Just one note on shooting: Cam is one of the best shooting teenagers in NBA history. There are a few who have matched his league-average percentage but nowhere near the frequency of shots he takes per minute. I don't think people understand that teenage guards all shoot poorly. Have to give him credit, that didn't happen by luck. His shot looks like a lot of careful work has gone into it. Silky smooth, fast release. He's way ahead of his peers at one of the most important components of winning.
I don't agree about keeping Green, we'd just lose him a few months later. A mediocre pick is useful, you can use it to fix some screwups later. You don't necessarily have to draft someone, picks are currency in the NBA. I do agree we should and would give Cam that spot if Jalen disappoints as long as Cam just made minor incremental improvements like any young player. However you'd then have to consider giving Jabari more shots or replace Brooks with Amen because SOMEONE has to take on Green's usage and Sengun/FVV were exhaustedly maxed out last season.
why would we lose jalen if he goes to restricted? moving him to sixth or seventh man will lower his payday. i dont think we will or want to give up on green.
Because you don't pay a 6th man $20m+ before you have your stars locked in. We've planned the timing of the cap space for 3 years and this would throw a wrench in it. We disagree here, I think management and staff are furiously dumping Green very quickly if he isn't starter quality in the first 20 games. They already tried to trade him last season, he was lucky not to be traded. Time is up for this kind of stuff, they won't wait around for him during a critical season. Heads will roll so fast next season. In fact I think if Stone doesn't take winning more seriously, Udoka will go over his head straight to Fertitta and it will not go well for Stone.
Rockets fans have been frustrated for years. Understandably so. So they want to win. Win now. Win this coming season in the form of a playoff birth and a strong performance there. I get it. I want the same thing. But we got to give enough time to see what we have. I think that is what next season should be primarily about. I agree some guys need to be thrown in the fire. But in order to do that, starter minutes need to be opened up. JG is in his final leg of evaluation. Their is no more room or time for him to fail. If he cant prove he is a keeper, he is probably a goner. IMO, this is the most likely place minutes become available. Or perhaps, they dont and Jalen goes super Jalen and cements his place in the Rockets future. If so, the attention will turn to Dillon. As long as the starting five last year remains the starting 5 this year, there isnt much opportunity for others to get big minutes. Amen got the opportunity to show us more mainly due to injuries to others, and look what happened? Paradoxically, the vets that played a significant role in making us a much better team last year are also the primary guys taking up the minutes needed to develop some of the others. This why adding Durant makes no sense at all. We should add a vet of his caliber when we are that team that is one player away. Right now, we dont really know what our team is or who the keepers are. We dont have a definite foundation. Its all in flux. This coming season, I think, maybe the most interesting in many, many years. Cant wait to see how it pans out.
Look, I hate his painted fingernails and soft character as much as the next guy….but Jalen was our best player hands down once Udoka taught him how to play defense and eliminate stupid turnovers. Trading him for an old out of date hack like Durant would be a criminal act against the fans. If we trade him we better get max value back (i.e., Booker, Zion, Fox, Davis, etc.).
Not to mention Nurkic is very delicate and they have no depth. Hoping for the worst from the Sunnies.
Oh, the irony! Wow .... Imagine this: The dude who's been defending Jalen all offseason has a shorter leash than the dude who's complained about his shooting for the last 3 years. Just 20? .... I'm looking at Jan 30 - that's the 45th game. The decision has to be made between then and the deadline.
Just being fair. I can list out in detail why his development has lagged so badly, so it's easy to defend. I can see why he's a late bloomer. I predicted a month before last season he would need 30 games to adjust. I was off by about 15 games. That made sense too. I cannot come up with a single reason why he shouldn't be ready to start next season. No new system. No new coach. Mostly same roster. Supervised summer training. Great team culture and coach. Only one task to get him to the minimum improvement I'm expecting: improve or take fewer 3PTers. I'm a Rockets fan first you know. I'm not dishing out excuses when the reasons run out. I believe he will do it (improve) and this conversation won't matter but believe me if the first 20 games are sub par my support would disappear very quickly. I predict that's about as much patience as Udoka would show too. Udoka is not risking missing the playoffs again. You can see it in his face. Already agreed to trade Green last season before the deadline. No way he lets Green get rotation minutes for 45 sub par games - that's 2-3 avoidable losses he won't swallow.
…he’s way behind his peers in a lot of other areas though like defense, passing, etc. I don’t disagree that Cam has proven at a young age he is a bucket getter of the highest order but he’s got a lot of work to do to prove he can be an NBA starter because right now his one dimension suggests he could just be a more physical Jamal Crawford type. Valuable player…but also we are still searching for our lead guard.
Cam has proven he's a bucket better in terms of attacking closeouts, having one really hot catch and shoot stretch that I'm concerned isn't indictive of his actual shooting ability given his ft% and 3 pt shooting in college and high school that faltered later in the season and being a one man fast break. Definitely talented but not talented in the manner that Sengun and Green are talented in ball self creation against set half court defenses. He hasn't shown the ability to be a bucket better in half court sets against POA defenses.
Looking forward to seeing the growth. Truth be told I was a bit disappointed with Cam’s performance in summer league - obviously the offense was still wayyy ahead of anyone else but I wanted to see him doing some of those other things he needed more development around and I didn’t necessarily see that….but hey Summer League was short. Interested to see what happens this year.
Me too. I hear you. As excited as I am about the Texans season opening up...and it should be the beginning of an epic 8-10 yr run...I am so pumped for our Rockets ...the season can't come soon enough. Guys developing, deals, lots of wins...
Why can't they just get creative with the contract for Jalen? He is still young, had a few years under one of the worst coaches of all time to start his career, i think best case scenario is you buy us time with another 1-2 years. Zion has a contract that needs to qualify to be guaranteed each year, and so did KPJ with Houston. There is not a ton of demand for someone like Jalen at a full max currently. If he performs like a max player then we likely pay him. If he does not, I think we see a 2 year deal with near max dollars. I think we have some leverage on contract terms, if the rumors you mentioned of him being traded are true, it doesn't seem like he is being valued very highly around the league or he would have been gone.
Great point - I use the Klay comparison a lot for Jabari, but I can see it applying to Cam too. I never thought early in his career Klay had much creation abilities and he certainly wasn’t a playmaker….but sometimes being ready to hit the shot or attack hard close outs and mismatches is a skill in itself if you are paired with the right teammates who can get you those opportunities.
