JG stats vs Mitchell Ant and Booker The last 2 1/2 months (33 gms for JG): FG% 45.3% (Mitchell 44.1, Ant 43.6, Book 45.8) 3pt% 38.0% (Mitchell 38.6, Book 33.9) TS% 57.8% (Mitchell 57.7, Ant 58.4) eFG% 53.6% (Mitchell 53.9, Book 52.6, Ant 53.1) Growing. #Rockets
As long as it goes in, Jalen could be shooting the ball from his nuts and I’d be happy. And to be fair, his shot HAS been going in more then before, and thankfully not from his nuts.
I believe we can say “he was 22” when we talk about his play over the last yearish. We can also say he was 21 when we talk about his play the year before that. Crazy how context works.
Sorry to say Jalen is playing passable basketball but his legs are dead out there you can see it. See him limping sometimes for a couple of weeks now. I don't expect much from him with a paint this crowded and FVV missing, if he's going to the line, playing defense, diving for loose balls and getting assists I'm happy. If his jumper is falling great but at the volume he's taking them he's not good enough to stay consistent, someone has to take a couple of attempts off his plate (Bari!!). We gotta drag through these last few games. He really needs this ASB but I can see very clearly there's just a new and improved Jalen that's here to stay. Had the worst basketball IQ I've ever seen when he was drafted but under Udoka every couple of months he seems to improve his understanding of the game. Has never stopped. His shot selection and decision making is much better even though it still needs work. I keep saying to expect the same Jalen from the first half but slightly more consistent. Nothing major. Will still have droughts and bad games. Just slightly better than the first half and probably the best two way version of Green we've seen to date. It will be interesting to see if he can keep up his streak of lighting it up post ASB. It would be great for him to have momentum entering the playoffs, he has to be careful not to run out of energy before the finish line like last season. All these reps he's getting attempting to run the team with Amen and Sengun are priceless. The team will be better off when FVV is back. I'm still expecting big things from Jalen. Especially learning from all these hiccups in close games, understanding how easy it is to lose everything you worked for. The West is brutal, 2 bad weeks and you could drop 4-5 seeds. Jalen having a big finish could change everything in the West.
Again I don't like these "number of games before turning 23" stats because most of the best guards of all time first entered the league at age 21-23, so Jalen literally has double or more of their games played, and much more NBA experience now than they did at the same age. He's also been unusually durable (which is undeniably a positive but not in the way these statements imply) and unusually inconsistent with his ups and downs (which is not a positive). When you compare his career trajectory to the few apples-to-apples stars who entered at age 19, like Ant Edwards and Devin Booker, he's undeniably behind them IMO. This makes me think he's still not likely to be a high-end star. I'm much higher now on him at some point being an all-star, and on him having a long career as a starter, but I still think his median outcome is more of a low-end all-star like Zach LaVine than a top 15 player. And I mean, that's fine, but selling him as a future superstar like Bradeaux keeps doing on Sh*tter is disingenuous. There's a chance, but the odds are not as high as are being implied here.
Zach Lavine with higher peaks, less selfishness, more team-oriented, durable and average defense would be worth the max. That's too big a difference to ignore. Lavine is a pure jumpshooter imo that's what he's always wanted to be. Jalen is a guy who, if the paint wasn't a catastrophe, normally builds his game around attacking the basket and counters your defense with jumpers. I think Jalen ends up averaging 6-8 FTA while Lavine will remain a 4 FTA type of guy. The differentiator here is defense. If you look at archetypes, players who can shoot, get to the line and play defense on an average team are really really valuable. If you take one of those things away (e.g. negative defense) it does not hold up. Lavine is never going to add great defense nor high assists nor high FTA's to his arsenal. We've seen him in various settings, in good spacing. Unlikely to make a major improvement let's say. Jalen however can achieve that. If we had average shooting, I think in 2 years he would be capable of playing good defense, getting to the line 6+ times, making 37-38% of his 3's. I know that formula is worth near max in the NBA. We're not that far from it have faith. Here's an unlikely story that might remind you that hard work can change destiny: Derrick White's 3PT% in his first 5 seasons was roughly the same as Jalen's first 4 but at half the volume. Terrible shooter, great at FT's. Kept working on it in typical Spurs culture. Since then he's one of the best high volume shooters in the NBA, period. Right now Jalen is a 23 year old shooting 35.2% on 8+ 3PA. It's not such a big climb to being a great shooter. I never thought he could be a great shooter too but I feel like we're on the precipice of a breakthrough there. Have faith, sometimes development programs take longer to set in when there are a lot of bad habits to eject.
I mostly agree, but I also don't think Jalen will ever be as talented of a jump shooter as LaVine, so there's some give-and-take there. I'm just talking as an overall player. JG to me is looking like he's on the trajectory to make some all-star games, but not perennially, and probably not any All-NBA teams. (Maybe third team once or twice.)
