Yeah the layup he missed against Jovic to end the 3rd was a wtf moment. Jovic didn't even jump Jabari just threw it hard against the backboard
Really, really happy with his rebound chasing. He is huge for this team because he can go get silly rebounds above the rim. That is going to allow us to beat the Chets and the Wembys a couple of years from now. Might be scary when he puts on some old man strength, too. Super excited about our future frontline in general.
Regardless of what happens with Amen, Cam, and Jalen, we got two really good ones in Bari and Sengun.
Love that his shot is becoming more automatic. 38% on the year from 3.. Hopefully next year he pushes that to >40% and the spacing that provides to an offense dragging out a Big man from the paint is huge. Still cringe to watch him try to create his own shot. I hope he can figure something out in the off-season to add to his bag.
We also have the Nets pick which if we are lucky could slip into the top ten which would be a huge boon for us.
He's starting to play like the Jabari I watched at Auburn two years ago. In college, one of the first things I noticed about his defense is he almost never goes for fakes.
the process of the game slowing down for him at this level and getting more and more used to the players in the league year 2 so far has been great for this dude. confidence, growth, efficiency, impacting winning
On his sometimes awful defense last year, I think there must have been locker room stuff or just a toxic atmosphere that made him drop the fundamentals and cockiness he displayed in college. At times rookie Jabari was just fine, but there were stretches where I don't know where his head was at. Regardless of the reason, this year he's consistently staying fundamental and using his length. The final step is for him to start daring perimeter guys to go at him (like he used to).
It's difficult and demotivating to be a good defender when there's no good team defense. Add non stop losing to that equation and you get a lot of selfish behavior emerging on the court. Legler actually talked about this on Reddick's podcast the other day. ALL players regressed defensively under Silas. Vets and rookies. Everyone is better post-Silas. Was saying this to anyone who would listen last season. You can't judge defense like that. The advanced stats are drowned in noise and the players didn't care and management didn't either. Thank god we're done with that.
Yeah, there's a lot of "team" in defense. If you are a good defender but play on a team that don't care about defense, it's like having an knife inside you killing you night in and night out. You could tell that Jabari cared about playing good defense. Some people criticized him for barking at his teammates. If he was a proven veteran and not a rookie, he might have been able to affect the team culture, like FVV and Brooks do this season. Even for the vets, they need the coach to instill accountability for it to work.
KPJ went out of his way to distract and bully Jabari last year after Jabari complained about KPJ being a distraction.
In earnest, he was barking at them when he himself made a semi mistake.....it felt he wanted to double team someone......
Oh sure, he made plenty of mistakes. He still does. He was a rookie, not a proven vet. That's why his barking wasn't well received and couldn't really change anything. But it also showed that he cared about good defense. It would be easy just going through the motion when nobody (including the coach) seemed to care.
