It's time to start thinking about moving Jalen to the BENCH

This is why Ime is giving Jalen such a long leash. He keeps telling everybody that, but CF doesn’t want to listen. If he is still playing this bad at the trade deadline and we still have a shot at the playoffs, I expect the Rockets to trade for a starting SG and move Green to the bench. Unless, somebody goes crazy they will not trade Jalen this year.

 

I still assign blame to him. He's responsible for working on his game and improving. Poor coaching obviously hurt and having KPJ as well but he's got to have personal accountability.

As I said, that's the AAU culture. Unfortunately, we really had no winning players. No leadership. Nobody cared basically.

Gerald Green might be the closest of that group as they're both great athletes who came in to the league with high expectations but little else. He also had a huge attitude problem though. Brewer was a pretty good defensive player (I can't see Jalen ever getting there) and athlete. I think Jalen is a better athlete than he was. On Lou, I'd certainly take that but won't hold my breath. I guess Jason Kidd eventually fixed his shot so it's possible. Very disappointing. I still can't see how anyone thought he'd be Kobe. That's insane

 

It's too bad Jalen is not playing well. He gets wide open shots and he can't even hit those. He's not even trying midrange shots anymore either. Kind of sad that his value is tanking.

 

Exactly. Guys miss shots and don’t get benched….particularly starters. He doesn’t offer enough otherwise to keep him on the court.

 

I was really talking more about role than a direct comparison of the players and I agree that ultimately it's on Green and his "legendary work ethic" to become a good player. We just didn't do him any favors by treating him with kid gloves and pretending to like his shitty finger paintings these past few years.

 

It took Jordan Clarkson significant time to be serviceable too. Sadly I'm thinking that's his peak, if he's even on that level.

 

Pretty sure other teams GMs have the resources to find out if Jalen Green is worth trading for or not regardless of his position on the team. He's reached a breaking point here and if Ime felt he wasn't doing the things he needs to then he would've been benched already.

Could've had Franz Wagner or Scottie Barnes though who are much more Ime players. Its important to still ride with Jalen though for multiple reasons. We're trying to build a contender and develop a culture for developing talent. Can't do that by knee jerking and trading people for going through a rough patch. It's up to Ime ultimately.

 

There’s three issues I see that Jalen has.

1. On his catch and shoot opportunities, many times he’s off balance. That’s one of the things Lucas worked with him on last season. It’s an adjustment he’s going to have to make and he can make it.

2. We play at a horrid pace. If we are going to consistently give up 120+ then we should at least work to get ourselves some easy baskets and that would help Jalen quite a bit. It’s crazy how hard we have to work in the half court at times to score. Thompson will eventually fix a bunch of this. The pace at which we play really benefits Al-P. We have to get more easy baskets.

3. Jalen is struggling within our half court sets with decision making. He’s overthinking between when to go and when to be deferential to Fred/Dillon. He’s trying not to make mistakes and to blend in. You can see he’s obviously in a funk and isn’t having fun. It’s an adjustment he’s just going to have to make. All guys take to Ime’s coaching style differently and it takes some guys longer than others. Ime was really hard on Tatum/Brown and it wasn’t until the second half of his first season when they really started to pick it up. Jalen will as well.

We shouldn’t look to trade him. After suffering for so many years I can understand everyone’s frustration but we are headed in the right direction.

One of the things we need to see is how much easier Thompson will make Jalen’s (and everyone else’s) life easier. I’m as high on him as I was on Jabari who I think will eventually be a two way nightmare when he adds another 15lbs.

One of the things we do need is a big (really really badly).

 

Maybe. More likely that his struggles have gotten into his head and it's mental now. Could also be that the pace of the new system, actually playing in a system, and adapting to all of that has been a steep learning curve for him to overcome. What he really needs is one of those games where he gets hot and goes off to help get his head right, because right now he just looks fried mentally.

 

So many things are going right for this team/season, I guess something had to be f_cked up or we wouldn't have anything to complain about.

Trading Jalen now would be selling low, but he's floundering badly and something needs to change. I believe we'll have to trust Ime/Stone on this one, because we just don't have all of the facts. It's truly painful to watch though and when Holiday is our 4th qtr SG that's a huge signal to Jalen and Stone.

 

The indecision that Jalen is experiencing is part of the culture shock of running an offense so differently than last year and the demand to be a two-way player. It's creating a lot of thinking and second-guessing. When your game is so dependent on "out-athleting" other guys, any indecision is like kryptonite. It doesn't take much to make Jalen look woefully mortal.

His shooting slump is one thing; the turnovers are unacceptable. Fix those, be on rotation on D, and he's more playable. It's not what we want, but that's the only way to get him on the court for over 20 minutes.

Sadly, Green may believe our offense needs to be tweaked with a rim runner/person-in-the-dunker role (Bruno Fernando, anyone?). Lol. That will never happen unless Green finds a new home in Detroit with Mr. Silas.

The days are gone when the Rocket's offense is tailored to Green's inconsistent skill set. It's time for him to improve or sit. If he's actually pouting or not putting in the work, put him in the doghouse and never look back.

 

Yeah I think they go the safe route too. Even if they acquire a SG I'm not sure they trade Jalen. Financially it's very safe for us to wait till the summer to decide and he can also develop off the bench if it comes to that later this season. Depends heavily on Amen/Cam too I think. Tari and Brooks are demanding a ton of minutes too.

For me I expect from game 30 of this season onwards for Jalen to become a professional starter. Can't accept less than that. He'll not take a big step immediately, I think like Udoka said he gradually improves his shot selection and shot mechanics. I don't think it's a confidence issue. I believe it's a pure shot selection and shot mechanics issue at the moment. Those are fixable to some extent. His best stint of the season has been post ASB twice now, maybe we can expect something similar again.

I never thought they could improve his defense, passing and scoring efficiency in under 30 games anyway. He's made visible progress on 2 of those 3 things. Again it's really frustrating right now but if he takes steps towards offensive efficiency, we'll have a player who improved everything in X number of games (less than a season). It's late but this team sorely needs to get value out of the #2 pick and get efficient points from its SG on the floor.

 

And that's very possible. Not sure if you follow baseball but I remember that happening to a pitcher named Rick Ankiel. Just completely lost it. I do agree he could use one of those. Maybe his first few threes drop and he then gets back to his mid range game as well. Some sort of a rhythm. Whatever it is it needs to get figured out even if it means him taking a few games off

 

Exactly. I've been waiting for this forever. I had a huge miscalculation which is I didn't think the Rockets would tank so unprofessionally/brutally in Jalen's second season so I thought this step would come last season around game 30.

Nothing scientific about the number, just figured new coach, major roster overhaul, no good winning or development experience... probably give him around 30 games to absorb everything Udoka is going to bring and become intuitive with it (rather than overthink or over dribble).

Let's hope I'm right, it would be an incredible boost to this team. I think it would put us in playoff contention (6th seed) given we have a relatively easy schedule remaining. Our defense has largely been excellent, it's our offense that has not been playoff-team calibre so far. Slow pace, low efficiency, slow execution. You have to give the team a little more time for chemistry to develop, we overhauled EVERYTHING including the organizational philosophy.

We haven't seen the best of the Rockets yet imo.

 

You don't think it's a confidence issue? Did you see Green against the Pacers? Dude looked like he wanted to run off the court, shower and get the **** out of there.

 

That's the risk ultimately right? A talented but flawed 3rd year player who has shown he can score at a high level but has never shown he can be a member of a functioning basketball team. Here are players that wouldn't work in this system:

Luka Doncic - Trae Young - Tyrese Haliburton - James Harden - Kevin Durant - Bradley Beal - Zach Lavine - Tyler Herro - Ja Morant - Cam Thomas - Tyrese Maxey

A few players that would work in this system:

Devin Booker - Jaylen Brown - Jason Tatum - DeeAron Fox - Anthony Edwards - SGA - Kawhi Leonard - Paul George - Prime Klay Thompson - Jamal Murray (this is who Jalen needs to be) - Dejounte Murray (the player not the headcase) - Mikal Bridges

The sharks are circling. I'd bet anything that Stone has fielded calls of FRPs for Green. Probably low ball offers like 1 FRP. And this is unfortunately one of those flux points where you're either going to ride it out with Jalen and it's boom or bust. He either becomes Jamal Murray or ends up like Killian Hayes in Detroit. No value at all and bounces around the league like a James Wiseman or Stromile Swift. The only move that really needs to be looked at is Mikal Bridges. He is tailor made for this team and plays the position of utmost need. They've looked at Jalen Green for 3 years. I can't imagine that trading him plus all of their picks back wouldn't get it done. That's an easy deal for the Nets. They get to reload with their assets back and the Rockets get a guy that fits into their biggest position of need like a glove. We don't need any more young guys. Unfortunately we don't have a draft pick this year which could've been used for a backup center. Doesn't matter though because the Rockets have too much in their favor when it comes to free agency. Desirable city, desirable coach, up and coming team...it works.

 

I do. Don't think he's at Ankiel level yet, hopefully it never gets that bad. I really do think Jalen will recover, but you never know!

 

I do too. Even though it seems like everyone is piling on him I think we all want him to be successful here.