Haven't watched the Rockets in a while. Caught some of the Celtics game last night and Jalen still has trouble getting past defenders, makes stupid plays, not a great defender and his shot still seems to be off - I mean there are some flashes where he'll score but just inconsistent. He has just not turned out to be worth the risk they took on drafting him. Stone didn't make a good decision on this draft pick IMO. Also, Sengun was playing like a scrub too last night. Cam couldn't hit a shot. I mean they were just outclassed against the Celtics it seemed from players to coaching (offensive scheming). Even with all of the talent Boston has they still have nice off-the-ball screens, us? Not so much. Will Stone want to keep Green and Sengun b/c letting them go would prove he made mistakes? I guess billionaires just don't mind throwing money away.
I figure you don't watch enough NBA games if you think Green has trouble getting by defenders. Every ultra quick ball handler like Morant or Fox don't blow by defenders 100% of the time. Its because defenders often guess correctly. You don't always have to be as quick as the offensive player to time your lateral movement ahead of a quick offensive player's dribble move. It happens. .trust me if you hyper focus on any other player you'd see them fail a lot more than Green at trying to blow by their defender.
His play may not have been about some kind of emphiphany for Jalen, but rather Ime taking FVV off ball. FVV won't stand for benching and it's a bad look for the Rockets pursuing vets to bench FVV, so they decided to take the cowards way out and just move FVV off the ball. The Rockets offense should improve just from this simple change in focus. Will it improve enough, no. We still need floor spacers and Jabari getting hurt makes that even harder. With Jabari getting hurt, it pretty much took away the option of moving Amen into the starting PG role this year. Without Tari our bench defense is going to suck. Jabari was key to our defense and rebounding for the starting unit. Amen will make up for it in the starting unit, but the bench is really going to suck. Without a trade this team is going to be fighting for the play-in not the playoffs, which was true even before Jabari got hurt. We should be all in on the continued development of Amen, Sengun, Jalen, Cam, and Jabari when he gets back. There is no use in investing more time in FVV. I outlined a trade for both Booker and Durant at the deadline that would give us 2 years of competing without regressing the development of Sengun and Amen. Durant would come off the books in two when the young guys along with Booker would be ready to compete without him. Phoenix would get a massive haul of picks and enough cap space to horde for a star down the road. Phoenix would be fools not to get started on their inevitable re-build. They could tank the rest of the way this year for a realistic chance at Cooper Flagg.
Amen taking Bari's starting spot doesn't mean he can't share on ball duties with Green. Amen will take Bari's role on the defensive end in the starting unit but offensively he'll probably switch between dunker spot and ball handler depending on the possession.
I agree. I was just saying having Amen replacing FVV in the starting line-up as an option (that Ime was going to fight anyway) is no longer available, because we have no one for Jabari's spot. All our best perimeter defenders were out last night, there's no way Alpi and Jalen could have carried this team to victory even if they both played unworldly. A starting unit of Booker, Jalen, Durant, Amen, and Sengun with a bench of Cam, Dillion, Tari/Jabari, is a contender this year and next year. It is very doable if Stone has the balls and Phoenix wisens up.
I dare you to post something useful in your next reply in the GARM. Double dare you. Either successfully execute being funny or post some genuine analysis.
I guess there’s really no point debating Jalen. As long as our front office is semi-competent he’ll be gone before next season.
Yup, and they get really upset if you don't buy in to their nonsense every single time the kid has a good game....so like about 10 times a year.
Only for the right price. His contract is not onerous and until we have a viable replacement for him there is no reason to trade him. If we can trade him for a better player or an expiring and good draft picks, I'm all over it. I'd like to see him play in an up-tempo offense before jettisoning him.
Have you ever thought of doing on court basketball analysis in a NBA team fan game action forum outside of staring at three point percentages?
i think we have different takes on his value. I think he's barely a positive asset with the $36 mil per extension. And I worry that the org’s perceived value of Jalen was why we couldn’t get a deal done when we were trying to trade him last year. And I don’t think he gives us much on the court so I’m not worried about replacing his minutes. There are available players like Brogdon that could actually provide more impact for the team. And we still have developmental prospects that could use more minutes like Cam. So for me, I say it’s time to cut our losses. I’ll never understand the premature extension but clearly that was a mistake. To me, if you can rectify mistakes you do it rather than live with a them.
Brogdon is an impactful player on a team that already has star perimeter creators. He is a lesser version of FVV's career basically. He would be useless on this team.
Seen it before where Rockets/Silas frowning on midrange shots and Jalen Green says, "screw it, I'm a gonna do what I deem best works for me." Started shooting more middies. Now seeing it, where Rockets/Udoka frowning on midrange shots and Jalen Green says, "screw it, I'm a gonna do what I deem best works for me." I've seen him recently shooting more midrange shots....even 20 footers. I've always said players like Jalen, Kobe, MJ need to get a few layups or free throws to get going......see the ball go through the hoop and then start rolling. Well apparently Green needs to shoot some ill-advised foot on the line 3's to feel good about himself.
You've said it before. Player development is not a linear process. Both Jalen and Sengun have improved their defense in 1 1/3 seasons with a competent coach. I don't think Ime's offense is particularly conducive to Jalen improving on that side of the ball. I'd love to see Jalen operate in a different offensive scheme before jettisoning him off for pennies on the dollar. He does seem like a momentum player to me and I think Ime's reliance on FVV and formula like rotations disrupt Jalen when he has it rolling. The last few games they are taking FVV off the ball which is the second best thing to gettng him off the team. Maybe we can get a better glimpse of Jalen's abilities for the rest of the year. I don't give a crap about the playoffs unless we make a major trade that would actually give us a chance. We need to find out what the current guys can do in a modern offense.
Ufff man you seem to have lost faith badly, what's especially worrying you now vs last week? You see that I'm equally unhappy with the offense but to say we won't make the playoffs bro? Let's look at a worst case scenario (ie we're no better than last season). If we go just 24-24 the rest of the way we'd finish the season with 46 wins. Even that has a 50-50 chance of finishing in the playin. Do you think we're only going to win half our games moving forward? Let me soothe your mind a bit more. The teams people allege will all just suddenly wake up and start winning more than they are: warriors, mavs, suns, kings, clippers, wolves. We’re 9-5 against that group. Those are not bad teams. You don’t think we can win half our games battling that group? You think all will improve and none will collapse? Come on. Our chances are good. Nothing is guaranteed in basketball but this is as solid as it gets for a young team. If we don't win half our games, you simply fire Udoka. At that point you've discovered he's a defense only coach so he's a lame duck to the championship coach anyway. That would require a large chunk of the core to underperform which is obviously systemic. He will have gone 2 years not improving the TS% from near bottom of the league. No matter what you say about our core, even if it's the worst 6 picks in the league, they will improve at least marginally in 2 years. I’d be absolutely shocked if that happened under Udoka. I'm genuinely not ridiculing you, I'm asking you to have some faith man you're obviously seeing things to be a lot worse than they are at the moment. We all go through it sometimes. It's ok to appreciate this record bro. Side note I’m excited AF at the possibility we might start this group since our PF is down: Sengun Tari Amen Green FVV Will be fun AF.
You could have just said something positive of Green's like multiple elite defensive plays last game and express improvement in something beyond streaky shooting which yes is hard to predict if it's a genuine improvement but you found time to comme t last night with this. But his defense. If Sheppard had this game you would t find a snarky way to dismiss it would you?
