I agree. Dillon at PF is not optimal due to his lack of height + great wingspan evident which contributes to his poor rebounding. But Jabari's wingspan is not great for his height either. Jabari is 6'11 with 7'1 wingspan while Tari is 6'8 with 7'2 wingspan + Amen is 6'7 with 7'0 wingspan. In addition both Amen + Tari are more explosive vertically + laterally. Jabari's advantage over Tari is his 3P%, IQ + lower TOV. But that is not an advantage over either Amen or Dillon.
Amen should be playing point whatever on offense. Jabari should be playing PF because of his wingspan and team defense capabilities and rebounding. It doesn't matter if Jabari's wingspan isn't great for his height. It matters that it is greater than Dillon's. Ime is making a mistake benching Jabari in favor of Dillon or in favor of FVV. When Jabari went down our defense went from 2nd best in the league for 2/3 of the season to pretty darn terrible in the games he missed. I can only hope that FVV comes back and plays the majority of his time off the ball, which spurred a move up in offense. At the same time, our defense and rebounding will take a dive with Jabari out of the lineup. It is an emotional move, not a logical one.
Rockets defensive struggles occurred before Jabari was injured, but continued to worsen afterwards as injuries mounted with Alperen then Fred. Rockets half court offense, especially at end of games has been issue all season. https://www.si.com/nba/rockets/news/houston-rockets-defense-has-seen-regression-in-2025 https://sactownsports.com/49760/nba-sacramento-kings-houston-rockets-g1c-recap/
Totally agree. Honestly they screwed Jabari only because he doesn't complain. He lost his starting spot without a fair opportunity to fight. Most of this "fight" happened with Jabari injured and he's had 3 rusty games back to prove himself? In the 25 games before he got injured he was shooting the same % as Brooks from 3. It's also Ime just once again trying to bandaid and find shortcuts to soothe his paranoia about defense. No **** if you start more defenders in the starting lineup your defense will be better lol that's not coaching,,,, and is that the best overall set up? Does that address any of our actual problems we had with our OG winningest lineup? The most winning we've had this season was with Amen off the bench. Amen came and improved our offense. If you want that same defense and better offense as Sengun/Bari/Brooks/Green/FVV think for a second. Swapping Amen and Bari is changing the defense, creating new problems we didn't have (HEIGHT, LENGTH). Obviously you swap Amen with Brooks to cause the least issues and you will improve at EVERYTHING ELSE except shooting. Brooks is not even a better spacer than Jabari even if his stats are better. Spacing is about reputation and respect too. Man we had a few games issues in Jabari's last few games, compared to a quarter of a season the rest of the team still trying to get back to that defense. The only lineup we've ever had that was defensively elite for an extended period was with Jabari at PF.
