Jalen Green is already significantly better than Kevin Porter Jr, let's not get it twisted. KPJ needs to take a back seat to JG/Jabari/Sengun, and that is the major hurdle he has to make. He is not as good as those 3, period. He could be a Vernon-esque character If the gods favored us.
He isn't just better, he is wayyy better. On both ends of the floor. Took him half a season to do what people have been praying for KPJ to do for years. Off-ball defense, off-ball offense. Efficient selection of aggressiveness within an offense. KPJ dribbles, dribbles, dribbles, and the more he dribbles the worse he gets. KPJ was given the keys, but he has been a net negative his entire NBA life. Hopefully, that changes one day. The simple fact is that Jalen Green is just a whole lot smarter than KPJ, and he works harder, and he plays winning basketball. Jabari and Sengun are there too. KPJ needs to give up the ball and move his ass.
I noticed all of you responded to things I didn't say, and I am shocked. Shocked! "Traditional PG" is the new Hillary's emails. It gets tossed in even when no one mentioned it. I also didn't say KPJ can't pass. His PG play last year was part of the reason the team was bad (maybe a smaller part than many other things). He needs to improve it, and CAN. He got better at the end of the season when the whole lineup gelled more. Playing alongside Schroder really helped him though, you could see Schroder's vision and ball placement making the game feel different when they subbed in for one another. I care about assists to turnover ratio. KPJ had a better A/TO ratio than Harden, Westbrick and Cunningham, not to mention most wings, so that's a great sign. (I was also a very vocal opponent of Harden and Westbrick playing PG all 48 minutes). A really good A/TO ratio is above 2 and he was at 2.00. He was still #13 in the NBA in TO/Game though. The potential is there. I care about a PG feeding other players in the places where they are the most open and efficient. That one is a LOT harder to observer without advanced stats so I'll take the L there. That's just what I watch for. I think KPJ CAN GET BETTER at that. He's a defensive star? That's just noise. Let's meet in some of the Game Watch parties so that we can see the reactions to plays. The Lakers game replay was fun to see a breakdown of KPJs good moves and mistakes. His potential is awesome but he's not some untouchable cult leader.
No more KPJ coddling this year. If he shows up shooting Shaq FT%'s from the free throw line again, sayonara. Shooting you to the moon with Christian Wood, dude. And hopefully, Tyty is breathing down his neck.
Lol, drugs. The only explanation. Jalen Green turned his season around, but he was still pathetic defensively. There's just no support for your hilarious hot take.
It's just not accurate though, KPJ was one of the only players who made the team better when he was on the court.... and yet you blame him? Like I said, it's just weird.
Put down the crack pipe and slowly walk away. Jalen is improving no doubt and offensively he and KPJ are right there, but defensively KPJ is way way way better. It's ok, Jalen is only 20, in his 2nd year, KPJ will be in his 4th...he is better..... But they are both gonna be great. DD
it’s “show out or get lost” time now…not interested in a bunch of excuses and cope heading into year 4
His on-off splits. When he was on the court it improved the Rockets offensive rate and decreased the opposing team's offensive rate compared to when he wasn't in the court. He was essentially the only 2 way player on the roster last season. Very few on the roster can say the same.
Isn't it natural that the starting point guard increases the offensive rate? I mean is there any starting point guard who does not satisfy this? Considering the Rockets does not have an established back-up guard, this is not something to stop people from pointing out his shortcomings.
.... then why wasn't that the case for the rest of the starters? The starting SG finished as a -6.7... which is good given that at one point he was a -20.
I am comparing him to other point guards not to the other starters. And my point is exactly that the others have more stable replacements that are closer to the level of the starters. Because he was a 20 year old with no nba experience, and did not even know how to use his athleticism, did not know how to defend. Normally these guys don't get 30 minutes a night. But he is a project that you want to invest in. If he improved from -20 to -6.7 (some kind of box score I guess), that's a good sign.
I'm talking about the anchor KPJ had around his neck all season long.... yet he managed to overcome that to still be a net positive. Agreed about Green though, he showed massive improvement towards the end of the season. That's part of why I'm excited to see KPJ this season without the anchor of being surrounded by scrubs around his neck. It's why I think this Rockets team has so much potential.
Oh I agree that he is not untouchable, and I think some of his passes are head scratchers, but also, when you are passing to Tate......well..... DD
My problem with KPJ is still his efficiency. He is a combo guard and there is no way to be effective as a combo guard if you aren't an efficient scorer. I said the same thing last year and I hoped that his third year was where he finally improved to at least league average, but no such luck. He's had 3 years in the league so far and his TS in those years is 54%, 53%, and 53%. I don't know how many chances we'll give him to improve that but if it remains significantly below league average I don't think he'll ever be good.
