This series will prove whether Jalen is "the guy" or "just a guy" This is why you want to make the playoffs. So you can evaluate your players in the hardest situations. If he bombs out, I can definitely see a Booker or KD situation to Houston.
We doing these evaluations for all of our guys or just Jalen? The worst possible outcome is if he plays "okay" not great where people's former opinions of Jalen are imprinted on to the series where their opinions on what should be done with him don't change at all. In a way the organization probably hopes for one of the extremes of him playing incredibly well or incredibly poorly because then you have a more definitive answer on what to do. But if he's just "meh" or "okay" as a 23 year old playing his first playoffs where the team loses in the first.roind in like 6 games and he puts up around his season averages of 22 ppg along around 55% ts, I wonder what people would think then. Like is that a "trade Jalen" situation. People on the message board should give defined proclamations of what to expect out of him so people don't shift goal posts when the time comes to evaluate his first playoff experience.
Somehow, I think even if Jalen stunk like never before, you would find a way to justify it. I think he will stink it up, but don’t think that should make him automatic trade bait. I hope he does great and he will have to be at least good for us to have a chance. If he does stink it up then whether to trade him or not, just depends on what is available. He has definitely shown progress this year, but he has played horribly the last few games and that does not bode well for a series in which the refs will be demonstrably one-sided. Jalen will get no calls and any kind of aggressive defense of Curry will be punished.
that’s cool. I’m overzealous of my Amen fandom. At least our comments aren’t absolute drivel like RocketChump (has he been banned?)
That's when he said Jalen was better than Shai and didn't count Jokic because he missed one game. Good times. Even @fchowd0311 wouldn't call Jalen the best player in the nba (i think lol). I would be completely against the idea of trading jalen just to trade him regardless of how this one series goes. If there's a good deal, sure, but that goes for everyone basically. This isn't a giddey situation where he just can't play in the playoffs because of his weaknesses, jalen isn't like that. He'll probably struggle, he's a young guard playing in the playoffs for the 1st time, so struggling would be expected of anyone in his situation.
i'm not that impressed by GSW guard defense...Podz, GP2? Jalen can definitely put some work in on these guys. And if they have to put Butler on him at some point, that means he's doing a great job.
I don't mean to single you out here but I really don't like this idea heading into this playoff series. I know a lot of people think this way and I think a lot of people are going to overreact to 4-7 games out of 200-300 games that these guys have played. If I'm being honest I think we are going to lose the series. And if Jalen Green doesn't perform well in his very first playoff series I don't think that's the nail in any coffin. If Jabari has a 5 game stretch where he doesn't make his open 3s I don't think that makes him a bad shooter or a choker. If Amen fouls out and Curry drops 50 that doesn't make Amen a bad defender. If Sengun can't guard the pnr against Steph Curry and/or struggles scoring against Draymond (who has made a career guarding centers) I don't think it's the end of the world. I really really hope we don't overreact to one series if it doesn't go our way. I already know the fans are going to do it, but I hope the front office doesn't cave based on one specific matchup against one specific team that isn't going to even exist by the time our guys are in their prime.
The last game against GSW is one of the few good games Jalen has had against this Warriors team, and he did it in a sustainable, high efficiency way. If Jalen has a good series against the Curries, I could see it becoming a springboard toward stardom. If he struggles, a lot of us who are very high on him may start to rethink our opinion a bit. Obviously I expect him to do well!
This is all about Ime. Ime will not just sit here and wait for these kids to catch up. If all 3 of Al P, Green and Amen underperform he probably will have to eat it but if Green isn’t up to the task Ime will force Stone to bring in an alpha scorer like he wanted at the deadline
It really is the "time to prove" it part of Jalen's career for me now, and I say that as a big homer. Now, i fully believe he's capable of being the star scorer on the team, but if he comes out and flops or is just regular Jalen then that's cool, but it lets us know he's never going to be more than a solid starter.
This is in response to Mathloom's post. I actually had to remove part of his post to make this post less than 10,000 characters... (Part of Mathloom's post) " On the second one it's even more of a clusterf*ck. The game of basketball is mathematically exactly half offense and half defense. Half of all minutes, possessions and production is defense. So to say Jalen is the worst of those 20 players because he might be less offensively efficient can't even be accepted as a methodology. Further, there is no statistical test that accurately determines the best player. The reason for that is offensive advanced stats are decent but not great and defensive advanced stats are a disaster. If you rank players by any of these two metrics, no one will agree with the league-wide rankings. This has been shown here many times via examples like Jaylen Williams. In order for your test to be accurate, it has to WORK first. In order for these metrics to be useful, organizations and coaches add their own context to it. There is no one who's actual job it is to use these numbers that doesn't apply context to them. The people who create these formulas are aware that they are not anywhere near perfectly accurate. Mark Daignault is not going to bench the 2nd best scorer behind the MVP who's a good defender on a 60-win team because the advanced numbers say he doesn't deserve to be on the court that much. What you're doing here is equating efficiency (and it looks like mostly offensive efficiency) with who the BEST player is. This is an imaginary exercise that opens the door to you being highly subjective. You're not being objective while discussing it with non-objective people. That's not what's going on here. What's going on here is we are all applying subjective analysis to the numbers, and some are acting like they're not. Some do it less, some do it more, but everyone here is subjective to a degree. Further, not everyone who posts data knows how to read that data. Not everyone who posts data understands the scope and framework of that data (offense + defense + the effect of one player on other players via mental factors). Do you get where I'm coming from? The far more powerful data that doesn't come in numbers is: Jalen Green was trusted by Ime Udoka to be the leading scorer of a 52-win team in a make or break season for everyone. He's about as efficient offensively as Paolo Banchero and Alperen Sengun. Those two have higher defensive impact, but Jalen Green is a better defender for his position. Most important of all: those 20 players you mentioned, what's their average age? So does it make sense then to say that if Jalen is lagging behind players in their prime it's not an actual problem, but if a player in his prime is lagging behind Jalen then they're especially in a worse position? You can't escape context. We're not doing math with these numbers. We're mixing math and tactical analysis. That's why for example the numbers don't work across era, and sometimes you have to manually override it and apply it within a team only rather than league-wide. Just like you missed half the court in your analysis of Green, you're also missing half the arena in your advanced analysis (tactical analysis). Unfortunately advanced metrics are extremely raw and erratic and it will take about a decade till they're at the reliability you're insinuating. Now if you're willing to have a debate where we both acknowledge that we're both trying to be objective and partially subjective - then we can actually communicate two ways. We can actually avoid reckless conclusions like "this efficiency is higher so with my eyes closed this guy is better than that guy". That's my 2 cents and I've been saying this since before Jalen Green was ever drafted, when we had the statistical god prime James Harden on our team. Jalen Green is KILLING it for a guy in his role. Happy to have that debate with you, it would be fun.[/QUOTE] I can acknowledge that we're mixing objectivity and subjectivity. I don't really want to consider this a debate as I don't think I'll win. It's an interesting discussion though. You have incorporated some philosophy here so I can assume you're a liberal arts major even with a name that includes Math.... I think advanced stats are more useful than you do. Statistics help you generate probabilities. I personally think in terms of probabilities. I use probabilities to make good decisions at work. I take a similar approach in investing and financial decisions. I believe I can also use numbers to help predict which NBA teams will succeed in a given season. There are a lot of variables but you can find trends. I have done pretty well with that. The probability is that most posters on Clutch Forum won't like this particular post. Jalen Green's statistics this year can help us predict how successful he will be in the Rockets/Warriors series. He might have a brilliant series but the odds are against it. I think his DPM is a great reflection of the effectiveness of his defense. Most posters on this board assume that what they see is more valuable than statistical analysis. I think that is a poor assumption. We watch the games because we love basketball. We like to believe that our eye test is more valuable than all the numbers and metrics. I'm not sure that's true. As fans, we become emotionally attached to our players. I think Jalen Green is homegrown and that means a lot to the fans. I think he's improved tremendously and that's appealing to us all. He's also really likeable- he plays literally every game and seems to really enjoy the city and his teammates. I like Jalen Green a lot. I just don't think he's as good a player as most of the posters on this thread do. You brought up Mark Daigneault. That brings up an interesting thought experiment. What would be Jalen Green's role if you added him to this Thunder roster with Daigneault as the coach? I don't think he would play much. That's a loaded roster and I think Daigneault would rather play high-efficiency shooters around his stars. You mentioned that obviously Jalen is pretty great because Ime Udoka has him as his featured offensive player. That means something. Our roster severely lacks offensive creators though and Jalen is definitely the best on our roster at that. We absolutely need Jalen to generate offense. That doesn't mean that Ime thinks Jalen Green is a top-3 guy on his roster. It just means that Jalen is the best we have at an essential skill. Ime probably likes Jalen. He'd probably like a more efficient shooting guard more if the defense were equal. Critical question: Where does Jalen rank on our current roster? Not future potential but his performance this season. Overall, we have seven good players on our roster. Here are my tiers. Top tier- Amen Thompson and Sengun are our best players. Now and for the near future. I think Amen will be a top-10 player in the NBA soon. Second tier- FVV, Tari Eason and Dillon Brooks. They don't score as much as Jalen but they are more successful filling their roles. When available, they contribute more to winning currently than does Jalen. They are all significantly better defensively than Jalen- as you mentioned, that's half the game. Third tier (slightly below tier 2)- Jalen Green and Jabari Smith. Jalen is probably one of the 3 most important players on this roster but I don't think he's one of the five best. Those are are not the same. I look forward to the Warriors series and I hope Jalen kills it. That would solve our roster's biggest problem. If Jalen doesn't succeed this series, I think they'll consider upgrading Jalen's position. As I said, as the primary offensive engine on this team, Jalen is among the league's weakest currently. The easiest way to upgrade this roster is to upgrade Jalen. I don't know who exactly will become available but it's easy to imagine the following players being available this summer- Devin Booker, Tyler Herro and Tyrese Maxey. Each of those are better than Jalen currently and likely to still be better in a couple of seasons. Rafael Stone could increase our probability of winning the 2026 and 2027 championships by trading Jalen for any of those players. Whether it's worth the draft equity or the financial considerations is a different question. As to on-court fit, it wouldn't be too difficult to upgrade Jalen. I think your post is both good and interesting but I think you made a statement that I think is really incorrect- "Unfortunately advanced metrics are extremely raw and erratic and it will take about a decade till they're at the reliability you're insinuating". I just think this is exactly wrong. I would say the following- Our personal interpretation of how Jalen Green performs on the court is extremely raw and erratic and will never achieve the reliability that we are insinuating. We're just fans and rarely see the games objectively. The numbers don't lie. We do.
A long read. I can acknowledge that we're mixing objectivity and subjectivity. I don't really want to consider this a debate as I don't think I'll win. It's an interesting discussion though. You have incorporated some philosophy here so I can assume you're a liberal arts major even with a name that includes Math.... I think advanced stats are more useful than you do. Statistics help you generate probabilities. I personally think in terms of probabilities. I use probabilities to make good decisions at work. I take a similar approach in investing and financial decisions. I believe I can also use numbers to help predict which NBA teams will succeed in a given season. There are a lot of variables but you can find trends. I have done pretty well with that. The probability is that most posters on Clutch Forum won't like this particular post. Jalen Green's statistics this year can help us predict how successful he will be in the Rockets/Warriors series. He might have a brilliant series but the odds are against it. I think his DPM is a great reflection of the effectiveness of his defense. Most posters on this board assume that what they see is more valuable than statistical analysis. I think that is a poor assumption. We watch the games because we love basketball. We like to believe that our eye test is more valuable than all the numbers and metrics. I'm not sure that's true. As fans, we become emotionally attached to our players. I think Jalen Green is homegrown and that means a lot to the fans. I think he's improved tremendously and that's appealing to us all. He's also really likeable- he plays literally every game and seems to really enjoy the city and his teammates. I like Jalen Green a lot. I just don't think he's as good a player as most of the posters on this thread do. You brought up Mark Daigneault. That brings up an interesting thought experiment. What would be Jalen Green's role if you added him to this Thunder roster with Daigneault as the coach? I don't think he would play much. That's a loaded roster and I think Daigneault would rather play high-efficiency shooters around his stars. You mentioned that obviously Jalen is pretty great because Ime Udoka has him as his featured offensive player. That means something. Our roster severely lacks offensive creators though and Jalen is definitely the best on our roster at that. We absolutely need Jalen to generate offense. That doesn't mean that Ime thinks Jalen Green is a top-3 guy on his roster. It just means that Jalen is the best we have at an essential skill. Ime probably likes Jalen. He'd probably like a more efficient shooting guard more if the defense were equal. Critical question: Where does Jalen rank on our current roster? Not future potential but his performance this season. Overall, we have seven good players on our roster. Here are my tiers. Top tier- Amen Thompson and Sengun are our best players. Now and for the near future. I think Amen will be a top-10 player in the NBA soon. Second tier- FVV, Tari Eason and Dillon Brooks. They don't score as much as Jalen but they are more successful filling their roles. When available, they contribute more to winning currently than does Jalen. They are all significantly better defensively than Jalen- as you mentioned, that's half the game. Third tier (slightly below tier 2)- Jalen Green and Jabari Smith. Jalen is probably one of the 3 most important players on this roster but I don't think he's one of the five best. Those are are not the same. 8I look forward to the Warriors series and I hope Jalen kills it. That would solve our roster's biggest problem. If Jalen doesn't succeed this series, I think they'll consider upgrading Jalen's position. As I said, as the primary offensive engine on this team, Jalen is among the league's weakest currently. The easiest way to upgrade this roster is to upgrade Jalen. I don't know who exactly will become available but it's easy to imagine the following players being available this summer- Devin Booker, Tyler Herro and Tyrese Maxey. Each of those are better than Jalen currently and likely to still be better in a couple of seasons. Rafael Stone could increase our probability of winning the 2026 and 2027 championships by trading Jalen for any of those players. Whether it's worth the draft equity or the financial considerations is a different question. As to on-court fit, it wouldn't be too difficult to upgrade Jalen. I think your post is both good and interesting but I think you made a statement that I think is really incorrect- "Unfortunately advanced metrics are extremely raw and erratic and it will take about a decade till they're at the reliability you're insinuating". I just think this is exactly wrong. I would say the following- Our personal interpretation of how Jalen Green performs on the court is extremely raw and erratic and will never achieve the reliability that we are insinuating. We're just fans and rarely see the games objectively. The numbers don't lie. We do.[/QUOTE]
Looking at the number of messages in the last few days, it seems that people are not worried about alpi and Amen's performances, but they are worried about Jalen's low performance. Even from here, it can be understood whether Jalen is the guy or just the guy
