This Devin Booker guy sucks. Only has 34 points tonight on 10-16 shooting and just made a beautiful, high IQ pass to Kevin Durant for a corner three to tie the game in Denver. Wouldn’t want him on the Rockets.
The name of the game in the NBA is 3-point shooting. Many people here get upset about 3-point shooting in the NBA, often blasting the game by saying there are too many 3-point shooters and too much 3-pointers. Well the 3 has opened up the game. The more three point shooters you have, the greater room your facilitators have to operate. No one player can stop a single player in the NBA. You almost have to have two defenders stop so much as the average scorer. Booker gets attention but so does CP3, Ayton. Mikal Bridges, Cameron Johnson....then enter Durant, Nurkic. Point being, teams game plan for Booker but can't do it the whole game without others busting out and getting theirs. The Rockets have had poor 3-point shooting as a team, therefore no spacing, therefore piss-ppor efficiency. The. Numbers are going to reflect that. If Jabari. Tari. and Cam Whitmore were Durant, Beal, and Booker.....Greens numbers would be much better because teams couldn't gear up solely for Jalen and Sengun. They would have to divide their attention to sometimes meeting on Durant, sometimes Beal, sometimes Ayton. A player like Jalen Green could fly under the radar. Get to the rim more often. Jordan needed two shooters to open up the Bulls triangle offense. They always had 40% shooters in the form of Kerr, BJ Armstrong. Paxson, Ron Harper opposite of Pippen or Toni Kukoc. Olajuwon needed Horry, Cassell, Kenny Smith. Vernon Maxwell to open things up. Ewing needed John Starks. Dereck Harper, Greg Anthony, Rolando Blackman, Doc Rivers. Bird needed Ainge and Dennis Johnson, otherwise Bird would have had 4 guys draped all over him the entire game. 82 games.....fatigue sets in....effects the FG%. we agree that we disagree. I would love for Jalen Green to join this Suns team ranked 4th in 3P% while Booker comes to this Rockets team that loves being near the bottom every year in 3P%. You would see the struggles of Booker then. Just like when Poole with from penthouse playing next to those Warrior players to the basement next to those Wizard players. All of a sudden he got everyone's attention.....the full game.
Booker has not proven to be a Number 1 Option, he is a good Second Option yeah but even at that he has not been a leader. The Rockets need a Clear Batman because Hierarchy is important. Durant is too old but he could provide that Batman role for 2 years. The perfect guys being young enough are SGA, Luka and to a lesser degree Ant Edwards. Neither are available right now.
Basketball is a team sport, and neither Devin Booker nor Kevin Durant would be asked to carry the Rockets. They would be asked to be a consistent number one scoring option and late-game closer surrounding their young talent.
Nah, you and your arrogant sarcasm are in denial. Booker and Jalen are just about equal now and it's certain Jalen will improve and be better than Booker by next year.
Shooting is a skill, and it’s a skill a player maintains for a long time regardless of their teammates. Devin Booker is a good shooter and his career reflects that. He’s also one of the two best offensive players on his team, and a focal point of opposing coaches’ game plans. He’s not Steve Kerr or John Paxson getting wide-open looks due to Michael Jordan’s gravity. He’s a guy creating gravity for his teammates. Also, Booker’s worst true shooting percentage in the last four years is 57.6%. Jalen Green’s best true shooting percentage during the same time frame is 54.8%. Booker is the better shooter and the better player between the two. He represents a significant offensive upgrade if it were a straight swap.
I’m certainly taking crazy pills to think Devin Booker is better than Jalen Green at shooting and efficiently scoring a basketball. I understand fans are homers, but it would be nice to have objective discussions about players.
SGA, Doncic and Edwards aren’t going to be available for a long time, if ever. Waiting on them is not a smart strategy. If the price for Durant is half or less of what it costs to get Booker, I want Durant. If the acquisition cost is comparable, I’ll take the younger, efficient scorer.
Agreed, depending on the price. And Devin Booker is 28 already, he is 33 when the others are 26...... I think he will make the Rockets relevant enough like the early Suns with Mikael Bridges...... WCF Potential but not absolute Favorites.
The best course is that the Rockets do their homework and hire the right people to scout correctly and make the moves they need to in order to move up and find the right guys in the draft, not just taking whatever they can get. Certain teams are able to do this, I think Toronto and Orlando, Boston, etc have done this. The Rockets and stone have mostly just taken the consensus top picks, other than making a move to get Sengun. If they really did the work to identify the right players, they would have moved down and gotten Scottie Barnes, moved up to get Paulo, made a push to move up one spot to get Cade. Settling for just any big name does not make sense, unless the price is reasonable on Booker. I don't have faith in stone negotiating a favorable trade involving big names. Or go find that young player somewhere that you believe in more than his current team does. (think Kyle Lowrey to Houston, Haliburton to Indiana, Harden to Houston etc.) This route takes more work than just Patrick saying he wants Westbrook or Booker, put in the work and be a smarter team. Also, pick up the damn phone and inquire about every star that fits, not just the ones in the news. The Luka deal was worked on for months in silence. Morey use to call every single team in the off season and prior to deadline. You really never know unless you make the calls, Stone has admitted to standing put an not making those calls. There are teams that do not want to pay their guys, and new CBA rules and 2nd apron may incentivize people to trade someone for financial reasons.
Nope, but dude has honed his craft ......decent enough that it stands out. He is not for naught 6 years older. He developed his consistency.....that it does not go on extensive droughts in a season.
How come you switched from FG% to TS% mid-post? Did you not think their TS% in their first few years might tell you something about what Jalen has a chance of becoming? The results are interesting. Offense Since Jalen Green entered the league in 2021-2022 one year younger and with one less season of college, here are their true shooting percentages: Devin Booker true-shooting percentages: (2024-25) 53.5, (2023-24) 53.1, (2022-2023) 56.1, (2021-2022) 58.4. Jalen Green true-shooting percentages: (2024-25) 54.8, (2023-24) 54.1, (2022-2023) 53.8, (2021-2022) 54.7 Jalen was better in his first two seasons and Booker in the next two despite Booker's head start. You have to give Jalen 1-2 extra years if you're trying to compare. If I was a dick, I would've stretched it even further and compared their similar-age seasons which would look bad for Booker, but I won't stretch. Defense What you're missing is also the other HALF of basketball, HALF of possessions, HALF of contract value: Jalen is an NBA-average defender and that's ten times better than Booker was as a defender at the same age (one of the worst in the NBA for 7-8 years). Booker was Cam Whitmore-level defensively. We're watching in real time Jalen dominate the SG position and Cam not getting minutes because of his defense and passing. That's how important that is. Jalen has never stopped improving defensively from the day his coaching staff began holding players accountable for defense and coaching him on it. Ime Udoka has called Jalen's defense underrated. Up until last season, Booker didn't even both on defense and even now you can hunt him in the playoffs. Jalen's chances of being Booker or better are as wide open as ever. Let's just be honest about the swap: most likely we're just fast-forwarding one single position in development for a few years. Jalen is shooting better from 3 and at a MUCH higher volume this season while playing better defense. Booker is the clearly better scorer right now, that's the only thing we can say.
Exactly, basketball has a lot of moving parts and you can not just look at the stats on the surface and assume to know everything. It would be thinking illogically to look at a FG% and not understand that the teammates around player X aren't effecting the outcome of such a stat. *Sharp shooters all along the perimeter *Injuries of teammate for long stretches of time or full season *Coaches using a player to be pivotal cog or "just a spot up decoy" *Having a vertical lob threat or not Are all examples of things that supply, "Cause and Effect" Assists = "It takes two to tango" Jalen Green Ast% is 15.0 while Booker is 29.9 While they both have around 11 TOV% (Jalen 11.8 and Booker 11.4) Booker has more weapons around him and has always had more players that receive the ball and put it in the hoop. What the Suns lack this year is defense. And depth.....Rockets are seen as having good depth. Still can shoot worth a lick.
That is a legitimate question. Both do seem like the same archetype , obviously Booker is more of a steadfast shooter, and Jalen a superfast do it all....up and coming How much do both overlap.....
The Rockets are ~20-4 in games Green plays great. Booker has great games I'd guess somewhere in the 50-100% more often range. OKC would likely still be better than the Rockets, but the Rockets would be a very strong competitor.
