I don't like to project players based on other player's short comings. We have seen enough of Green to project him based on his own play at this point. One glaring issue is that Green's efficiency went down from his rookie year, which typically does not happen with the list of players. There needs to be some upward trends with his efficiency, decision making and shot selection. A lot of times it's not just about raw numbers at a certain age, it's more about what have you improved on year over year, or even month to month.
It happens actually often with players in his position. When you up your usage rate by 7% and up your ppg by 5 while NBA defenses concentrate on you more then an expected one percent drop in ts% is expected. He dropped his ts% by one percent dude... Amongst a backdrop of a severe usage rate bump, going in to a worse roster from year one to two(replacing Wood with Jabari severely hindered spacing) and defenses doubling and concentrating on you more and upping your average by 5 ppg. That isn't some affront to humanity. It's expected and really no need for concern.
Some Jalen facts 1) Jalen can score 2) Jalen is very inefficient 3) Jalen is one of the worst defenders itl among guards 4) Jalen's handle and playmaking has improved a little but that's pretty much all. 5) Jalen might improve because he's still young but progression isn't linear for everyone so don't bet on it. 6) Jalen will never be Kobe. Can he be Brown? He's clearly A LOT worse on defense and very inefficient in comparison so i'm doubtful but not ruling out that possiblity just yet. I need at least a year with Ime to pinpoint his peak but he will never be Booker. 7) This will upset filthy 'HeS GeNeRaTiOnAl OmG lItErAlLy nEvEr SeEn SoMeOnE lIkE hIm UwU' nerds but Jalen isn't generational or a unicorn. 8) Jalen has average bb iq. In fact his bbiq is lower than KJ's. 9) Jalen definitely isn't 6'6 and probably isn't 6'5 either. 10) Jalen doesn't have Mamba mentality. He's a chill, just wanna play bb bro kinda kid which is a shame but can't blame him for his genes. 11) Jalen's defense is better than what he has shown so far but needs constant nagging by Ime to stay at that level. 12) We shouldn't be upset we didn't get Mobley. 1) We couldn't even if we wanted to 2) That dude can't score to save his life **** that bum.
I mean I could understand if people hop on his bandwagon when he is a finished player but people being aggressive because he is this flawed project ....that is rare. No idea why people are this adamant on this version of him....lol.
Yeah but sometimes it's fun to create the runway for something like that, cause the deeper we go the more we know if there's any credibility to it. Here's the thing: there is A chance that what he's saying could happen. It's not impossible. What he doesn't understand is the scenario he's describing is AS LIKELY (since they are the two extremes) as Jalen becoming a GOAT candidate. Those are the best and worst outcomes, and we're probably going to fall somewhere in between. I don't know what makes someone run around yelling the worst case scenario of something to people, but I bet it sucks for the health of your brain.
Uh, I'm pretty certain he's a bad defender now. At 20, Kobe had already been an allstar. He also averaged way more rebounds, steals, and blocks. His db+/- was a minus .1. Jalen is at minus 2.4. Jalen has a positive 0.5 one while Kobe was a +2.1. But go ahead, let's hear how Jalen isn't already a bad defender. I'll get my popcorn...
Or you could have a good defender who is a decent spot up shooter and can move the ball around. Your point is illogical. If the 2 guard is the spot you rely on for offense, then that goes for your opponent too and you need to have a better defender there to offset. My theory is offense and defense is important for all positions. Tell me I'm wrong.
You are wrong. You know how? The opinion you expressed here is what we call a "platitude". You picked up this platitude without any game analysis as you will not be able to explain this platitude through analysis. You picked up this platitude through watching hot take shows on ESPN.
Green's overall offensive efficiency improved thanks to drawing nearly twice as many free throws. I would have liked to see his shooting efficiency improve, though, that's true.
I agree with your general comment that a two way player is always great, but not everyone is a Kawhi, or Jimmy Butler. Historically guards fall all over the place in terms of how good their scoring is vs. defense. In my head there's many ways you can be an all-star guard. 1. Good volume scorer, passable defense, passable passing Beal, Booker, Lavine 2. Elite offense, bad defense Curry, Kyrie, Harden, Trae, Morant 3. Two way players Butler, Paul George, Klay, Kawhi etc. I think the goal for Green is to get into that first category. Idealy he needs to get his scoring there first. Defense in my opinion depends a lot of coaching and schemes. Curry was hidden for years and years on defense, so was Harden. Green is a weird case on defense, because he's not a trae young or Curry where he will get abused on the perimeter. He actually guards players like Ja Morant, Haliburton really well on ball. He lacks focus off ball, and gets bullied in the post, but that in my opinion can be fixed by coaching and gaining some muscles. Rebounding and Defense are two things that can be easily made to be passable, it's a lot about size and effort. Where as improvement on offense is more difficult.
I would put Booker on the list of "elite offense" just because he is the primary scorer on a team that makes deep playoff runs unlike the other guys in your category of "good volume scorer". Booker also is a guy if he didn't have CP3 on his team is capable of getting you 7 apg while putting up 25+ ppg. He is a capable playmaker. What makes me high on Green is his similarities to Booker in terms of production and efficiency but they do it in different ways. If you look at their eff% they are the same adjusted for season with Green having a 48.5 efg% and Booker having a 47.5 efg%. But they go about it in different ways. Green has a larger gap in raw 2 pt percentage than Booker does in raw 3pt percentage but since 3>2, their adjusted efg% evens out And the reason why Green is a fa superior scorer inside the 3 pt line is because of natural gifts that are harder to work on unlike outside shooting consistency. It's easier to get better at that than "learning" the elite dribble seperation and explosion at the rim Green has that Booker quite frankly doesn't. It's also why I'm high on him being a future decent playmaker at Booker level or better because of his dribble seperation. Green creates more open teammates from his ability to collapse defenses consistently. It's just whether he can get better at looking for those open teammates especially at the corners.
What you wrote here is judgemental. How do you know he is soft mentally and emotionally? How do you know he doesn’t mind losing? After dropping 41 pts in a loss to the Hornets he was visibly frustrated. “We don't like being on a losing streak, especially with this being our 12th game," Green said. "We are way better than that." After a loss to Blazers in DEC a frustrated Green said: “We were just playing streetball out there,” Green said. “We weren’t playing together no more. We didn’t have no fight. Just an energy drop.” Do you know him personally? So if you don’t know him personally and aren’t around him throughout most of the day or week or month, then your assessment lacks information and data to back what you say about his desire to win and mental state. If it’s simply through articles you read (which I haven’t read anywhere that says he is soft or mentally weak) or maybe its through post game pressers or a 2 minute interview you watched on YouTube which again says nothing about a lack of desire to win, then it’s pure judgement. I don’t know the guy personally but I have seen him frustrated on the court and in post game pressers after a team loss. There’s numerous examples and quotes of him not satisfied with losing and he talked about making a “leap”. This doesn’t sound like someone who doesn’t care about losing or doesn’t want to improve his game. This man dropped 4 40 pt games and 16 30 pt games in 22-23. Not everyone can do this and the Clarkson or lou williams comparison isn’t justified since none of those players accomplished this feat. You seem to forget and think that NBA players develop into solid players their rookie season or even second season. Instead the reality is it takes several years for players to develop into an All NBA type player and improve on their flaws. And every NBA player is flawed. Luka can’t defend or shoot FT along with immaturity issues. Deaaron Fox can’t shoot 3s or FT and wasn’t a dominant scoring threat in his 2nd year. Ain’t nobody talked about Fox till this year when he had a better roster and it took him 6 years to make All NBA and his first all star nod. Booker had numbers similar to Green in his second year and didn’t make All Star until his 5th year and All NBA in his 7th. So all of this talk judging and criticizing Green is unwarranted and premature considering how players keep maturing and improving throughout their careers including those household names and superstars.
I said history, as in all of history that giant sample of data that you know exists. Or did you just want to talk about the recent past and leave everything out? You know there are tons of people his age who joined the NBA with bad defense right? There's a lot of data. Because right "now" he's not anything. Now he's training in the summer. Last season he was a bad defender especially in the second half of the season. You're talking about part of one season in the recent past. For most of his career, Jalen has been called a coachable and hard working kid by every professional we've ever heard from (coaches, players, teammates, scouts) and has never been called the opposite. So you can think what you want about it, but reality is that there's a pile of evidence this is a hardworking kid who had a bad season rather than what you're describing: a lost soul who will never make it in the NBA. Also please try to stick to your point. You were so alarmed that being a bad defender could never be changed. Now you want to shift to minuscule discussion about how you're using advanced defensive stats. AND I KNOW you know what's wrong with the way you're using stats. You know full well the effect of the team around you on those stats, this is not the first time someone is telling you. Everyone knows Kobe was a garbage defender that season and both Kobe and Green were terrible defenders when they were that age. So are you going to convince that we should believe you in saying that because Jalen Green had a bad defensive season that we should assume he will forever be bad at defense, lazy, too nice and not a hard worker? If this is such elite wisdom, how are you going to fool a GM of another team into giving you #8 and #11 for that kind of player? Do you think you watched some games that's going to inform you more about Jalen Green than the GM of an NBA team? Give me a break. Just acknowledge that your opinion is on the extreme negative projections of Green's career. Look around. No one is as negative about it as you. You're entitled to your opinion just as everyone else, but there's no sincere conversation to be had here if you can't even identify how extremely pessimistic these opinions are.
Why does he need to be like Kobe? Is anyone in the league like Kobe? You will probably find other All Star caliber guards in this league who’s numbers were better or worse than Kobe in their second year. And again a lot of star players or All NBA guys weren’t even stars their second year including Brown, Fox, Booker, and Curry. And is Kobe the benchmark of what a player should be? Kobe was flawed himself. Couldn’t shoot 3’s. And I already posted his jumpshot numbers and low efficiency not to mention his lack of passing. Not sure why players are constantly compared instead of valuing and appreciating a player for his talent and what he brings to the court. Anyone that balls or been around the game recognizes that Green has game and great scoring ability for his age. No need to compare or harshly criticize this player holding him to some strict scrutiny and standard that few players even at Star Caliber live up to. Doing this is both unfair and unrealistic.
The premise that green sucks bc he pales in comparison to a group of players that doesn't all even match his position/role is disingenuous. U might as well compared him to a bunch of center and btch about how much green sucks bc he's dead last in rebounds, blocks and defensive rating. At best u are just cherry picking players to push your narrative that he sucks. I do hope u spend actual time watching him instead of using stats incorrectly to push your nonsense takes. I swear some folks on here act like they never seen a player develop before. The alarm would b sound if green regress with ime and an actual pg, until then just watch and see.
I agree his most likely path is like a curry or booker but he has a ways to go to get there. You can surround him with defenders at that point. If you look at those guys though they do more than just scoring on offense. Hopefully Green gets there but it's far from guaranteed...