It’s a good point. We are pretty much out of the FA market for years. Our only avenue for roster building is organic growth and the trade market.
I'm not talking about ideally. Ideally is he develops a great handle. I'm talking about easy low hanging fruit type development. Klay Thompson is not elite at moving off the ball anymore. Why do you think that is? It's because it's not part of the play anymore. Jabari is told to just stand there and wait. He's also not been barred from dribbling the ball for some reason. Again we can use Kerr as an example when he told Hield to stop dribbling the ball. Our offensive coaching is among the worst in the league for the entirety of Jabari's career. It's a bigger factor here. You have to understand that we are an unusual team. People seem to be oblivious about the systemic problem here. I don't even understand why people are defensive about it. Amen has to drive more, Green has to develop midrangers/floaters, Sengun has to develop midrange, Whitmore can't get to the rim worth a damn, Jabari can't attack closeouts. Is it really this gigantic coincidence that everyone seems to be running into a mysterious problem getting to the rim and have to work around it? The most obvious and simple answer is: we have the most difficult paint to navigate in the NBA and it's putting excess pressure on everyone's ability to drive and get to the rim. There's no way we mis-projected like 6 players' ability to get to the rim. Jabari will be fine at simply attacking closeouts when we have an average paint like all good teams do. At the moment on this team if you have to attack a closeout there's 4 more NBA players sitting in the paint. On his defense, I won't get into it because we have radically different opinions. I'll just leave it at: I don't know of any person in the realm of basketball who has as negative opinion of Jabari's defense as you. Our starting lineup tanked defensively when he was benched so he's either better than Brooks or Amen at guarding PF's. Regarding Tari similarly we're too wide apart. IMO to say Tari is measurably better is a reach. I think you're missing something in the data because I noticed you said Jabari is not that good at rebounding when in fact he's statistically an elite rebounding PF and it's will known. Not sure what's getting mixed up here or how you're coming to these conclusions.
The way I hear Tilman & Patrick talk about home grown team I could see Patrick & Stone having a sit down with Ime on how if Fred comes back they want to see a reduced role and emphasis on development. As high as they probably were off #2 seed I doubt they like to see 2 #3 picks and Cam sitting on the bench. I doubt Stone likes Jabari off the bench and I bet they are going to want their future superstar Amen involved a lot more than a dunkers spot. I don’t think they’ll be to happy with Holiday playing over Reed or Cam this season unless they are just trash
It is clear that Bari is a better shooter than Tari. Measuring shooting is clean and objective. As to who is a better defensive player, it's hard to say. I don't trust individual defensive advanced stats. They are greatly affected by team work which include things like roles, schemes, fits, etc. From the eye test, Tari is a better on ball defender in the perimeter because he has faster foot speed and faster hands. Bari is better defending inside. And Bari doesn't make dumb mistake like fouling 3pt shooters as Tari keeps doing. Overall, I think Tari is slightly better on defense.
Best thing for literally everyone is for Jabari to leave Stone on read this summer as it pertains to an extension. This way Jabari makes his intentions clear. Make me more of a focal point of the offense or I'll go somewhere that will.
I have a bad feeling that on our current course, Smith will want to leave for a bigger role. I definitely am super interested in getting him more shots. I think that this would be very easy to do. We just have to make a point to do it.
Smith gonna leave us cause Amen is starting in his spot. Amen gonna wanna leave because Fred is taking the point guard spot from him. Cam gonna wanna leave cause he’s been in the doghouse two years. And then after Ime runs Fred into the ground Ime gonna leave us for the Knicks job lol
I remember convincing myself he could turn into 80% of KD. "But he's working out with KD this summer." Has that ever made a difference?
No way. He makes the occasional dumb mistake but his defensive energy coupled with his athleticism is a huge net positive off the bench. Tari is an outstanding defensive player. He is limited in the half-court offense but his defense, rebounding and transition contributions are all big advantages for our bench. Jabari has more upside and I would choose Jabari if we're choosing between the two long-term. Tari is a terrific role player already though. He's one of the Rockets that comes up most often when other teams talk about poaching our players. Literally every organization in the NBA would like to have Tari Eason. He'd even find some minutes on the Thunder roster as the backup PF.
There was nothing wrong with Bari in the starting lineup. We can ill afford to take Bari’s shooting out of that lineup. I’m all for Amen starting, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of Bari. If 21yr old Bari is part of our future he needs to be playing big minutes. I get Dillon was our best shooter on volume this past season, but we’ve got extensions for both Bari and Tari coming. If we can lock both up, we should probably move on from Dillon. That’s where I think Amen should start for the time being. 5)Sengun 4)Bari/Tari 3)Amen/Tari 2)?shooter 1)?shooter I’m confident in those first 3 with Tari coming off the bench playing the 3/4. This is like one of the few things I’m certain about. The other thing I’m certain about is that our backcourt shooting isn’t good enough. We’ve got a $78 mil backcourt we can’t feel confident in. That’s got to change.
Tari is not a better 3pt shooter than Jabari. There’s a reason why the Warriors left Tari open at the 3pt line while he bricked and air-balled shots. Draymond even said they were more concerned with Jabari because of his shooting. Tari also still can’t dribble with his left hand and shoots at the hip which makes his shot easy to block.
He doesn't make the "occasional" dumb mistake. He makes them with regularity. He is like a bigger Patrick Beverly or maybe Marcus Smart. More irritant than sound defender. He's great as a defensive sparkplug when he's "on". But I'd move on from him fairly comfortably at this point. His transition game is pretty bad as well as he ends up making the wrong decision on a fast break anyway. I wouldn't mind moving on from him for someone who's just smarter than he is and Im not holding my breath that hes going to do something dumb in a playoff series. I'm just ready to move on from our dumb players. Issue with older players as well is that there isnt much more development either. Kinda are what they are at this point. He's not at Jalen Green "get him off my team for the love of God by any means necessary" level....but I'm probably way lower on him than consensus.
