Exact same thing as JG. Inconsistent player assuming a bigger role than he should. And that's okay if he is developing. Two questions are 1) is he developing as he should? 2) can't we do the same with Reed?
We literally cannot win without Big Shot Bari getting his 15! CLEARLY the franchise player around here!
You forgot the most important question of all: How high a potential is he flashing and how much leash is appropriate for that ceiling? We gave Jalen too much leash in his career (nine 3PA plus green light on midrange jumpers was insane to allow). He was not a role player as he was drawing the best perimeter defender every night. Flashed plenty of 30 and 40 point games on a team desperate for any scorers. Jabari is in year 4 struggling to be a 3&D role player. The D is pretty good and the 3 is below average. He's often guarded by the worst defender on the court. Reed has flashed stupendous offensive prowess through pull up shooting. Much prefer to give Reed the same or longer leash - he's clearly improving defensively with each game and his shooting has hope of being special. It also just fits well with our eternally packed paint. - Jabari is 26.1% on pull ups and 35% on catch and shoot - Reed is 38.8% on pull ups and 41% on catch and shoot To be fair to Ime, it is gradually happening. At some point Ime will notice that Reed is impacting the game positively even when he doesn't take a shot - teams actually treat him like someone you can't take your eyes off for a second.
Jabari has a "leash" because he is the only PF spacer we have unless you want Unc Jeff out there. And maybe there was an argument for taking out Jabari and putting in Unc the last 2 games, but for example this game he was better than any other option we have. Reed Ime can play any number of guys, Jabari not so much.
His recent slump is one of the worst I've ever seen from a Rockets starter, and it instantly turned a solid season into what's currently looking like a disappointing one. But it's probably just a slump and his numbers will probably come back up. Probably.
Odds of him being traded at the deadline are fairly low due to his contract, for better or worse. If he gets traded anytime soon, it will almost certainly be during the offseason
He's not going to develop a good shot as long as he's throwing up frozen ropes. If I continue to see no arc on his shot, I don't think he's even trying to fix it.
Net Rating was used as an unassailable proof that JSJ should start* numerous in this thread. Based on JSJ being the 2nd worst now in Net Rating among the rotation, will those who championed Net Rating now say JSJ needs to come off the bench? Granted, I like Net Rating as a stat, but when the differences get this minor in-season (basically has been all season), I don't think it matters too much. Big differences** or year after year a team is better with a specific player on the court, that means a lot. To me, these Net Ratings look like a team that has good depth. I will say that Reed's and JSJ's bad play lately is why they are at the bottom of this list as their poor play was why the Rockets were losing their minutes. A 5-game hot streak and they could be back near the top. *or related sentiment ** I did get a little overexcited when Reed was running a Net Rating about 6-7 points better than the team for about 25 games. That was a bad stretch for Reed as well as JSJ. Granted, my excitement was based more on what Reed was doing on the court that likely caused the Net Rating to be smoking hot than Net Rating itself.
Clearly you missed the Ryan Anderson experience. He went from being a 40% 3pt shooter on volume to declining to the point where he was out of the league after his last big contract with Houston.
Yeah, data that’s missing a good strength of opponent metric will always be problematic. Most people assume it translates directly to higher quality competition. Some people make an adjustment and assume there will be a slight drop off if it was against one of the best teams starters. Few realize it can go from working to not working at all against a particularly bad matchup.
I don't think using NetRTG in the manner you are doing - i.e. comparing among all rotational players on a team to see who should start - is a good way to use it. You have standardize MPG to make it make sense. If you want to see whether or not Jabari should be starting, I think a better way is to look at the NetRTG among 3 man lineups for the Rockets who have played meaningful minutes together (say, 250+ minutes). The list is below - Bari is in the top 3 lineups and in 7 of the top 11. In other words, he should start and play meaningful minutes because he is a great fit with a lot of different lineups.
Is the defense that good? He is definitely switchable and mostly does a good job staying in front of his man but for some reason people make difficult shots over him often. The help side defense is great - gets us some solid blocks from time to time from the weak side....but to the larger point I see him hang with guys defensively but he doesn't "disrupt" guys like good defenders do so I'm not so certain you couldn't find a better defender at his price point. To say it another way - the eye test tells me he looks like a solid defender, but is he actually effective at preventing people from scoring? Right now he looks like an average shooter and and an average defender and I'm fairly certain the leash she has with the team is more because of the shooting limitations of Sengun and Amen than it is any sort of org belief in his ceiling. It's like we have to believe in the ceiling of Jabari because if we don't it means we have to address the reality of how Alpi and Amen's lack of outside shooting hurts the team.
