You are missing the point - your expectations are based on generalities influenced by a lot of things that have nothing to do with the player's actual abilities or the other players available in that draft year. As a fan I'm disappointed we didn't draft our franchise player in any of the drafts we had better odds to - I think we agree there....but it's not Jabari's fault he isn't what we hoped he would be. That's all I'm trying to say - Jabari doesn't "suck" because we all hoped he would be Rashard Lewis or better based on the 3rd pick. He is who he is and so far that seems to be a hard working good teammate who ultimately has a lot of holes in his game that he has (to his credit) really worked on. He is solidly an NBA starter which makes him one of the 15-20ish best PFs in the entire world....not what we hoped, but he definitely doesn't suck. FWIW, I tend to think of the draft like this - it's an opportunity to add asset value to your organization. Sometimes that means you add a player who can really drive the franchise, sometimes that means you get a solid but not remarkable player, and sometimes that pick is not even in the league by the end of the contract. All the analysis into likelihood to be an all star or HOFer or whatever is just anecdotal. A draft pick's "success" to their team is ultimately measured on one of two areas - I get exclusivity to a player who I don't want to lose/is critical to what I'm building, or - I get exclusivity to a player who I could be flipped into another type of player I want Turning that pick into real value of some kind IS the game and by that measure Jabari making $23mil/year is a win because he is good enough player as a starter for us AND there will always be a decent market for him if we wanted to exchange him for something else that "fits" better. Even Jalen Green as a "bust" was still a moveable player because as a team we are generally fairly adept at not signing mediocre talent to restrictive deals. On the other side, you fail in the draft when you: - draft a player who ultimately doesn't project to be better than a league average player past their rookie contract - give mediocre talent inflated deals locking your team into more restrictive roster construction paradigms.
You are purposefully selecting criteria for rarity to make Jabari's production look more unique than it is. Is it statistically relevant that Toumani Camara was 25 years old last season? Or that Brice Sensabaugh took only 5.9 3PA (in 23.5mpg)? No, but it sure sounds better if Jabari is 1 out of 4 forwards rather than 1 of 15 or so. I'm a bit surprised you didn't make the cutoff 6.3 attempts so that you could exclude Champagnie as well. If the context is Jabari's abilities as a shooter, what is the point of being so selective on what criteria to consider? He is not a special shooter for his volume. 37 players averaged six or more 3pa last year with an average 3p% of 38.5%. Jabari's percentage would be 34th on that list. If we look at forwards only the average for that volume is 38.4% and Jabari would have come in 11th out of 13. But hey, if you narrow the field to the four players you selected Jabari comes in 4th! Jabari was a league average shooter on 5 3pa, and he's a league average shooter at 6.3 3pa. If you consider that a massive stride, then fine. And if you want to point out how his "tightly" defended shooting percentages improved from two years ago, even though they only make up 7% of his shot volume, then I'll counter that his wide open (6+ feet) percentages have dropped from 45.7% two years ago to 38.8%. And considering wide open threes make up 18.4% of his shots that seems more statistically relevant.
I included those limiters because context matters. Age matters. This idea does not seem to be foreign to any other basketball fan except for many that frequent this board. I limited the search to forwards because it's dumb to compare a guy like Bari to guards. I included a 6 3pa limiter because it's silly to compare someone shooting 6 3pa a game to someone like Chet, who has a decent percentage but only takes a couple shots a game. I included an age limiter because a ton of guys improve their shot as they get older. This isn't difficult to understand. If you want to increase the universe, that's fine. But opening it up to guards would be like judging how many blocks a guard had and ranking him with centers. How does that make any sense? Tell you what - change the parameters a bit. Make it forwards who averaged .36 on 5 3pa and played at least 50 games so there aren't any outliers. There's about fifteen, and of that fifteen, only one other than Bari is under 25 (Kon) and only one is over 6'10 (KD). If you are right, and there are a ton of young 6'11 power forwards shooting 3s at a high clip, point them out. List them. You can't, because they just don't exist.
You're right, there are 15 forwards that meet those parameters. And of those fifteen Bari's 3p% percentage comes in last. And five of those players are under 25, not only one. He's last on that list as well. Did you forget Brandon Miller and Julian Champagnie from your earlier list? Well add Brice Sensabaugh (22) to it. Champagnie turned 25 eleven days ago, but I'm including him anyway since he was 24 years old throughout the whole season and meet your criteria in his age 23 season as well. No matter how you slice it Jabari is not a good shooter for his volume. Most of those players far exceeded Jabari's shooting within their first three seasons, so you can't count on him catching up to them either. They were already better than him at earlier points of their careers. I do not care that Jabari is 6'11". I've never obsessed about height in an NBA player so it's weird that you keep putting it out there like it's a trump card. Taller player does not mean better player.
I actually like Jabari’s shot. I’m just very low on him as a connector athlete and fit for the Rockets. Playing faster with Amen at the 4 in the Jabari spot defensively is more important than holding onto a decent player. Honestly the more other people like his game and hype him up, the more likely I think it will be that a GM out there will agree, and the more I end up thinking trading him at peak value is a great idea. We’re clearly not on the level with the top teams in the league and paths to get there are few and far between. Fleecing someone on a Jabari deal is one of the few paths keeping hope alive for me. I can see the playstyle, schematics, and flow changing enough to surprise people with how much better we’d be with a simple swap like Jabari for VJ Edgecombe.
I think the NBA does place a premium on size based on the contracts given. All I will say is shooting can improve. His rookie season seems like an anomaly where he shot 30%.
So, to be clear, you can't point to any other young players who are actually the size of a PF who shoot at Bari's level. Got it.
I dont care who you are, if you say that you wanted just a solid player with a top three pick after tanking for a full season I know I'm talking to a liar. I dont hate Jabari and I see that word brought up here in this post a lot. This is why I compared some of you guys to Lebron fans. You have to keep making concessions and make it personal in order for it not to make sense to trade him. It makes all the sense in the world to trade Jabari so that you can get real shooters and to make way to for Amen at power forward. He's a better fit at that position and could end up being a star there. Given that he and Sengun have both shown promise to be future allstars we should be looking to get more shooting and a real point guard with them instead of babying Jabari Smith Jr because youre a fanboy who cant let go at the appropriate time. If we move on from Jabari, KD and Fred we can achieve that. Tari Eason is basically the same player for cheaper with better defense and can improve his shooting. He doesnt mind coming off the bench. Finally I want to say it is his fault he's not a star yet. We know he has the talent. He hasnt put in the work to dribble better. He full on ignores open teammates. Given his build he could be elite defensively, he is not. He's been given all the time in the world to do these things. Its time to let go. We might be able to get Trey murphy for him or another knock down shooter or pass first point guard. Those are things we need more than we need Jabari.
Jabari isn’t the size of a power forward anymore. Championship level power forwards have small forward trait athleticism and speed. They run 4.5 40s, they dribble, they pass, they defend guards on the perimeter. The additional guy that can do that has proven to be superior. Jayson Tatum, Kawhi Leonard, OG Anunoby, Jaden McDaniels, Jalen Williams, Pascal Siakim, Aaron Gordon, Scottie Barnes, LeBron, Giannis. Sitting around talking about if he can get up to 38% from 3 meanwhile the speed, athleticism, coordination, and well rounded skill isn’t even remotely comparable. It’s ridiculous.
It’s only time to let go if you can actually improve the team with what you get in return. I would take Tray Murphy in a heartbeat, but I doubt the Pelicans would trade him for Jabari. And you’re here acting like Jabari has some crazy superfans like “LeBron James “ LOLLL, there is no crazy Jabari following in here from clutchfans, he is one of the least talked about youngsters. Even the few folks that like Jabari that I see here are saying he can be 3rd or 4th best player on the team, no one is even saying Jabari is some star. Don’t be an idiot (I know that’s a lot to ask though lol).
You clearly have blocked the people I talked to. I said what I said and provided clear examples. Anytime someone says we should trade him, they are called a hater. That word has been used multiple times to describe people who are just posting Jabari stats as well. Maybe open your eyes.
You don't really understand nuance well, huh? There is a difference between being disappointed with what we got with the 3rd pick(of which I already said I was) and blaming Jabari for not being who we wanted. It would also be REALLY cool if you read what I said instead of endlessly arguing with some idea you have in your head of a Jabari fanboys. If you HAD read, you would see very clearly that I'm NOT showering the guy with praise. I said he's not awful, he's basically a league average starting PF, he's tradeable, and also it's not his fault he wasn't the thing we wanted with the 3rd pick. If you read that as "another one of Lebron and Jabari loving fanboys" then you have terrible reading comprehension. ...look, there are A LOT of players who work exceptionally hard and aren't good enough to become NBA stars. It's not like the only guys who become stars are the guys with great work ethics - Tracy McGrady and Allen Iverson are HOFers who are proof of that - some people got it, Jabari doesn't. It's a competitive league - every single player in the league has overwhelming talent and most players work very hard at improving their games - and still don't make it. You can't out work/out train who you and how your body works - Jabari's brain doesn't move at a pace that allows him to process the game at a higher level and his body mechanics are still very stiff and unfluid which will always handicap him but I don't think either of those things are going to go away even if he spends every minute of this summer in the gym. He's always going to move and think like that....by all account Jabari works hard on his game and I have certainly seen his improvement in a number of areas since his rookie season - his dribble has improved (but still isn't good enough to allow him to create off the dribble), his shooting has become more consistent when he has time to set his body, he has put on real strength, he has improved at scoring when he has a size mismatch, he has started to make the most basic of reads - he could do NONE of those things as a rookie....but he also is who he is which is why he hasn't turned a corner. In college his team ran him off screens to get him open and he was mostly pretty capable...defensively he wasn't asked to chase around guards and SFs on switches like he is in Houston. So is it REALLY Jabari's fault that he hasn't look as good playing in an entirely different system in the Pros? And by the way - I'm not advocating for running plays for Jabari or changing defensive schemes to something more favorable for him - but I am saying, he is who he is and will continue to be that guy. You can't take a long and agile but stiff player with slow processing who played in a very structured system and expect him to just turn into a fluid athlete with self creation skills in a completely unstructured offense. If that's who you want - just GO GET THAT GUY! I would be OVER THE MOON to trade him for Trey Murphy - I have advocated for the same before on this same forum. My whole point was - the goal of the draft is to either get a star(of which he clearly is not), or to get someone who can you at least flip for something you actually want once they have a contract. I don't necessarily think there is anything wrong with Jabari Smith Jr on an NBA roster, even as a Rocket - he's a useful player in the right system...but I also wouldn't hesitate to trade him for ANY way to upgrade this roster because ultimately he's just another league average starter better suited to a style of play that Ime doesn't appear to be willing to play. It is what it is.
