Rockets sign Jabari Smith Jr. to 5-year, $122M extension

KD not better than wemby? Hali? LeBron? AD? MOBLEY? Jdub? Lmao… I don’t like KD on the rockets but this is a bad take..

 

Yeah I wouldn't put those guys ahead of KD based on performance last season. Maybe Hali just based on being a total badass in the playoffs? But not based on his regular season performance.

Some of those guys might be better than KD this upcoming season though. Depends on how much the younger guys improve and how much KD declines.

 

KD is one of the more difficult players to rate in my opinion. When he's healthy and has energy, he plays as well as almost anyone. I think there are plenty of times that Durant just coasted for 5 minutes here and there, when he was spent. It seemed like him and Booker did the your turn, my turn thing with Durant being incredibly effective during his turn, but basically being a better shooting JSJ on Booker's turn. I hope this won't be an issue for the Rockets as the Rockets have the depth to ease some load, especially defensively, when he's out there, but also won't need him out there as much.

 

A better take is that all of these guys:

Wemby (through 46 games)
Haliburton (given his incredible playoff run)
LeBron (2nd team all NBA)
Mobely (2nd team all NBA, DPOY (though wemby was obv better)
Willliams (3rd team all NBA)

had seasons that were as good or better than Durant last year. Anthony Davis is a harder call because his season was so choppy.

Most of those guys other tahn Haliburton were elite on defense for large swathes of the season. Maybe if he meets the games played minimum, Durant edges out Williams for 3rd team all-NBA based on rep. Otherwise he doesn't really beat out anybody. He basically gave up on the suns, their defense was ****, and he sulked his way through all of last season.

Sorry but you don't get to point to your eFG and say you're a top 10 player based on that alone, 2nd team all-NBA is top 10 player level.

 

Well, KD just barely missed the 65 game threshold for All-NBA eligibility, whereas LeBron, Mobley, Williams just barely cleared it. I don't think that's a huge difference. KD made All-NBA 2nd team in 2023-2024, and his performance was nearly identical last season on offense. You could argue his defense declined, though it's hard to measure exactly how much of that was individual performance and how much was due to Phoenix's shockingly atrocious team defense all-around. For whatever their questionable opinions are worth, I think most analysts I've seen still consider KD to be in roughly the #10 - #15 range league-wide too.

I won't start arguing with you about Wemby again, I'll just say he's undoubtedly a stud, but as you pointed out, he only played half the season.

 

If games played counts and makes him ' better ' than Wemby last year, Durant played 11 fewer games than Haliburton, 9 fewer than Mobley, 8 fewer than Lebron (and 17 fewer than James Harden while we're counting lol) so they appear to have had as good or better season. And that doesn't even count playoff games, which just puts Durant further down

And frankly I'd argue that Wembys space time bending shot blocking ability (led the NBA in total blocks again despite missing 3/8 of the season) alone is enough to make him better - he's just 1 of 1 on this era

If there's anyone you can argue that Durant is "better" than you'd have to grudgingly say Williams but, I don't know, the guy scored 40 in the NBA finals and was all defense, among other honors. He's a beast. Id love to have him.

At the very least all of these players have credible claims, and obviously other than maybe LeBron due to age & Haliburton due to injury, id gladly trade Durant for any of them this second as would most GMs. Even Davis, since Defense Wins Championships, as they say

 

How does KD not beat out Lebron last year? Lebron doesnt play defense anymore.

 

The only reason most GMs will trade KD is he is 36. If they are all the same age would you trade Kd for Hali or Cade? lol. Thats just a false argument.

Blaming KD for not having any all nbas and his team not making the playoffs is funny since you keep hyping up Wemby. Wemby missed half the season, has no all nbas and his team also missed the playoffs. But somehow Wemby is "better"? Ok not biased at all lol.

Personally I think KD is still a top 10 player when he is healthy to play. His stats speak for himself 26/6/4 on 64% TS and 43% from 3. His defense is also still very good. Saying Hali, Cade, Steph, Lebron is better than him currently is just wrong. Hali had a nice playoff run but if KD was on that Pacers team he would also have played or arguably even better.

 

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sp...extension-houston-rest-of-career-20767287.php

LAS VEGAS — When Houston Rockets forward Jabari Smith Jr. arrived in the nation’s gambling capital to support the Rockets’ summer league team this week, he had the security of knowing the hand he was being dealt.

Smith is fresh off signing a five-year, $122 million rookie-scale contract extension with the Rockets that is fully guaranteed through the 2030-31 season.

“It feels great to just know that you’re committed to the city where you want to be. I want to be here for the rest of my career,” Smith told the Chronicle on Friday. “So I’m glad that this is a good start to it, and I’m ready to build something.”

Smith, the No. 3 pick by the Rockets three years ago, was the first player from the 2022 draft class to agree to an extension this summer. Although he could have attempted to push negotiations further into the offseason or waited to test the market as a restricted free agent next summer, Smith didn’t want to delay an inevitable process.

“I think it was something that it either was gonna happen or it wasn’t, you know what I mean?” he said. “So I’m just glad it happened. I wanted to be here.”

No other player in NBA history reached Smith’s totals of points, rebounds, blocks and 3-pointers made through the first 212 games played of a career. He is one of five players in league history to have averaged at least 13 points, seven rebounds and 1.5 made 3-pointers through the first three seasons of a career — joining Paolo Banchero, Luka Dončić, Lauri Markkanen and Kristaps Porzingis.

Banchero, the No. 1 pick by Orlando two spots ahead of Smith in 2022, agreed this month to a five-year rookie maximum extension worth $239 million that qualifies as the richest contract in Magic history.

Smith’s extension is for less than the rookie max salary and follows a pattern of the Rockets negotiating money saving contracts this offseason. Houston re-signed center Steven Adams to a $39 million three-year extension before he could enter unrestricted free agency, then declined guard Fred VanVleet’s $44.9 million option and got him to agree to a new deal with a $25 million salary for each of the next two seasons.

Smith will also start his fourth NBA season playing alongside a group of new teammates after the Rockets added superstar forward Kevin Durant, forward Dorian Finney-Smith and center Clint Capela this offseason.

“I’m excited, honestly, just to see what we can do, the heights we can reach, just growing together, meeting new teammates,” Smith said. “I’m just overly excited.”

Smith is already familiar with Durant after they worked out together last summer in Los Angeles.On getting the opportunity to be on the same team as Durant, Smith said, “He attracts a lot of attention, so just being able to play off of that and honestly, just to learn from him.”

Smith ranked third in the NBA in defensive rating (106.1) among players who averaged at least 30.0 minutes played last season. In a season interrupted by a broken hand injury, Smith averaged 12.2 points and 7.0 rebounds in 30.1 minutes per game across 57 regular-season games with 39 starts for Houston.

Smith shot 50% from the field and 45.5% on 3-pointers in the Rockets’ seven-game playoff series loss to the Golden State Warriors.

Smith has spent the offseason in his hometown of Atlanta, where he also worked out with Rockets third-year guard Amen Thompson.Smith said he is focused on improving his ballhandling, getting stronger and “just trying to come back with a different mode, different mindset.”

“I feel like I’m impacting the game in other ways,” he said. “When I came into the league, I was so focused on scoring in terms of impact, but I feel like I’ve learned to impact the game in multiple ways. I feel like I’m still growing at that, and still gonna get great at that. So that’s what I’m trying to work on, just my overall motor and just playing harder.”

 

Can someone please figure out how for you to figure out what to make of a law career?

 

Kd is an empty stats superstar. Its just bizarre how someone can have that level of efficiency and be consistently .500 or worse in both brooklyn and phoenix

 

They didn’t. They had positive records when he was in the lineup.

 

Well, Uncle Jeff you may as well leave off because he's just an assistant coach at this point. He gets 5 minutes of playing time every 5 games.

 

Sounds good! Ime needs to unlock his potential as he really underutilised him.

 

You mean starting numbers

 

That's accurate if by "consistently" you mean literally once.

Even the once last season they were over .500 when he played, and the worst team in the NBA when he didn't.