Jabari Smith Jr. is the Rockets' franchise player

You lost me with that statement.

It is 100% Jabari’s fault he isn’t what we expected him to be.
I’m sure the Rockets told him what they expected from him and they drafted him at that draft spot because they had expectations for him.
if he underperforms that is COMPLETELY HIS RESPONSIBILITY even if he really is working hard and trying and training.


I’m sure if you gave Jabari truth serum , he would say he isn’t meeting his own expectations.

He’s playing like a player that should have been drafted in the teens and not top 3.
And I say that with thinking last season he was one of the most consistent and improved players we had.
But it doesn’t take away from the fact he has underperformed ESPECIALLY when you compare him to Chet & Banchero.

You’re speaking from a personal growth situation or a self respect viewpoint. But this is a Sports BUSINESS meaning the franchise expected a certain value return on their investment (draft position / contract value) and in return fans expected a certain value based on the draft. If he doesn’t meet that then he is responsible for that, even if he or you feels those expectations were unfair.

That would be like saying a guy is a bad boyfriend and you say well his girlfriend just expected too much from him, but it’s not his fault he’s not being a good boyfriend based on what she expected.

That’s literally the definition of not taking accountability

 

The point is most players in that draft should have been drafted in the teens or later - just like in Reed’s draft. Just because you have the 3rd pick doesn’t mean you have access to top tier talent any given year - some draft years are better than others. It’s nothing like your example at all.

If I go to the best court in town on Monday and a particular team dominates, it doesn’t mean that team can beat the second best team on Saturday because the quality of players varies by the day…just like in draft years. Why is that so difficult of a concept for you guys to get?

 

maybe we shouldn’t sit out two of the best drafts back to back this decade. Maybe we’d have actually landed that franchise player. But we are content with our guys? Including Bari? No need to take swings on Cooper Flag or Harper or Kon, or VJ, or any of those top guys in this recent draft? Or maybe u trade down or out of drafts when the options at your pick aren’t what u hoped for. Obviously it takes another team, but given our track record of not doing anything, I don’t trust our org to properly analyze drafts and move up and down the board to get real value. I don’t buy into the excuse that we were just “unlucky” in our drafts despite having 4 top 4 picks in 4 yrs.

 

We had the 10th pick in the 2025 draft..... and most certainly would have kept the pick if it was first.....probably kept the top 5. You act like we intentionally traded away the pick before we knew it was 10th.

We literally didn't get the number one pick for Cade, Wemby, or Flagg. What do you call that? Unlucky? Out of our hands?

 

Smith will turn 24 in May. Definitely past his prime.

 

Hey - I agree with you that we shouldn't have missed out on the better draft classes of recent years and I have similarly been on record here for a while now that Stone is too risk averse, too much of a 'bargain shopper' and I worry that opportunity will pass us by because Stone is stuck in that mode and doesn't appear to be willing to take risk for better results.

...its like trying to assemble an award winning dish with dented cans and nearly expired ingredients because you got a deal on them. It could work out, but at some point you have to take what was available at a deal and supplement it with things that actually tie it all together - and those might not be available as discounted FA deals because someone is aging and coming back from major back surgery. That is the part that concerns me - I trust Stone to sensibly manage assets and find decent players at basement prices but I don't trust him to synthesize that into a "team" where the sum is greater than the parts because we just haven't seen that from him yet. Does he have it in him? I don't know....

...but to be clear my original post was about guys like Reed and Jabari being underwhelming picks for what we expect to get at the 3rd pick of any draft but unfortunately for them, they happened to be decent but not spectacular players from weak drafts.

 

On rating Stone, any pick he trades away is automatically going to win the lottery and lead to a franchise player if he didn't trade it away. Stone just isn't into getting young talent.
Any pick he makes automatically gets compared to the best guy that was drafted after that pick.
Stone only got this with all the draft picks he's made!
He gets no credit for amassing a ton of picks. He should have done better than 5 FRPs for Covington, Westbrook, and Tucker.
He acquires better veterans than he trades away with using only 1 FRP. He overpaid.
When evaluating future picks, the worst possible scenario will occur. The Nets will finish in bottom 3, Suns will make the playoffs, and the Rockets will make the playoffs. Maybe a slight chance the Suns or Nets pick ends up getting 3 ping pong balls.
When it comes to discussing the Rockets chances at making the playoffs while not discussing draft, Rockets won't make the playoffs.
Stone trades a ton of SRPs. he doesn't value picks (okay, Stone has been on a trading SRP bender for about 2 and half years)
Stone signs vets they suck.
Rockets win 52 games in consecutive years, the Rockets don't develop young players, and went from 20 something wins to 52 solely due to FVV and Brooks, and then Durant.
Rockets have 5 picks in the next 3 drafts, and 9 in the next seven....2027 draft sucks, and we'll ignore all the other picks.

 

I know that it is always in the eye of the beholder, but I just felt like Smith continued to get better this year.

I think his ceiling is third best player on a championship team in the more likely outcome is probably the fourth best player, but I thought he improved a lot.

personally, I would really begin trying to bulk him up a little bit more while not disturbing his shot mechanics. I would focus on him being a stretch 5, with a very athletic power forward next to him.

 

I think JSJ had a big jump last season. Not as big as Reed's but very big. I had hopes of JSJ bulking up to be a stretch 5 at some point. The Rockets results without a center the past 2 seasons have been mixed at best. If he becomes one great, but I would focus on him just becoming a better forward.

 

I think he ended the season strong and had a good playoffs.

However, his lack of bball IQ/instincts were a major part of the reason why we were having such a hard time beating those double teams.

 

Imagine the discourse if this was some kind of Rocket fan site instead of an emo concert.

 

I've never really been concerned with Jabari's shooting, even when he struggled as a rookie, it's improved over time .... the one thing I wish he could do better is put the ball on the floor and drive against hard close outs. He's got a long career ahead of him .... maybe some day?

Completely agree - Think of how long we've been asking for a stretch 5 here on CF, literally since Dwight Howard was on the team and that's been a decade ago and we have never had that guy, able to shoot league average from 3 and protect the rim on the other end. That's a unicorn.

 

7'1" Jabari Smith with a 7'3" wingspan.

DD

 

Is it true though, or is it like the first 3 years of Alpi's career where he "grew in the offseason" and came back identical?

 

I give you this for Reed's draft and event the drafts like Cade, Wemby where we had no choice. But Jabari was arguably ranked as being the projected NUMBER 1 Pick for that draft

So its not like he was supposed to be top 10 or something.

You dont get projected #1 for a while without it being some signs of potential.

And that means then he was a bust. It doesn't mean he wont still be a good serviceable player, but he's most certainly a bust as far as underperformed his expectations just like Kwame Brown, and other #1 - 3 picks that didn't pan out .

I do see him being Andrew Wiggins where he finds his role later in his career.

 

I wouldn’t say Jabari is a bust just because of his pre draft potential. Disappointing, but not a bust.

Same with Paolo

 

Now that hes a 7 footer can we just keep him as PF/C rather than PF/SF. His skillset is much more valuable as a big than a wing. And maybe we can actually run some lineups where its Amen and 4 shooters.

 

Update : Jabari is now 7'3" after using the restroom.

 

If Jabari puts on as much muscle this summer as he did last summer, his future is looking good. Other than that really all I need from him is slightly more efficient shooting.

Would love to have him guarding PF's and C's more often. He spent too much time guarding SG's and SF's away from the basket.

Wish we could trade Durant for an elite shooter at the 2. Move Amen to the 3 and Jabari to the 4 and they can protect Sengun defensively. They become plus athletes at their positions again, back to having a great speed advantage. We become dynamic again.

Durant can't guard wings, it's throwing off our defense. Trey Murphy takes almost twice as many 3's as Durant at an excellent %. Maybe a good fit now if we're committed to Amen and Sengun.