For some idiotic reason, lately the team has only been as good as Jabari has. Hence the losing streak while he’s having a loser streak. It can’t be good for the team identity to be tied to him in any way at all.
Disagree with this. He starts the game with full confidence, and only when he turns it over or misses shots does he lose that confidence. Anyone loses confidence on the way to missing a ton of open shots. Every human emotion has a purpose and there's actually nothing wrong with losing confidence after you actually **** the bed historically. That's just time to go back, rethink and rebuild that confidence. Confidence is really not the issue with this kid. I've seen shooters with confidence issues. This is an ego issue. It's completely different. He's simply overestimating his skills. If you're blind, it doesn't how much confidence you have in driving a car. That confidence is going to get cyclically shattered. We've been saying it's just X, Y or Z "but he's a shooter" for years. He's not a shooter. Confidence has to be in proportion to skill. There IS such a thing as excess confidence that hurts your chances. The confidence he's displaying - next one is going in - applies to well defined shooters. A guy who's never shot average in the NBA need not have that confidence level. Some humility is required here.
I understand that, but I'm not taking him for granted nor am I saying he sucks defensively so I'm not sure how that's relevant in our discussion. I feel like with those other arguments (defense, winning) you're trying to prove something that I already knew before I made the statement. His shooting is a problem to me regardless of what other things he does. It's central to me. Excellent shooting can excuse lesser defense in the case of a shooter, but defense can't excuse poor shooting from our designated shooter. So if you agree that his shooting is unacceptable after 3.5 years (as in, this % can only be excused in year 1 and possibly year 2), I guess we're agreeing.
Funny. I've been saying he's G League Material / 30th pick type player forever. Ppl are figuring it out....
The sad thing is that I actually like the kid. Hate his game but really like the person. Hard worker. Takes accountability. Good teammate. No off the court shenanigans. but no touch on the ball, bad instincts and low bball IQ. Not mentally tough. Not a dribble-pass-shoot guy. Very limited athleticism. could it be that the org just hasn’t been able to properly evaluate their player? He’s still so young, but many of the negatives on that list don’t change with hard work. How badly has he damaged his value across the league? what do folks’ think Bari’s value is relative to a draft pick? Presumably the contract is still a net positive. Mid-1st? I probably wouldn’t do that on the hope the shot comes around. But he’s clearly hurting the team right now. Would be nice to convert him into a real core player through a trade package.
I'm so confused by his perceived value around the league. Genuinely don't know if he has negative value yet or not.
He was already better than those 2 last season. I don't expect this ice-cold streak to continue the rest of the season. I try hard not to judge players too much on streaks, but this has been a really bad stretch. I still think he is a valuable rotation player, but the Rockets need him to play better or Eason to stay healthy.
Probably, but I bet you he doesn't have 1 season that tops what they did. Okafor Rookie Season legit & Bagleys first 3 seasons look like Bari's current season. He has to get better & probably will, the thing is he is inconsistent and doesn't do anything well. His contract is perfect for a trade in the off-season.
Reminds me of Nic Batum. Not the play style but the career arc. Established himself as a good young role player Terrible 2nd contract. Paid on upside and ability to step up into a bigger role. Goes back to being a solid MLE role player and has a good long career. Jabari is going to be a good 28 year old PF/C that will not be winning a championship on his upcoming contract 5 year contract. League is too good, margins for error were too tight. They had to be nearly perfect with the assets but just f*cked it up bad. Fertittas are big Jabari fans, this is probably the first and biggest case of them poking their heads in and doing too much.
I've been a Jabari "hater" from almost day one, although I'll admit my reasons have evolved over time so I don't know if I can really play the "I told you so" game here. Initially, I didn't like him because of all the barking he did at his teammates during his rookie year, despite the fact that he was clearly the worst player on the floor (across both teams) almost all of the time. That struck me as diva behavior, although a few posters assured me that this was totally normal on a basketball team. From his second season onwards, I didn't like him as a player because I believed his lack of strength, athleticism and coordination undermined his player archetype to such a degree that his height advantage was completely nullified. I also felt his basketball IQ and "feel" for the game was subpar, especially for someone whose father played professional ball. Sure he's young, but almost all of the best players in league history flashed greatness (if inconsistently) from the moment they stepped on the court. Jabari has never flashed greatness. This year, I'm most annoyed by the fact that he seems obsessed with modeling his game after Durant's, when he's shown none of the talents that Durant has. I'm tired of watching him pass up wide open shots in an attempt to mimic Durant's midrange game, especially when those attempts so often lead to either a turnover, a missed fadeaway against a guard (seriously, why is he fading against guys who are 6 inches shorter than him), or wasted time. Putting all of this together, it seems to me that Jabari's biggest issue isn't confidence, physical limitations, basketball IQ or ego. No, his biggest issue is self-awareness. He truly doesn't grasp his place on the team or even in the league. There are lots of NBA players with major limitations who nevertheless accept those weaknesses and have worked on enhancing their strengths and developing other skills to mitigate their weaknesses. But given all that's happened since we drafted him, I'm not sure Jabari even understands his own weaknesses and seems to believe his strengths are already good enough (when they're clearly not). We've all encountered people who lacks self-awareness - the dumpy friend who can't get a date but who critiques the looks of every woman in the room, the co-worker whose complains about having to cover someone's shift when they miss more days than anyone else, and the guy at the YMCA courts who thinks he's Kobe but plays like Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Along Came Polly ("RAINDANCE!!!). They may be relatively decent people, but they're held back by this particular personality flaw. I think that's exactly what we've seen with Jabari. I said in the last game thread that Stone really jumped the gun with a number of off-season moves, and Jabari's extension was one of them. I know the guy hit a few clutch shots in the playoffs last year, but he also had more turnovers than Jalen Green (who probably had the ball in his hands 10x more than Jabari). If that isn't the definition of a "let's wait and see" player, I don't know what is, and now I fear we have the equivalent of Tobias Harris' last contract - a capable starter but not someone who fills the gaps or elevates his teammates. So we may be stuck with him unless there's still a few teams that have underestimated his limitations and believe he's just "being used incorrectly." And given this team's lack of identity right now, being committed to a mediocre role player badly limits our flexibility to make moves.
I believe JSJ, at the end of his career, will have very solid career numbers that make him look like a valuable rotation player. something like 15/7.8/1.8 44%/35%/80% avg. But Bari is so mentally weak, nice kid good character, however he'll never become even at Shane Battier/Mario Elle/Robert Horry/Trever Ariza level true "valuable rotation player". His problem is never athleticism/confidence/effort/adjusting to NBA/..., it's that he's mentally weak. I remember mostly he almost cry after got dunked by Wemby in his 2nd season. I believe the team better trade him while he still got some value(young) now. Trade JSJ this season will most likely shed $12~$14 millions in 26-27' cap and beyond, that will also solve Tari's extension this year and Amen's next year too
