It's tough because I largely agree with you and I don't see Dillon as a long-term core guy, but we also so clearly need shooting so badly. If he were happy to come off the bench I think I'd be good with this starting lineup. If he's not happy to come off the bench I guess he will have to be traded. I actually think Dillon fits better than Tari right now though. Tari's lack of shooting ability is a serious, serious problem for his fit with Alpi/Amen and even Jalen to a certain degree. Sure, he runs the floor (and too-often makes boneheaded decisions when doing so) and rebounds at a very high rate, but his offensive game, especially in the half-court... oof.
The starters minus Jalen plus Amen is statistically better than the starters themselves and much better than the unit we've been trotting out there recently (FVV/Jalen/Amen/Dillon/Sengun). Amen and Jalen don't really fit together because neither is a good shooter. Jalen is a bad shooter and Amen is an awful shooter. So teams have learned to just load up on Jalen/Amen drives because you can live with Jalen shooting 3s and you know Amen straight up will not. Add Sengun to that mix in it's a recipe for disaster. Under no circumstance can we run FVV/Jalen/Amen + Sengun next year.
Hmm, I think there is a circumstance in which a lineup like this works, but it's contingent on most or all of the starting lineup showing improvement in their shooting next season. FVV, I feel confident will bounce back, assuming we extend him. The question for me is more, what kind of improvement can we expect from Jalen/Jabari/Amen/Alpi? As they currently are, I agree that it's not going to work. If Jalen's shooting improvement this season turns out to be the start of a positive trend, and Jabari also gets better, those two by themselves will help a lot. Amen functionally added the ability to shoot open corner threes this past offseason. Can he take a similar step forward with longer three pointers next offseason? That would also be a tremendous help. I expected better shooting from Sengun this season. Hasn't happened so far and it's giving me more doubt that he can ever become an outside shooter. We'll see though, not ready to write him off. We don't need everybody in the starting lineup to shoot, but I think having three really good shooters (I would consider FVV one of those considering his career norms) and/or two really good ones and two passable ones I think might be doable.
I'm on record as saying we need to surround Amen, our true superstar, with 3&D players and a center that can play defense and shoot 3's. Sengun is an excellent trade piece. I think Jalen will shoot fine with better shot selection. His 3 pt form is much better this year, especially when he is shooting in rhythm and not taking step backs. If you surrounded Amen with 3 pt shooters and Jalen, I think Jalen would be a fine fit with Amen. I would throw a lot of money at FA Naz Reid and try to trade Sengun for a 3&d PF or SF and other shooters or great draft picks. Amen, Jalen, Jabari, JJJ (for instance), Reid would dominate on both sides of the ball. By including Sengun in the trade, we could maintain our youth and bench strength by bringing back FVV as a backup and of course Dillon and Tari. Other shooters could also be a part of the package for Sengun or potentially high draft picks in 25 and 26 which are excellent drafts. I miss ATW, because he would certainly have a lot to add to this discussion. Please let me know the last time a dominant post offense won a championship.
Obviously Denver won one with Jokic and that's the model. The problem is that Jokic can shoot and Alpi can't. I agree that the fit between Amen and Alpi is a problem right now and I'm beginning to lean toward Amen being the more important player long-term. If at least one of those two, and ideally both, becomes a passable three point shooter, then I think it can work.
Denver’s model is jokic. They put bare minimum next to him to win it. Sengun is not that level and it is safe to say that he won’t be even if he adds some shooting. In addition to shooting, passing vision and accuracy of jokic is impossible to replicate. Sengun has other strengths and the rockets can have a better roster overall. So I think it has to be a different model.
Except the Nuggets were 6th from last in the league in 3-point attempts the year they won the championship. Their mojo on offense was off-ball movement and racking up assists, not 3-pointers. Plus, down the stretch of games, their PnR with Joker and Murray was crazy special.
Yup I hope Tari gets into a rhythm because in general his career won't go far without a better shot. He's not a very skilled finisher so that has to be his thing. I hope Brooks agrees to come off the bench that would be awesome but to be frank I don't think a guy like that has good control of his ego. I bet he'd quietly accept it for this season then want out. Does scare the **** out of me a bit to remove our best shooter from the starting lineup, but honestly spacing is more about reputation than your current 3PT%. I don't think Brooks generates more space than Jabari and I expect FVV to catch fire soon. Green is giving me a lot of hope on the shooting side for the near term. If a player makes league average % at over 8 attempts per game, that's significantly better than an average shooter on average volume. Green is like ONE percent away from that. In fact I believe he was at league average % at the 41-game mark. The will bring a lot of relief for him, Sengun and Amen. So critical for Sengun to get his shooting right this summer. Two summers of intensive training and no results yet, it must be coming. I'm not sure what's going on there but I hope he doesn't go back to Turkey this summer, I don't trust my Turkish brethren with food lol. The food and the parties are just too good to resist in Turkey.
Sure, but the threat was there to take a high-percentage three in the way we just don't have. They were #4 in the league in 3P%. They had three guys at or over 40% three point shooting (if you count Murray's 39.8%) playing 29-33mpg. Among full-time rotation players, Aaron Gordon had the lowest 3P% at 34.7%. While they may have preferred a high-percentage two-pointer, I'd argue that the spacing created by their team 3P% did open things up for them.
The defense got worse without Jabari, but they were still winning games. Who they really need is VanVleet, rockets look like a lottery team without him.
Crazy to think Amen only got his opportunity to break out because of Jabari’s injury. Wonder what Ime is going to do with the lineup now …
Jokic is elite at midrange and low post. He's not a great 3pt shooter but is good enough to keep the defense honest. In other words, Jokic can score inside the arc efficiently. They don't have to shoot a lot of 3s. And with his otherworldly passing ability, he can find them either cutting for an easy 2 or an open 3 when the defense converges to the inside. So the spacing is both ways. The good 3s open up the inside. And the efficient inside open up the outside for high percentage 3s.
I've always thought Sengun would ultimately be a trade block candidate. Hard to gauge his value though. I think Amen takes the reigns this summer. My hopeful lineup for post ASB is FVV-Jalen-Amen-Jabari-Alpe.
I hate the comparisons to Jokic but will play along for the sake of discussion. Like Jokic, Alpi must develop a mid-range jumper. When his defender can sag off of him when he stands 15-ft from the basket, he'll never go next level. He's got to stroke those jumpers like FTs.
If Jabari and Amen both need to start, and the Rockets truly believe Amen is the next superstar, then the guy to leave the starting lineup isn't Brooks, it's Jalen Green. Green among the starters have the best skills to come off the bench. He may even prosper more as a scorer against opposing backups. This also provides more balance with substitution patterns because he's a guard while Brooks/Tari are both mostly forwards. And this way you put the most possible shooting on the court with Sengun and Amen, with Jabari, Brooks, and FVV. Now if the Rockets still want another 3 months to check on Jalen's future star potential, honestly I'm fine with just Amen going back to being a sub. The original starting lineup was working just fine before Jabari went down. And putting Amen back into a backup role upset the fewest people since he's just in his second year.
