Has KPJ Turned the Corner in Your Eyes as a Person and Player?

I am guessing you didn't read my posts or follow the conversation

My post was directed at an individual not a group.

 

OUCH!

 

I would turn it down because Kyrie is much more undependable than KPJ and he is looking for a supermax.

People continually b****ing about KPJ leaving at halftime yet Kyrie missed half the season because he did not get a shot and went on hiatus for 2 weeks last year just because.

Are you really simping for Kyrie?

Hell yes I would turn it down.

 

Why would I need to read your post to have posted anything differently?

Professional ballplayers get away with a lot of **** point blank and what KPJ did is far down the list of players doing crazy ****.

Would you have cut Pippin when he refused to go back in the game in the playoffs?

 

Because if you actually followed the conversation, you would have realized I already talked about those points instead of barking at nothing here. Regardless, I am done with this pointless discussion.

 

I selected unsure. I don't think he has as a person. You can't quit on your teammates twice in the season (once leaving the stadium, the other time quitting mid game) and be counted on as having turned the corner.

As a player, these last couple of games were encouraging all around. But I don't know if they're representative. Not yet, anyways. What we saw at the end of the season was basically an open license for KPJ, Green, and Christopher to shoot. KPJ and Green put up a LOT of shots. More shots than they'd put up in a normal game, I imagine. You can't have two guys putting up 18+ shots a game. The thing that's clear to me is that KPJ is best when he's looking to score and scoring. He can score in buckets and when his shot is going, he's TOUGH to cover. And when it's just him and Green scoring away, both can get their stats.

Going into next season I've resigned myself to KPJ being the PG next season. I still think that his skillset isn't suited to that role, mainly because he's not that good at the basic stuff -- running the PnR, hitting guys in stride, clean entry passes into the post, finding open men when he's not attacking the basket and drawing doubles, etc. He's better as an aggressive, attack-first SF role. He's a great catch and shoot shooter, and he can help a stagnant offense. Where does a player with that role fit in? It depends entirely on who we draft. If for some reason we end up landing Ivey, I think KPJ will have to shift over to the SF role. If we get an SF (say, Sharpe), he'll probably stay at PG. I think at some point he might flourish even more as a sixth man, but I don't think he'd be open to it.

 

I don't think anyone is arguing that he isn't a super effective downhill scorer - the guy is at his best in attack mode on the break. Porter is oozing with talent and I think most reasonable people can see that. That said I don't think he has above average court vision and if anything the videos you showed highlight that - there were several out of control breaks there that KPJ managed to score on(and hit some TOUGH shots) but there were better options with open teammates that he missed. Anecdotally - he makes okay reads(I wouldn't say above average) but often times his passes aren't crisp enough to allow his teammate to hit a rhythm shot or make a move without the defender having time to catch up. Other times I think he makes the right read and in the right spot but maybe a hair too late and so his pass finds the right guy a second later than it should and in the NBA that's the difference between a wide open shot and a contested one. Additionally when he drives(particularly in the half court set), he doesn't seem to do a good job of drawing defenders to open up his teammates(being a reliable playmaker). He kind of half heartedly probes the defense hoping to draw defenders but I think he still has an "attack" switch, and a "pass" switch and it's fairly easy to tell which mode he is in for both the viewer AND the defender. The end result is he tends to waste time on the shot clock dancing with defenders that doesn't augment the defensive coverage much. I've noticed he also has a few dangerous lazy passes a game that often times start turnovers/fast breaks and frequently they are right after he didn't get a foul call he wanted the play before - that's the mental aspect people complain about with him that he loses focus and gets too in his feelings and bad turnovers, inattentive defense, and standing around on offense soon follow and that can turn into a 10 point swing for the other team while he struggles to compose himself.

Two other important points to note here - one, his scoring and playmaking numbers are up but we continue to allow teams to score 130+ on us. Christian Wood is the poster boy of putting up 20/10 and allowing his man to put up 25/15. Porter I think can be a defensive monster but his effort is very inconsistent there. He's gotta get locked in and stay locked in for 35+ minutes - maybe even more so defensively than offensively. This team can score and Porter is certainly a part of that but every single person on this team needs to hold themselves to better defensive focus and given Porter is a little more experienced than some of the rookies- whether fair or not, he really needs to set that tone as a leader.

The final point is that everything Porter does offensively, Green is probably even better at right now(better shooter, better finisher, probably slightly better passer) meaning Porter's role is going to have to shift a bit because he is never going to have the same elite speed and athleticism as Green - and that's saying something because KPJ is very quick and athletic even among NBA standards but not on the same level as Green. That means KPJ needs to be able to play off ball at times and find open spots in the defense and hit jump shots reliably in those positions or make well timed cuts to the rim. I haven't seen him do that near as much as I would like.

....so there you go - real basketball observations from an old dude who has been watching and playing basketball for decades - at times with D1 and guys who play professionally in other countries, even a handful of ex-NBA bench warmers. I like KPJ and want him to succeed as a person but he is going to have to be open to his role on the court because putting up good(but inconsistent) numbers on poor efficiency on a bad team isn't as valuable in the league as you would think. Comparing him to Caruso is basically just comparing him to another borderline starter on a different team. Caruso is a nice player but he probably isn't good enough to be a starter on 3/4 of NBA teams.

KPJ's focus needs to be on playing 35+ mistake free minutes first(no lazy passes, no defensive lapses, no min-tantrums when he doesn't get the call) then shooting at a much higher percentage(which means he becomes more selective about when he shoots), and finally continuing to find ways to refine the balance of when to attack and when(and how) to set up his teammates. He's still going to make mistakes and that's okay but there is a big difference between locked in mistakes and checked out mistakes. He's gotta clean up the latter so he can focus on improving the former.....OR he can just lean into who he is and be the best version of THAT and become a wild card off the bench 6th man scoring punch and be the best JR Smith/Lou Williams/Jamal Crawford/Leandro Barbosa...maybe strive to be a Manu Ginobili guy who is valuable enough to finish most games even if he doesn't start.

 

Just a thought but does kpj need to be a pure pg with Sengun? There's a lot of unexpected playmaking out of theb5 un the future similar to what the Nuggets get with Jokic...

If Sengun is a 15 / 8 / 4 guy next year, does kpj need to make a huge step?

 

No. A pure PG isn't needed. Just a PG that will make things easier for the team. As well as KPJ played at the end of the season, the offense cratered any time Green left the floor. I don't care how the PG does it, but the offense can't fall apart just because Green is on the bench.

 

That's weird.... are you sure you're not confusing Green and Porter?

Our best offensive lineup according to basketball reference is Porter / Gordon / Mathews / Tate / Wood at +19.6 points per possession...

There's only two other positive lineup combos and they both have Porter...

 

The top 3 of the four men combos all have Porter and none have Green...

Are you ignoring the first half data for Green but including Porter's first half?

 

This is pure BS Joe.

Stop making **** up to prove your point.

 

Sorry, per 100 possessions...

 

I still don’t want him on the team, there’s nothing anyone can say to convince me otherwise. If the rockets pay him, it will be a big mistake. I don’t care about empty stats that resulted in Ls.

 

Good post. KPJ is a shooting guard. I'm hoping he accepts a bench role because with Green and Porter high being subaveraged defenders, we will continue to lose. I'm hoping we get Ivey. That dude seems like a sure fire superstar.

 

When you are talking about giving playing time to 4-5 rookies that isn’t all that surprising - I would imagine it’s expected even. I don’t think that’s an accurate reflection of their value to this roster.

…my one complaint about this years team strategy is I think they probably had too many rookies they were trying to give playing time to at once. Particularly early in the season it was a train wreck watching them trot out 2-3 rookies in a lineup and just getting decimated in the process offensively an defensively.

 

I don't know enough about Ivey. Part of me thinks the FO will choose Banchero, Sharpe, and perhaps a few others before Ivey. Short of Ivey falling into their lap and not being able to pass on him, I think they're going to seek out another fit because they see themselves covered at PG, mainly because of KPJ and possibly the emergence of Nix in the g league. If I'm right, they'll prioritize SF and PF/Cs -- Mike Williams, Sharpe, Jabari Smith, Chet, etc. types.

 

Clutch was on Alykhan Bijani's latest Red Nation Hoops podcast. It's a great listen. I recommend the whole thing (+1hr plus). But if you just want to hear the KPJ part go to the the 32:00 min mark. (About 10 minutes talking about him)

EP238: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/red-nation-hoops-a-houston-rockets-pod/id1059330949

1) Injury - KPJ is kinda injury prone in the time he's been here. He's young but also missed a bunch of games. (19 games this season). 3rd most on the team.

side rant: People like to point fingers if a 7 footer gets injured, because of this or that. But when our pg missed a bunch it's just whatever.

I'm not saying he's Zion, but he and Rocket's training staff should look at his conditioning. He's muscularly fit, but things like stretching, diet, treatment after games... or review the way he attacks the basket, see if there's little things to do to reduce injury risks.

2) Box score stats (mostly the same as last year) - Taking a bit of simplification look: things like points, assists, rebounds, eFG%, was around the same both years. His 3pt % got to league average at least. But things like FT% dipped.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/porteke02.html

Sure HOU had him switch to PG, one argument some fans make is that he doesn't need to be a pure point. OK, but then as a scoring guard, he didn't exactly light the league on fire with scoring (still 15.6 pts per game). He had the ball in his hands so can't use the lack of dribble, 'out of rhythm' excuse.

One conclusion that I don't think we need more data is that he's can't (and shouldn't) be heliocentric. Not saying the Rockets wanted this, but you can definitely rule it out.


Luka, Darius or Ja, but those guys by their 3rd year, had a very noticeable jump in their stats. If you ask their fan base if it is hard to extend, that topic isn't a debate. The fact that half of us are still debating (or worried that Stone might overpay) means KPJ hasn't shown enough.

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My personal take is that he's serviceable on a bottom team, but I feel we're settling. At some point we should stop using the "low cost" thing. Time investment time is piling up. Minutes that could go to other players are getting used up. If he's not long term point guard, Rockets can't be wishy-washy.

 

This is not just about individual defenders, at times the switching does not work that well, and every big guy in the NBA is feasting in the paint. Or at times the other players were on the perimeter.

 

As long as Kysre stays around, he's good money.