Does Ime change the starting 5 after the all-star break?

I'm sure he'll have another team willing to bite, like I said, it would be very unusual if Jalen has negative value, players of this kind don't. Usually other teams will be willing to give up something to roll the dice on him because there are plenty of teams in worse position than we are. Teams with litle to no assets, stuck in mediocrity, having overpaid players eat up their cap space, etc etc. That's like 30% of the league right there.

And if a team has a star player that demands out and forces said team to rebuild, what do those teams ask for all the time? Young players and picks.

The thing about Jalen's weakness too is that it's one thing. It's shooting. And it's not like Amen where you wonder if he's every going to be good, Jalen is just horribly inconsistent. Either he's on fire or he's bricking every shot. It could be a coach that helps him with that, I don't know, but my point is I don't think his value is as low as people think it is.

As for his leverage, that is the leverage in the end. That it would hurt his trade value. We spent a #2 pick on this guy, if he's not going to contribute to our future success on the court than the most we can get out of him is a good solid trade.

Since the only thing that's on the line here is some imaginary play-in goal...I just don't see the value in benching him.

 

Agree to disagree on whether benching him with him sulking would lower his trade value more than letting him play poorly as a starter.

Let's hope that neither of these scenarios happens and he breaks out in the remaining games.

 

And I do not want to argue Lavine too hard because I think Lavine is still considered a good shooter in this league.

• He is not that good of a Star player....but an uber shooter of a role player.
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• I do not think Lavine is negative value though, he is just someone who is more valuable to teams like the Lakers, Clippers, an older team with a big market.
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• Not to everyone and for sure not to younger teams. There are more fitting and cheaper veterans to be had.
• Never said Green was totally negative value, he becomes less and less because the Rockets are showcasing the bad side of Jalen (and its his own fault mostly)

Jalen going on Twitter with influencers is just showing the bad side of him off the court which also affects his market value.

 

I’ll be super disappointed if Jalen is still in the starting lineup tomorrow. About the only thing the org hasn’t tried is taking away his entitlement and making him earn his spot. If he responds great. If not, we’ll finally have closure.

Jalen need to learn accountability, but so does Stone. Sticking out highest pick since Yao in the backcourt with KPJ and a lousy coach. What a freaking mess. In Ime we trust.

 

My vote of no should hold up.

 

Might as well prepare yourself for disappointment.

 

He's not going to change it. He was just trying, once again, to send Jalen a message. And my guess is that Jalen will respond!

Until he doesn't. And then we get to do this yet again...

 

I'm all for taking away the entitlement he's been given and taking him out of the starting lineup the rest of the season. Let him earn his way back and let Cam and Amen get their chance to mature and learn like Jalen did for 3 years. Jalen has only proved one thing, and that's that he shoots bad in more games than he shoots well.

 

If Ime leaves Jalen in as a starter he's gonna lose a lot of my faith and respect in him as a coach.

 

Evaluating players, not lineups. This actually looks like a a kiss of death for Jalen. If he were on the team going forward no matter what, they would bench him. This looks like preserving his value for a trade. Go ahead and prep the appreciation thread.

 

Nobody is born as starters.

Why is it so hard to change starting lineup? This organization is horrible.

Just put in your best players on court.

 

dang

sounds like a cop out

FVV has only been out the last 6 games.

Start Tate already !!!

 

I don't know if you guys got the message, but Rocket Fuel reported after practice that Udoka has decided to stick with the starting lineup. Nothing mentioned about any system changes, it sounds like he's going to run the same thing and they seem to have promised to play harder. I'm not a fan of this strategy. ASB was a good opportunity to install some new things. More movement off ball, a couple plays for Jabari, put Jalen in the corner more often, more pace/urgency from Sengun/FVV if we have runners on the break, etc.

I don't know how doing nothing is going to fix anything. The euphoria and adrenaline at the start of the season is not coming back. We're taking the Mchale "clap clap" route which may or may not work temporarily but is not sustainable. Even as a Jalen Green fan, I'm not happy with this. I would rather he benches Jalen. I want to see Jalen out there with Holiday/Green/Amen/Tari/UncleJeff and run the opponent to death plus some decent spacing. I don't care if he likes it, he needs to get into a rhythm of just higher old school FG%. Bring Cam's shooting in to reduce the pressure on FVV/Sengun in the starting lineup then you don't need to change the pace and you can run a couple of more plays for Jabari/Cam.

Let's give it a shot but I'm not super optimistic about this.



Tari is still out (doing 3 on 3). FVV is back. Don't forget to support Rockets content creators.

 

Imho it should. But not necessarily permanently. Jalen hasn't show improvements this year - actually he seemed to have gotten worse. This is the year in which we decide, what to do with him long term. I still hope he can be our centerpiece. But right now, give him something to think about. And make him earn his spot and earn his next contract.

I also think it would be important for Ime's standing on the team. You can only call someone out so much before there needs to be consequences.

 

I think you might already be disappointed.

 

Hard to name Center pieces when your best guy Alperen is also not a sure fire MVP candidate.

It takes a lot more time.

The record is decent therefore it does not fully reflect a lot of the problems going on backstage.

 

So basically the rest of the year is to evaluate if this starting 5 is viable for the future and Ime has embraced that the playoffs is not the goal. While fair, it’s a shame the offense won’t change. Losing faith on that side of the ball with Ime. This whole player harder schtick like McHale is just masking their own limitations as coaches.

 

Yeah pretty much. However, as the podcaster mentioned the situation is probably fluid. I said earlier I don't think he'll make the change at the deadline, but I think when there's 20 games remaining if we're clearly out of the picture for the playins then we will see younger players get more minutes.

One thing I do have faith in is that all the young players are better right now than they were in the first 20-30 games where we got most of our wins. Except maybe Sengun and only because he was already excellent from the start. Jabari, Jalen, Tari, Amen and Cam are all slightly or much better. Amen and Cam weren't even ready to give minutes early in the season, so their emergence really helps us have high quality depth and competition when healthy. I see it as Amen challenging Tate for his minutes and Cam challenging Holiday for his minutes. The vets may even play harder as they tend to do towards the end of a season but in general they will remain solid. We've not seen this upgraded team in full health yet.

If everyone is healthy soon (let's say Tari misses 2 more games), I think our lineup is capable of playing above .500 basketball for the remainder of the schedule. We might be surprised at what some health, communication and debriefing does for us.

 

I'm to the point where even if Jalen did break out and play well for the remaining games, I probably wouldn't buy into it unless/until he carried it into next season. I mean, maybe if it was total domination and he was playing like one of the best few guards in the league in most remaining games, but what are the odds of that happening at this point?

If he just started playing like, I don't know, Anfernee Simons level until the end of the season, I would still be in wait and see mode at best, and would still be willing to trade him in the offseason in the right deal. Without some kind of ludicrous hot streak, there is no way his season is not disappointing at this stage.

 

“Obviously”

Plenty of time for usual post ASB Jalen redemption arc. I hope this time it actually sticks. CF has been insufferable lately, lacking real content > actual games.