Jalen Green’s frustration clear in the building - Iko

Paolo Banchero is a forward, not a guard and literally has a worse career ts% than Green and is heralded as one of the ten most promising young players in the league.

 

What the hell does that have to do with the Rockets winning at a much higher rate when Jalen shoots "at or above league average from 3"??

Don't try and move the goalpost.

.600 Vs .460 That's the difference between being a solid playoff team and being outside the play in.

Is it just a coincidence that they win more games when Jalen plays / shoots well?

Jalen is the highest usage player on the team, takes the 2nd of both 2 and 3's.

I think it stands to reason that when he shoots well, the team is much better than ..... otherwise.


If you want to argue differently ....

 

Honestly Cleaning the Glass on/off impact for offense is a much better indicator of Green's impact on offense as it's far more granular than a loose correlation between two stats

You are using one criteria and running home with it as if it is the only thing that matters.


Scoring efficiency is scoring efficiency. If spacing is what you are worried about, Green is the least of the Rockets concerns in regards to spacing.

 

He has been coddled and catered to in his first 2 years and even Udoka is actually encouraging him.

His fans are trying to coddle him yet again.

 

you said the bolded, then doubled down on your claim that better 3pt shooting from Jalen would lead to more wins. thats just not factual or a claim you can make by extrapolating like this. It doesnt factor in opponents played, opponents shooting, teammates shooting, home or away, injuries, b2bs, nothing. Its hypothetical mumbo jumbo.

Just for the sake of it, i went back to every loss we had where Jalen shot under league average from 3. Retroactively gave him the requisite makes to bring him above league average in that game.

The experiment of making Jalen shoot league average or better from 3 in every loss he shot below average resulted in the following:

• 1 loss turned into a win
• 4 losses led to Overtime
• 25 stayed losses

Kinda doesnt seem THAT important does it. Like i said earlier, Jalen needed 1 made 3 every 4th game to be league average, a total of 22 more makes on the season. There IS A LOT of nuance to basketball beyond just %'s.

I know i know, your gonna say well in the flow of game more made baskets leads to more this or that and the team plays/responds better or whatever. This is exactly why you cant extrapolate small data points like this because it doesnt tell the entire story of the games or even come close to it.

 

No, you don't ..... I'm not going to change your mind no matter what.

You don't believe Jalen shooting like shiit matters .... fine by me.


For clarity's sake - the cutoff wasn't "league average" it was "At or above".

 

Would Jalen Green being a knock down shooter elevate the team?

Ya.

But lets not pretend he was one of the three most important impact players on offense for the team in a positive direction.

 

which i changed each individual game to reflect above. every time, above not just at. It didnt have the impact you thought it did because basketball is complex. Jalen shhotin 4 of 10 instead of 2 of 10 in a 20point blowout loss isnt changing shiit.

I think him being a poor shooter is definitely important and its something he HAS to improve in order to become a star player. Otherwise he will become a travelling rotation spark plug. I think its the most important part of his game he needs to improve NOW that he has learned to become an all around winning basketball player.

you have a hard on for blaming Jalen for this TEAMS losses .... fine by me.

 

After reading that paragraph, I'm left wondering WTF we are arguing about because it sounds like we are in total agreement.

That's where you are wrong - I don't "blame Jalen for the teams losses".


I simply recognize that when Jalen plays well, the odds that the team wins increases dramatically.

When he struggles, so does the team.

I don't know if that's simply a symptom of his usage or something else entirely ....

 

Point blank, because him playing well isnt tied to his 3pt%. There is more to basketball the efficiency even if I believe its one of the most important aspects.

You confuse "jalen playing well" with "jalen shooting well" they are not entirely synonymous. Obviously when he shoots better thats great, but it isnt end all be all.

Thats the difference.

People hate on the shooting so much they ignore everything else with Jalen and how hes improved.

 

Jalen needs to be moved while March is still fresh in the leagues mind. My hope is they can get another top pick for him or be used to get someone like Duren from Detroit if they are thinking about getting a big like Edey with that 5th pick.

Take Risacher or Sheppard at #3 and plug Duren in to bolster the depth of bigs. Trade Landale and Adams.

FVV
Whitmore
Brooks
Smith Jr
Sengun

Bench
Thompson
Sheppard
Eason
Uncle Jeff
Duren

 

Hard pass

 

We can heap praise on him all you want for the improvements to his game outside of shooting .... but none of those matter if he's not putting the ball in the bucket.

He's a 2 guard, his #1 job in this league is to make buckets.

Having 21 games where he shoots less than 18% from three is unacceptable plain and simple. Less of those & more of the 40% nights and we're all happy.

Jalen Green 2023-24 Game Log | Basketball-Reference.com

 

This is patently false. Our HC went into the season - knowing how Green performed the past two seasons - saying that the priority is to improve his all round game like defense, rebounding, passing.

Of course all the other things matter too, defense is half the game, offense is half the game. Defending SG's is half of a SG's job. Finishing is a gigantic part of offense. Passing is a gigantic part of offense. 3PT shooting is important of course, but Green being good at taking 7+ 3PA is not the difference between making it or not. Ja Morant takes 3-4 attempts per game.

The idea that we would be ok with last seasons Jalen Green just with a better shooting percentage is illusory. You and I both know the narrative then would've been he doesn't give you enough except scoring.

The idea that he would improve his finishing, 3pt shooting, defense, rebounding and passing sooner or faster within the season is absolute nonsense. That he improved each of these things roughly on a monthly basis was frustrating but that's a realistic timeline. Just step out of the box for a second.

Imagine Rafael Stone saying to Udoka before the season "I need you to improve Green's finishing, 3pt shooting, defense, rebounding and passing before the All Star break". It's absurd. Udoka would never have even accepted the job.

Even if he had improved his shooting first leaving the shooting/scoring development to nearer the end of the season, we'd be having the same conversation: "the good defense and passing late in the season was only a streak, we don't know if it will carry over, we need it consistently from him, most of his games this season were bad with these things".

If Green had improved his shooting first it would make the shallow fans happy and his coach very very unhappy. In fact defense is a larger impact factor than 3pt shooting so his impact on wins would have been less. He did the responsible thing. Improved what his coach set as a priority first. Then moved onto other stuff. If anything, the fact that he put defense/passing/rebounding first without complaining about his role according to the HC is a great show of character.

Of course a team wins more when someone taking high attempts makes more of their shots. That doesn't mean anything, that's basketball.

 

CF: Jalen Green made no real improvement
Ime Udoka: "I think they all took a big leap this year all at different times. But going into your second, third, fourth year, you want growth and all of our guys took those steps."

And people really can't see they've herd-thinked themselves into a ridiculous bias.

 

This is why I tend to just enjoy the games, appreciate the highlight plays, and find the subtle improvements in our young guys throughout the season. Trying to evaluate them and nitpick them is futile when we have a competent coach and front office to do that. Without seeing them in practice or knowing exactly what they've been instructed to do, it's useless to spend my time being negative about kids who could still be in college right now. I'd much rather focus on how many more games we won this year, finally!

 

It's weird that fans can both use coach/GM quotes as gospel for player evaluation and at the same time, instinctively gasp when Doc Rivers said he didn't know if Ben Simmons could be a PG of a championship team. It's like everyone knows coaches BS about what they think of players, but when coaches actually say what's on their mind, fans just lose it because it broke the illusion that their players are super great and always improving and all that.

 

That's not necessarily true. Like you said, basketball is complex. Being a 40% 3pt shooter vs. a 20% three pt shooter drastically changes how teams guard you and opens up your offensive game. And when your're talking about a player with a high usage rate, that in turn drastically affects the looks your teammates get.

Look at prime Harden...If he couldn't shoot and wasn't efficient, do you think defenses would have played us the same way? You think the Rockets would have won as many games?


Doing other things to win games is great and that's what helps you reach even greater heights...But lets take a guy like Amen...

He does "other" things at an even higher level than Green does.

But he can't shoot at all. You think the Rockets win more or less games if Amen and Jalen switched usage rates?

If what individual players did didn't have a HUGE impact on wins and losses, Superstars wouldn't matter as much. But we know that having superstars matters tremendously because of the ripple effects that they have.

And also, the Rockets weren't in many blowout losses. A lot of their losses were relatively close. In fact the Rockets had the 6th lowest point differential in losses this past season.

I too disagree with you here. Jalen Green shooting 38%+ would have made a huge difference in the season all things considered.

Just looking at the added points in a vaccum he would have had does not tell the whole story. Again, like you said Basketball is complex.

 

I concur that him shooting better matters and will be an important step in his development. I disagree that 3pt% was the determining factor between 41 wins and 60 wins as was mentioned. Thats ludicrous because 3pt% is just a small portio in the overall game of basketball.

Also, hes not going from 20% to 40% tho, its 33% to 36%. While i think that jump is necessary, its not that vast of a jump where it will force defenses up on Jalen, who are typically always sagging a bit to prevent penetration.

If Jalen gets to 40%+ from 3 maybe, but then he becomes a superstar most likely because of his penetration ability. Whether he shoots 33% or 40%, Jalens best skill would still be penetration.

 

Gonna disagree here, that's a massive difference. The rockets are a .500 team, lets say we split the overtime games, that means we would've added 3 wins. That's a ton of wins for one player to add with one change. If you think that's a "meh" improvement, I think you might be overestimating how much of a difference one player makes.

To put it another way, if each of our starters makes a "doesn't seem that important" level improvement to their game, that's +15 wins, and the rockets would be a 56 win team.