It's time to start thinking about moving Jalen before the deadline

To be fair, Jalen is developing better habits on defense and is moving the ball around better on offense. But it's not going to matter if he's shooting 41% from the field/33% from three. Even if he becomes a better team player, he still has to actually succeed at his main job, which is to be an efficient perimeter scorer that we can go to when we need a bucket.

Perhaps this is just a down stretch because he's having to think too much about his game while making new habits. I hope so.

 

That's the million dollar question.

I think you might start by looking at teams outside the playoff race who have multiple players at the position.

Portland is one of those teams with 5 dudes at the SG position - Anfernee Simons, Matisse Thybulle, Shaedon Sharpe, Skylar Mays & Rayan Rupert.

Simmons probably isn't in their future plans and is a middle of the pack 2 guard. No, he's not a superstar but an upgrade statistically.
Maybe you can talk them out of Thybulle instead ... Better shooter than Green and a big upgrade defensively.

Buddy Hield has been mentioned as available from Indy - I dunno if he's the answer but someone to consider.

Dejounte Murray might be on the block and is a pretty solid 2 way player. Don't know if Atlanta is ready to break up that pair or not .... but Murray is essentially what we hope Green can become in the future.

You obviously have check on Mikal Bridges, probably not available but a call you make.

Before all of the above, I'd call up New Orleans and inquire about Trey Murphy iii ..... he's not only a knock down shooter but a high level defender. Probably isn't available but worth the inquiry. I'd give up Green plus a couple picks to make that happen.

There's probably a few others who might be on the trade block that are "better statistically" than Green while they don't have the superstar potential.

 

Unfortunately I don't see most of those guys as realistic options--either not good enough, too old (anything 27 and up is too old for our timeline), or not available. Simons and Murphy could be interesting options, I suppose, if their teams would actually listen to trade offers, which I have my doubts about.

I do want to point out that it doesn't necessarily have to be a 2 guard. You could go after a guy like Lauri Markkanen and shuffle things around--put Dillon at the 2 and either play Jabari at the 3 or start Tari and have Jabari back up both the 4 and 5 spots for around 28mpg.

 

I actually see development and what I think Ime is doing with Jalen. His defense has gotten expeditiously better. Last yr, blocking shots and staying in front of his man was totally out of the question.

He is 6'4 - 6'5 and thin, he's not 6'6 - 6'7 like Jordan and Kobe and built. He's not going to dunk over centers. He needs to develop a floater and work his 3pt shot to be more consistent.

How he scored 10 quick points in last's game showed me of his potential moving forward.

 

Basically if you are not thicc, you ought to shoot at least 37% from beyond the arc consistently.

 

Actually Dame got a bulk of his points by switching on Alperen Sengun

 

I think we could get Brogdon without giving up Green and maybe only one FRP. That would give us another good option at SG while still giving Green time to develop under a good coach. The only one on the previous list I would consider would be bridges or maybe Sharp, but really Sharpe is just an even less experienced version of Green. Hell no to Simons, his contract is ridiculous.

 

Ah yeah, I forgot Simons was getting paid $25M+, lol. What possessed them to give him that kind of deal?

 

I think you are underrating Green and overrating some of these players. Green AND picks for Trey Murphy III? I wouldn't trade Green straight up for Murphy. Yes, Murphy is the better shooter, but Green has much greater upside and currently has a better defensive rating (111 v. 115).

 

Atlanta would make that trade in a heartbeat. Dejounte Murray is an immature loser that isn't taking them anywhere.

NOP would trade Murphy for Green today and drive Murphy to the airport.

Bridges would be the only interesting one. I don't think it'd take much to do it. Just give them a swap/pick back. Question is whether or not the Rockets do this. Bridges is more of an Ime player than Green is. You'd essentially be re-creating the Celtics with Bari as Tatum and Bridges as Brown. Sengun as Horford and FVV as Marcus Smart. You'd still have Amen and Cam. This is the only one I'd do.

People need to stop falling for these stat padding SGs on bad teams like Simons, Murray, Lavine, etc. They're basically Luka/Harden without the playmaking and only the scoring. Thats why their teams always suck.

 

Simons has been incredible this year. If we swapped Green for Simons, we would be much better.

Jalen Green on/off is -12. He is a disaster right now. At some point the possibility of upside becomes a pipe dream. Defensively he has shown flashes but offensively he looks completely lost. I think FVV has hurt his development a little but FVV is so reliable and the rest of the guys need to learn how to win and we can't afford another lost season trying to turn Jalen into a playmaker. He's simply not. He just needs to score efficiently and lock down defensively. He cannot be another Luka or Harden, but we don't need him to be. We just need him to be much better than what we are seeing on the court right now.

 

I think they gave him that contract because the way he exploded and they thought he would still be some kind of 15-16 ppg scorer.

Oh shet, you are not who we projected you to be, great, here are the dollars.

 

you are right about everything except the cost for Bridges. The competition for him, if the Nets ever become open to it, will be fierce. It will take at minimum Green, salary filler (Tate probably), and all the Net picks and swaps.

 

He's averaging 26 a game with reasonable efficiency, that's not worth 25M to you?

 

Maybe Simons might turn into Maxey 2.0, but we cannot know that now.

If Simons is that guy, then the Blazers have a steal....if not then Simons will be there for purgatory.

I am not too preoccupied with those smaller 6'3-6'4 guys......

 

Actually he didn't. As usual you spew nonsense because you are either incredibly biased while watching the game and truly believe this despite it being untrue, or you know you're lying but say it anyway because you're a stupid *******. Either way, I went back and watched every Damian Lillard possession from the game. Lillard scored 8 points against Sengun. There was also one possession with a blown coverage, Lillard was wide open at the perimeter, Sengun sprinted at him to close out from the paint, Lillard blew by and made a layup. If you want to count that one then it's 10 points. So it's either 8 points or 10 points out of his 39 against Sengun.

Against Sengun he had 3/6 shooting (or 4/7) with one 3 and one free throw.

Here's every Lillard possession for your pleasure so that everyone can see you're making this **** up. Perhaps this will make you rethink your biases and realize your "eye test" is lying to you, but probably not.

Damian Lillard 11-19 FG, 12-13 FT:

MAKE - Wide open 3 after rebound scramble, no defender
MISS - FVV defending
MAKE - Sengun defending in PNR, layup after PNR
MAKE - layup after beating Holiday off the dribble
MAKE - stepback 3 isolating Jeff Green
FOULED - Beats Jeff Green off the dribble, fouled by Tate on the drive
MAKE (and 1) - beats Holiday off dribble, makes floater, gets fouled
MAKE - defensive breakdown, he's wide open from 3 (nobody is guarding him), Sengun runs from paint to close out, Lillard drives by for the layup
MAKE (and 1) - PNR involving Sengun, beats Sengun to the basket for layup
MISS - PNR involving Sengun, stepback 3 misses
MISS - PNR involving Sengun, Sengun stays with him and contests the layup, forces a miss
MISS (BLOCKED) - Attacks Sengun at the rim, Sengun blocks his dunk attempt
FOULED - Beats Brooks off the dribble, 2 free throws
MISS - This got marked as a "miss" but FVV strips him as he goes up for the layup, I wouldn't consider this a shot attempt but it was
MAKE - assisted 3, Brooks guarding him and closes out but shot goes in anyway
MISS - iso against Tari, Tari sticks with him, airball middy
MAKE - stepback 3 with FVV on him, good jab step to create tons of space, open look
MISS - PNR involving FVV/Tate, FVV sticks with him, missed step back 3
MAKE - Dame steals a bad pass from Tate, layup in transition
FOULED - Iso against Dillon Brooks, non shooting foul but in the bonus
MAKE - Stepback 3, shakes Sengun on the perimeter to create space
TECH FT - Jabari defensive 3 seconds
MISS - Isolating on FVV, drives to the basket, tries to make a layup in traffic but misses
TECH FT x4 - we all know what happened here, Dillon and Ime tossed

 

Not sure anyone out there has anything more valuable than Jalen Green to offer. Not even close. The Rockets are basically saying....here's a kid with star upside who doesn't fit our system and some of your picks back so you can tank and rebuild correctly. Blazers aren't offering Sharpe and the Nets don't want Simons. The Thunder with Giddey and a bunch of worthless picks in the 20s? Jalen Green and two picks is an amazing get for the Nets. He's not even a disgruntled star with baggage like Zion or Ja.

I think it's all moot because Jalen isn't going anywhere. He should be given a chance and I think he does have All Star upside but I'm not certain he fits the GritAndGrind2.0 model that Ime Udoka seems to be implementing here. Also we have two kids with equal or more upside waiting in the wings.

 

I mean that's a bad coaching decision. No one should expect Sengun to stay in front of Lillard, an elite small guard

 

This thread is unbearably tedious but to hit the high points - everyone's complaints can be bucketized here and this is my response to those:

#1.) You think Jalen needs to be traded and the reality is Jalen isn't getting traded any time soon unless someone makes Houston an offer they can't refuse - it's just very rare that a draft pick as high as him gets traded - you are almost without exception selling low and trade construction for guys like that is very difficult because the difference between Jalen's rookie scale contract and whatever player you think is fitting compensation often requires some additional roster maneuvering to make salaries match complicating matters further unless a team is willing to trade you their rookie scale player(probably with a far lower ceiling).

#2.) You think Jalen is a complete failure and reality is there is still a lot of very legit reasons to believe Jalen's development has been stunted for a number of reasons completely out of his control
- his "college age" season he played a month of basketball because of the pandemic so that's an entire 11 months of competitive skills development thrown down the drain because everyone was scared of dying.
- Then we saddled him with THREE years of a completely incompetent coach - guys, Silas is the #1 worst coach in NBA History of coaches who got 200+games to prove it(somehow he got 236 - call it the 'Wemby effect'). So that's 3 years of sub-optimal development down the drain - focusing on the wrong things, not being held accountable, etc. I realize some of this falls on Jalen and I agree with those points but it falls to a competent organization to maximize the investments in the players they make and our org just didn't make those investments that Jalen's peers had.
- he has about 4 months working with a competent coach over the last 4 years which leads me to....

#3.) You think Jalen is regressing and the reality is Jalen has improved tremendously with his defensive focus and especially with his reads. His game is transforming before our eyes but all you guys are looking for is him to improve his shooting and I get that because it was supposed to be the thing that made him worth the pick but I think he is a much more valuable player today than he was this time last year despite down offensive numbers because he makes his offensive assignments work for their points and he is able to better read not just passing out when the defense collapses off him, but more importantly he is increasingly finding the open man in the defensive rotation AND delivering a good pass to generate good looks for his teammates. Jalen of the recent past either:
a.) doesn't recognize that the defense is collapsing on him or recognizes it too late
b.) passes out to the wrong man who then has to find the open guy which gives the defense time to recover or
c.) makes the right pass but the pass is off target taking shooters out of rhythm and giving the defense time to recover(and underrated skills Harden was particularly good at)

...these last 3 or 4 games in particular are examples of Jalen's stat line not jumping off the page but he really is contributing to winning basketball in a way that in the past, was SOLELY reliant on whether his shot was going down. I don't think that's always the case anymore which means he can give productive minutes without scoring a bunch. This team is turning into a "ride the hot hand" team and I think that's healthy for him because he can work on and even hang his hat on non scoring things he does (like him sharing his PnR passing with Alpi on social media) and clearly the guys are playing competitive basketball for the first time in ages so the attention to ALL the details - not just the scoring ones are very important to him becoming more than just 'another guy who scores'.

You guys just gotta get out of that mindset of Jalen being a Harden like scoring savant and offensive ecosystem and if not he is a failure - that's not what Ime came here to do with this team and clearly that's not what he is cultivating Jalen for....and I think Jalen will be a better overall player for it if we give him time under Udoka. A more solid all around Jalen is better for the team anyway - it's just been sooo many years in Houston of handing the ball to Harden, Tmac, Francis, etc and letting them work on offense fooling you guys into thinking that's the ONLY way this can work. It's not.

 

Agreed with pretty much everything you said ... except that he was under Silas's coaching for 2 years, not 3 years. This is his 3rd year in the NBA.