This is the correct take. Fred doesn't have gravity coming over screens to give Alpi an advantage situation. He isn't fast enough to blow by Alpi's man if Fred's man comes over the screen and he isn't a good enough shooter on the other side of the screen that Alpi's man needs to meet him at the level so Alpi's man can drop and since Alpi isn't necessarily a lob threat, his man doesn't have a hard assignment covering the screen. About all we get from the PnR is a small pocket that Fred hits that gets Alpi the ball around the FT line extended with his defender pretty much in a set position. The PnR just changes the dynamics of who helps on Alpi defensively.
Lavine doesn't offer THAT much of an upgrade to Jalen that is worth the injury risk concerns. He's basically a slightly better, older version of Jalen with far more injury concerns. I would rather hope Jalen improves his shot than hope Lavine stays healthy to play alongside our young guys for multiple years.
there’s one significant difference between the two: Lavine can shoot. I hear the injury concerns and it’s legit to feel like he’s not worth the risk given two more years of max money on the contract, but I think Lavine is a significant upgrade to Jalen offensively.
I'd love to see a steady diet of Amen and Alpi PnR's just to see what it could produce. If it isn't working, try something else. We need some kind of change soon or we won't make the playoffs and have to fight for the play-in. I think change from within is all we need or maybe a trade for some shooters.
He is a streaky shooter who ends up shooting about league average over the course of 50+ games. He is definitely having a stronger start to the games he has played this season but his entire career suggests he will end up shooting 38% on 3 with a 46% FG percentage which is an upgrade over Jalen but I'm not necessarily handing over significant assets to get a league average shooter.
The proposed trade was FVV (expiring contract), Jalen 3 year near Rookie max contract for Lavine 2 year near max contract, Lonzo expiring. I think we can get a better deal for Jalen in the off-season, but I wouldn't call that handing over significant assets. You might also be able to add a FRP from Chicago into the deal. They are desperate to get rid of Lavine's contract.
I like that suggestion a lot. I think I'd take the risk to improve our scoring. When LaVine's healthy he's an elite scorer, an accurate high-volume 3-point shooter and one of the best guards in the NBA despite his defensive deficiencies. Nobody knows if Jalen will ever be an elite scorer. It's all just hunches. He been Mr. Inconsistent the past 2 years. This team could use an offensive boost, that's for sure. Lavine has a TS% of 63.4% vs Jalen's 53% Lavine FG 49.9 and a 3PT% of 44.7 Green FG 40.7% and a 3PT% of 32.0
If Amen is the ball handler in this scenario, Amen's shooting makes that impossible. Both defenders would just play drop coverage. That being said, I could see some interesting wrinkles to Alpi as the ballhanlder with Amen screening for him and acting as the most dangerous lob threat ever. That would definitely suck opposing defenses into the paint if they are choosing between giving Sengun good post position or Amen diving to the rim....then maybe our guys could hit a few open 3pt shots. Maybe....
Pro Probably need to compare career stats rather than 30 game stats from this year. Lavine is having the best stat year of his career. If Lavine wasn't always hurt the trade would be a slam dunk, but then the trade probably wouldn't be available. Our defense would suffer, but our offense would be way better. I really think, Chicago would have to add a pick to get this done.
I like the idea of Chicago adding a pick to move off Lavine's contract or stick someone else with forever injured Lonzo.
The injury concerns are real but Lavine is so much better than Jalen its not really fair to compare them. In addition to being a much better shooter, he’s a better playmaker too. I’ve really been disappointed in the regression by Jalen in this area. 2.6 assists is just not cutting it. I would say Lavine at this point is the absolute ceiling (unlikely) for what Jalen can become. His current trajectory puts him more towards a Malik Monk type of career / impact. I think Lavine represents an improvement while not requiring giving up any long term assets or blocking their development. Again, he’d be a massive expiring in just a year.
I’m all for variation in our offense. The spacing in your scenario would be tight since none of our other players attract much shooting gravity BUT I think Amen and Aply are up for it. I really want to see more of Amen as the screener / roll-man with Alpy in the dunker spot. I think that would confuse the **** out of opposing defenses toggling between the two instead of spamming the Fred / Alpy pnr.
The context has changed distorting his play. His assists have dropped because he is no longer the primary creator - his usage is down. You can't pin that on Jalen - that was always going to happen when the offense moved to Sengun/Fred PnR and Sengun post ups. Here are some interesting stats to reflect on: 23/24(more than 1300 minutes) Player - USG% %FGM %FGA %3PM %3PA %FTM %FTA %OREB %DREB %REB %AST %TOV %STL %BLK %BLKA Jalen Green - 27.0 24.8 27.2 28.9 30.8 29.5 28.7 7.3 21.1 17.9 21.1 29.0 17.1 12.6 33.9 Alperen Sengun - 27.0 29.6 25.7 6.3 7.6 33.2 36.5 41.2 28.1 31.2 27.9 31.6 24.1 27.7 30.2 Fred VanVleet - 19.4 18.3 20.4 30.7 28.9 19.3 17.7 5.6 13.2 11.3 41.4 18.5 23.9 23.7 10.6 Dillon Brooks - 17.6 17.0 18.6 22.8 22.8 15.2 14.4 11.0 12.7 12.3 9.9 15.0 18.7 5.0 11.6 Jabari Smith Jr. - 17.4 18.2 18.3 22.1 21.2 17.1 16.5 25.1 28.5 27.6 9.6 14.8 14.9 28.8 18.7 Amen Thompson - 17.3 19.4 16.5 2.4 5.6 21.0 22.9 36.8 27.0 29.9 23.5 23.9 28.4 25.3 20.0 Jeff Green - 15.8 15.4 15.5 16.3 21.9 21.0 15.3 15.0 15.1 11.9 13.0 7.8 21.8 10.9 24/25(more than 800 minutes) Player - USG% %FGM %FGA %3PM %3PA %FTM %FTA %OREB %DREB %REB %AST %TOV %STL %BLK %BLKA Jalen Green - 25.5 24.0 25.9 31.7 31.9 29.4 27.0 5.2 17.0 13.4 18.1 26.8 18.5 7.1 27.8 Alperen Sengun - 25.4 27.2 248 45 6.4 31.7 32.9 37.7 31.5 33.3 34.0 28.4 23.4 279 32.3 Fred VanVleet - 19.6 18.1 21.0 29.2 30.0 15.0 14.5 8.3 15.0 13.1 37.0 17.0 25.0 14.3 10.6 Dillon Brooks - 17.5 18.8 19.1 28.7 25.1 12.6 11.6 14.2 11.6 12.3 10.6 13.5 13.2 9.0 12.6 Amen Thompson - 16.8 19.2 15.5 5.3 6.4 22.7 25.3 28.2 22.6 24.3 17.5 23.8 22.3 29.7 17.3 Jabari Smith Jr. - 14.9 15.3 15.7 22.3 20.6 18.4 16.3 19.7 21.3 20.8 7.3 10.4 6.3 29.2 15.6 ...kind of hard to read(the link to NBA.com is much cleaner) but since you specifically mentioned Jalen's assists in a vacuum, here is usage compared to assists. You can see that both Jalen AND Alpi have reduced usage this year - in fact all of our starters have seen decreased usage this year except Fred who marginally increased his usage. Jalen's assists are down 3% on 1.5% decrease in usage. Alpi's assists are down 6.1% on a 1.6% decrease in usage. Fred's assists are down 4.4% on a .2% increase in usage. Obviously assist is a flawed stats because it requires your teammate to hit the shot to count and we have guys who barely can hit the shot, but it should be relative to all players - Sengun is passing to the same guys Jalen and Fred are. What this tells me is we are moving the ball more/getting into actions where the ball is moving/holding on to it less/getting more guys involved BUT we aren't necessarily generating more buckets for our teammates/playmaking. Our offense right now is pass it around until someone has an advantage situation they think they can exploit one on one and it's really hard to shake an NBA level defender one on one without catching them in their rotations. Bottom line is we don't have a guy who can force help defenses consistently - Alpi has the vision but his paint shooting hasn't been good enough to make him an instant double like a guy like Jokic. Teams prefer to play him straight up(until he gets into the paint) or help off poor shooters even if it means the help comes later. Jalen can normally get a help defender to rotate but he is poor at making second level reads so either the open man never gets found or the "open man" is Alpi standing just outside the paint where Jalen is going because Alpi is much more average scorer outside of the paint impacting where he has gravity....and Fred's lack of speed is making it increasingly difficult for him to generate looks for others as a primary ball handler(although to his credit he takes care of the ball like a champ). Bottom line we need more playmaking here. Something has to happen between Fred/Jalen/Sengun because they don't fit together even thought they all provide some value to this team. I will concur that Jalen's shooting and inability to make high level reads makes him the odd man out but I think Jalen can be a useful player in the right context too which is why I'm not necessarily opposed to shipping Sengun out for the right price. I think Jalen is likely heading towards a Malik Monk type of bench super scorer but I also think Sengun is more on the Sabonis track than the Jokic track which is a very nice player but we are still looking for our "batman" I think you make all 3 available on the trade market and see what each can get you and determine the best resulting roster from those transactions with long term benefits in mind. We don't need to make short sighted moves now - play the long game.
It's amazing we're 3rd in the West allegedly with this calibre of players: Domantas Sabonis/Adams Eddie Griffin/Corey Brewer Brooks/Ben Simmons Malik Monk/Keldon Johnson FVV/TJ McConnell From people's descriptions of our prospects you'd think that's basically what we have lol. They already look stupid having been pessimistic about this season and they'll look stupid about next season too. It's amazing what kind of mental gymnastics you have to engage in to not give props to a rotation averaging like 25 years old sitting 3rd in the west based purely on the players' defensive and rebounding effort.
Too many stat box watchers calling themselves fans Team Chemistry is huge Folks want Booker but look what he’s done in Phx with KD: Beal: CP3: Ayton: Cam Johnson:Bridges: etc etc Folks want Lavine but look what he’s done in Chi with Coby White: Vucevic: DeRozan: Markkanen (not to mention his health) Norman Powell always had great %s he’s 31 and playing next to Harden and having a breakout year as a SG …
His career stats aren't bad either. 46.6 FG% 38.6 3 PT% Jalen hasn't come close to that. He may never either. Nobody knows, because he hasn't improved his percentages at all as a 4 year starter.
Amen is developing a nice jumper from the ft line in. He just isn't a good 3 pt shooter. I do like the Amen as pick setter idea as well.
Give him time. He is taking more 3 pointers this year with confidence... it's a start. His 3% has almost doubled from last year....
What significant assets would it take to get him? If there was a world where it was basically a flip Green + filler for Lavine, isn't that worth a look? For the Bulls they trim salary and get to invest hope in Jalen improving.
I wish, but I don't see them biting. My worries are that if Jalen can't improve his shooting % a lot by the end of this year we might have to add a few picks and bench players to dump him for someone better. His value won't be as intriguing if he has 4 years of inconsistency and below average shooting percentages. That's what worries me, if we are already going to give up a bunch on top of Fred to trade for a free agent.
