I missed about 4 or 5 games in a row due to busy life and it seems that was a slump for Green based on a few pages in this thread - granted this is clutchfans and the dweebs come out when they get their chance. To me, Green as absolutely improved from last year and I still think we made the right pick.
Impressive game from Green tonight. His 3pt shot wasn't falling early but he still found ways to score... mid-range, floaters, nasty dunk. 25 pts 7 ast 6 reb, another solid line as both a scorer and playmaker.
Rough spot for Green on the roster. He has to play with 2 other SGs in the starting line up, and as PGs he either gets KPJ or Nix.
Jalen is slowly finding his bag regarding scoring and he is efficiently doing it without many trips to the line. Once he adds the ability to consistently draw fouls on his drives his game will definitely be on another level. Also love the two man game he and Sengun are running. He's gotten Sengun some easy looks and though they don't run it as much, the back door pass to Jalen is effective as well.
One very important thing to point out is Paul George was Green's primary defender tonight. It's pretty clear who the Clippers thought was the Rocket's most dangerous offensive threat, at least on the perimeter.
If he starts getting half the calls JA gets 30+ will be a cakewalk … he rarely even gets the ball in the 4th most games as it is
Wow, they couldn’t even keep pace with him when he’s on a more difficult schedule. Jalen is going to leave these guys in the dust the rest of the season.
I love what Green is doing this year. He is still so young. He is going to be a star. Once we start using him and Sengun as the primary options he will really unlock. I was not a fan of the pick (I wanted Mobley). But that was mainly because I was worried about his defense (and I didn't want another no defense guard). His defense seems to improve, he might be caught sleeping every now and then. But he is putting in the effort. On top of that his scoring is amazing. He truly can become a special player. I am really happy with his selection.
Jalen should be averaging 30 a game. Too bad when he gets hot KPJ freezes him out of the offense. It's mind blowing to me how he can score 15 in a quarter then touch the ball 4 times next quarter... Please get us a coach who isn't brain dead.
To think that 10 days or so ago the "bust" guys were out here again in full effect! LOL its almost as if some fans dont know how a rebuild is supposed to go. Amazon Prime spoiled you!
KPJ genuinely loves Jalen like a brother. The issue that I called before the season started was that KPJ's ego - an entity separate from KPJ - will not be happy to watch Jalen outshine him. It's not bad intention, it's just this final phase of taming the ego that KPJ is working on. When you are ready to put your foot on your ego's neck and tell it who's boss, it reacts like a wounded animal. You have to be ready for that. The way the ego manifests is fascinating. It finds a rationale and through that rationale convinces a temporarily tired or weak person to alter their way - happens to the best of us. In this particular example, KPJ's ego reacts to Jalen catching fire with: "When is it going to be your turn to shine? Jalen doesn't mind. Coach wants you to be decisive and know when to take over." Is that such an evil or stupid thought? No it's not. It's a narrative that there's not enough time to disprove in the moment, and the ego knows that can get the person to shift their behavior. It's an innocent reaction from a slowly maturing person. It's what's led to those 4th quarter drought of touches for Jalen. It's nothing ill-willed, just the growing pains of some young players. It's going to require KPJ to understand that the non-egoistic way of playing is to feed the hot hand rather than impatiently wait for your own turn. It's going to require Jalen to sometimes say "give me the f*cking ball" as all great scorers learn to do in their sophomore season. Things are going really well. It's frustrating that KPJ's ego - a small part of who he is overall - is at this team's bottleneck affecting so many things, but the upside is that when he figures things out a lot of things are going to get better simultaneously. The coach can fix it for a game or two here or there, but your ego is more persistent than any outside force. If you don't take care of it yourself, then you will become dependent on external motivation and compassion which something KPJ is trying to get away from. I'm happy it's happening now, and I think they will learn how to play much better in these situations.
Best way to put his ego in check is to stop enabling him. I knew we were screwed from the first pre season game when KPJ was announced last. Put his ass on the bench and see what his ego tells him.
These last couple games it definitely seems like the offense flows better and we get better looks when he's initiating. Even Feigan pointed it out.
No, that's not how it works. That's how you get him to revert to his old ways and then a player signed to $20m becomes worth $2m. In that scenario, we are the biggest loser. The way to go about this is to show him the reward loop. Feeding the hot hand gets the team more wins and gets him more assists, he becomes more valuable to his peers, and then he gets more money guaranteed. In that way we have a player worth $20m that others can't get $20m worth of value out of. We're not here to teach people principles and discipline that's their own business. We're here to get what's best for the team. What's best for the team is for KPJ to improve without needing force or demotivating the staff who have been working on him and have other key tasks to do. I think you're thinking about the non-medical definition of the word ego. There's no such thing as humbling an ego, it's like trying to make a dog fly. It doesn't do that. The other non-ego parts of the mind have to gain control of the ego. Then you have a player who can deal with his own **** without extra effort from anyone else.
After the last game, Green is now averaging 22 ppg with a .55 TS% despite having an extended cold streak. The dude is balling.
Not really his contract is structured in a way that if he acts a fool we can cut him. He needs to grow up and we don't need to be the ones to suffer through it, if he can't figure it out then so be it. I'm not babying anyone making 20 million a year. I've seen enough of him to know he's not a star. We can replace him with a dude with a better attitude in a minute.
