Not comparing the two guys. No two players have the same developmental trajectory anyway. The point is, you should keep hoping until he's not a Rocket. What good is it to kick the dead horse again and again? Some of you even seem to be happy seeing him doing bad to confirm that you are right. I would only hate a player on my team if he has cancerous attitude that pollutes team culture (e.g. KPJ), or if he shows selfish tendency in his performance (e.g. Wood). As far as I am aware of, Jalen has not shown selfishness in his attitude, yet. If he does, I'll be calling for dumping him.
He's been so bad to this point in his three year career - I've never seen a bar set lower for a high draft pick - in order to receive praise.
We have a Jalen Green problem. He's better in some ways, specifically on defense, but his offense is going in the wrong direction at an alarming rate. His coach has obviously noticed, and it's pretty clear that he's getting tired of Jalen's turnovers and overall inefficiency. Unfortunately, I don't see any growth at all from him offensively from when he first came into the league. At the start of the season it felt like Jalen would recognize his off nights and tap the brakes when his shot was clearly off, but now it feels like he's pressing again and trying to force everything. The lobs are GONE, which probably isn't his fault, but they were a fairly important part of his game before. He's struggling badly in the new system and it feels like maybe he's not a good fit. I don't think the pace of the offense suits his game. I'm pulling for him, but right now it doesn't look good.
His supposed ability to score at 3 levels is THE reason he was drafted #2. All his problems would go away if he could shoot ~45% from the floor and 37% from 3.
Don't even bother having a discussion with someone who says Green hasn't improved since his rookie season. He's ten times the professional, teammate and defender he was. Defense is half the game. Scoring is less than half the game. He's improved on a more important skill. There's no way anyone thought Jalen could start for like a top 5 defense by age 22. People used to brush off the notion that he could end up a good defender in the playoffs much like Kobe (who I think was good but over hyped defensively). The only thing in his way is getting to the point where he can consistently and within one of the slowest/worst offenses in the NBA get a large volume of points at the rim from the perimeter. Lobs and transition points are non existent on our team because we're obsessing about defense at the moment - that's taken a hatchet to his efficiency and I don't know why we'd do that with a young and athletic team. None of our athletes are flourishing btw. Time will tell. You're just not accepting that it would make total sense for Green's ascension to be severely delayed. It's logical for people to start checking out if they're non rocket fans. I can't understand how a rockets fan doesn't know Green's entire development experience - including in the NBA - is the worst you've ever seen so the results must get delayed.
I can acknowledge those improvements and adjustment. But his 3pt shooting should not be impacted by the pace/clogged lane. If he was shooting 36-38% this year I think people would be a lot more willing to show patience. I want him to succeed because an all star SG is the missing piece on this team. I hope the Rockets bring in competition for him at the deadline or in the offseason.
I don't. You win some, you lose some. After a couple games I realized he wouldn't be That GUY. People thought we got Michael Jordan 2.0 but what we got was Michael Jackson 5.0.
