like Jabari over Ivey.
Rockets only rebuilt for 3 yrs it's hard to time a draft where a generational player is available and you can also draft him. If they rebuilt for 10 yrs like Detroit or Orlando maybe they can get a generational player.
