With Jabari's 25M deal he can stay the same player and still be a valued player on this team. He can play 3 positions and provide solid defense, rebounding and spacing. Its not flashy but contenders always on the lookout for people like him even old ass washed guys like Al Horford and Jeff Green still get offers due to how impactful they are. Posters here always like to act like every player is paid the same amount of money but the reality is the expectations from them should be based on their salary. For example between Scottie Barnes and Jabari most casuals will say Scottie is way better but when you consider Barnes is making almost twice what Jabari does while only being marginally better it is clear Jabari is better overall. In the past teams can just pay luxury tax and ignore the cap so you just need to look at which player is better. But now with cap limitations its better to get the slightly worse player if he also ends up a lot cheaper. Jabari's new deal is so cheap I dont think he ever gets moved.
I was more than bummed. I couldn't sleep literally that entire night and kept reading about the trade, and in the morning went to my first ever yoga session to blow off some steam LOL
well this is what he’s been up to. Still skinny. But working on a post game and using the body to bump.
With star players already getting injured left and right and with plummeting ratings I dont think NBA gonna shoot their own foot by cracking down and exposing roiding players.
Yeah that's fine, let him stay skinny. As long as he doesn't get power we should be ok I think. If he ever figures out he's basically a taller version of Ja and consistently starts jumping over people then we'll need him traded from the Suns. If he stays trying to shoot step back 3's and crappy middies we're probably good lol.
Say what you want about Jalen but he always delivers with the offseason workout videos. I know his name is mud on the board here, but props to the guy for improving physically every offseason.....Unfortunately the area he needed to improve at is between the ears but maybe it will start to sync in around game 600 of his career.
Spot on analysis - especially about the new cap rules! Real contenders are built in one of two ways. Either you have the best player on the court - a legit top 5 guy.....OR you have a few good but not elite stars(at least a couple of top 30 guys) and you NAIL the value part of the equation when filling out your roster. Jabari definitely is one of those guys with this contract with modest gains to his game and if he has any kind of bigger leap in his game(and I suspect he will this year), he will be SUPER valuable to this team. I'm still somewhat concerned that while we have Durant, we still lack that long term offensive cog on this team. There is time here to see if Alpi, Amen, maybe Reed grow into more complete offensive players but if that doesn't happen - I think a guy like Jabari becomes potentially one of those valuable trade chips.
Now that he's not a Rocket .... and his failures can directly impact the Rockets future draft picks ..... he can figure it out sometime after 2029.
If by "figures it out" you mean "actually hits the star potential he flashed" then I agree. I wouldn't take him back to be a 6th man or for any reason other than he really is competing to be the scoring leader every year.
The type of player you are really affects how you should be looking at muscle mass. Clint Capela was a center, and I'm sure he heard the whispers about how gaining muscle would make him harder to get bullied in the paint by guys like Marc Gasol. But honestly, what made him great for us was his versatility on defense and ability to shut down even Steph Curry on the perimeter in the 2018 playoffs. By 2019 we ran into the Warriors again, and because he was all bulked up he was completely unplayable, because they would just switch Curry on to him, and he would get blown past every time. He lost that fast twitch aspect of his game, and the rest of his career suffered for it in my opinion. Just a horrible decision to make about his body at the time when the center position was basically being officiated out of the sport because they needed to bend the rules in a way where Steph Curry could spearhead a dynasty. Fast forward to today, and defense is back, the double bigs are back. You absolutely want Sengun putting on muscle to bang in the post. Will it slow him down? A little bit! There's always tradeoffs to this. But in general I fully support the decision to bulk him up. With Jabari it's a bit less of an imperative because he doesn't really have a post game, but in terms of gaining 10lbs of muscle, I don't think that should improve or worsen his defensive ability too much on the perimeter or in the paint. Now Amen Thompson? Absolutely not. You need need need him to keep every ounce of lateral quickness he has. Another classic example of not needing to be bulky is Kevin Durant. That man will have a 22yr career in this league if he wants, purely on the back of his length and shooting. The length alone means he is a plus defender even at 37yo. No one is ever blocking his shot. Getting heavier would get him slower. He's fine as is. Kevin Garnett was the same way.
