So, where's everyone at with Jalen going into next year?

I strongly disagree, the man's a chucker, if confidence was an issue, given how poorly he shoots the ball, he'd never shoot at all.

The issue isn't confidence, it's competence.

It's that his confidence does not match his competence.

Jalen Green is one of the worst shooters in the league yet he takes over 16 shots per game.... over 7 shots from 3 per game.

If he had confidence problems, he wouldn't shoot that frequently given how terrible he is at it.

 

I think it's more than confidence and competence. I just feel like the game is evolving past the ball dominant high scoring SG's that are just scorers. In place is the new Highbrid of Sg/PG's.
This means if he wants that ball in his hands he better be able to handle pg duties. Sga is a pg, Harden moved to the pg, booker is practically playing pg for phoenix.
Edwards, Brown and pre injury Klay are extremely effective at the off ball /catch and shoot game which makes them prototypes of the modern sgs of today. Which is something that Jalen Green is not so effective at but Cam is.
To me the teams success is not pivotal on whether Jalen Green does well at all. To me he is the most replacable on this team. He's not very lengthy for a SG, he's not a very good off ball player and he isn't a naturally gifted pg. There's always scorers coming out of every draft.
I would not waste a max contract on the kid unless he can truly prove himself worthy of it. So far there is no way in all hell he has even earned anything close to a max contract or for us to sweat whether or not he stays. Make him an offer and if he doesn't accept it, then ship him out. Either way we have a stack of talent on this roster to be fine.

 

Booker and SGA were not great playmakers or ball handlers at 21-22.

In fact compare Booker and Green pnr primary ball handler stats like ppp for their first three years. It isn't even close.

 

The best duos are still PG/SG hybrid and elite big.......

 

The rockets org knows Jalen is not "the guy" as in an elite leader of a franchise. The next year (or maybe half year) could be used to decide if he can be "a guy". Sometimes "a guy" as in a #2 or #3 guy gets a max contract too.

I wouldn't be surprised if Stone is cooking up a highly conditional/non guaranteed contract for Jalen (a KPJ type deal) so he can still be traded if he doesn't play well.

Stone has never signed or traded for a big untradeable contract. I would be surprised if he starts now.

 

Stone is a fairly weak GM and probably in the bottom 15 of the league. His two strengths are finding talent in the teens (Tari, Sengun...won't give him Cam because anyone could've done that) and structuring creative contracts. Others have implied that he gets his scouting from other people in the organization who make up for his lack of basketball understanding. I could see him coming up with a creative contract for Jalen. No idea what that looks like though. Jalen isn't KPj who was a bundle of TNT surrounded by kerosene surrounded by lit candles. Even Stone could see that.

I just dont see any reason to offer anything to Jalen. I'm not sure I trust him even if he does put together a good year next year. He's just not a 30+ per year player with his glaring inconsistencies. I'd let him play the year out and see what offers come in in RFA.

 

Stone should super max Green this off-season. Just for the triggering and offending many anti-nail polish enthusiasts.

 

yeah but I don’t want to pay “a guy” near max money and Jalen’s team ain’t gonna go for some KPJ type contract. I want to trade him and recoup value, not sink a ton of cap space into a guy we aren’t sure about.

 

While that's true to an extent, the truth is that a ball dominant high scoring SG would still be amazing.... if they can measure up to the league's ever increasing efficiency standards.

The issue is, that's next to impossible to do unless you are one of the best shooters in the league or you have a more well rounded game.

Jalen is one of the worst shooters in the league and his scoring is pretty one dimensional and one of the most inefficient in the league.

 

I mean for his current body of work ya. That's why for both parties the best bet is to go to rfa.


Green should bet on himself to make an all-star leap and the Rockets don't have to pay him now and can do a complete evaluation to make sure who he is. No need for the Rockets to spend money now.

 

Peeps might disagree but he is more of an expert than many.....

 

Of course it does, they just word of art it as 'branding/ego/not wanting to get injured etc

Jalen should have went to a powerhouse college for two seasons, not sign a professional contract to not play for NBA right away

That is wasting development (next level), and then Silas basically did the same thing his HS/gleague handlers let him do

I don't know who his off court team of advisors are, maybe they are a bunch of ''yes'' people

All I was showcasing was to compare him to those who got drafted out of HS to NBA, then you can get a real good view on his development with the Kobe/TMac/Sanchez/Webster/Harrington/Howard/Ellis etc who did the same

Green is right on schedule, his biggest hurdle (and smallest) is doing it for 2+ months (of March version) and at beginning of season

 

Honestly they shouldn't offer him any extension at all, he hasn't earned one.

There's no way the Rockets want to get stuck paying one if the worst shooters in the NBA 30+ mill a year to be a guard.

If he'd accept a partially guaranteed 4 year 60 million dollar deal, fine. Otherwise, you let him hit RFA and probably let him walk unless he finally learns to play basketball next season.

 

For everyone's reference, Devin Vassell's contract that Bobby Marks refers to, scaled to the 2025 NBA cap (assumed $155.1M). It includes some declining year-to-year salaries and approximately 8% in yearly incentives:

2025 $ 31,020,000
2026 $ 28,538,400
2027 $ 28,538,400
2028 $ 26,056,800
2029 $ 28,538,400
Total $142,692,000

And the 5/$160 number, with a traditional 8% escalating salary. This is identical to RJ Barrett's extension with the Knicks, at 17.5% of the cap.

2025 $ 27,142,500
2026 $ 29,624,100
2027 $ 32,105,700
2028 $ 34,587,300
2029 $ 37,068,900
Total $160,528,500

Would you offer this, and would you be happy if Jalen accepted? It makes me more than a bit uncomfortable, but I also realize that if he actually plays like his March self, this is the kind of under-market contract that dynasties like the Warriors have been built on. That probably means it's at least a starting point for negotiations, where both sides are hedging risk.

 

The Steph extension was 4/$44 with a similar or probably even less risky profile than Jalen is at right now. Different cap back then, but still.

With all the potential extensions coming down the pike for us 5/160 would be insane and a potential albatross.

Vassell had a much lower downside scenario than Jalen too.

No way he should get that. If he turns into a star next year and you have to pay more then because of it, then so be it.

 

He should earn his money based on next years performance. All he needs to do is be consistent. I f he can harness his streak energy for the entire season he will be a very rich man. If he starts off playing like **** for an extended period yet again he should be traded at the deadline. If he is somewhere in between then he should get an in between contract offer or let another team sign him in RFA if they are willing to offer top dollar.

 

In 2013 - 2014, Steph's 4 year, $44M extension was 72% of a rookie max extension, roughly 18% of the cap at the time.

If Steph was signing an equivalent 4-year deal today, the numbers would look like this:

2025 $ 27,982,360.63
2026 $ 31,084,360.63
2027 $ 34,186,360.63
2028 $ 37,288,360.63
Total $ 130,541,442.51

If you wanted to sign him to a 5-year deal, the numbers would look like this:

2025 $ 27,982,360.63
2026 $ 31,084,360.63
2027 $ 34,186,360.63
2028 $ 37,288,360.63
2029 $ 40,390,360.63
Total $ 170,931,803.14

So the 5/$160 that Bobby Marks proposes would actually be a relative discount compared to what the Warriors invested over a decade ago.

In fact, the Rockets might be more motivated to try and strike such a deal, because of all the potential extensions they have coming up. With the way the cap grows, you could potentially have a 27-year old Jalen Green making $25M less than a 32-year old Jaylen Brown in 2029. It might be the difference in retaining one additional member of the current core-6 prospects.

Or it's a Jordan Poole anchor that costs Stone his job. Tough decision; it's a possible dynasty-maker or a career-ender.

 

Okay, now factor in that Steph Curry, even then, was arguably the best shooter in NBA history and Jalen Green is one of the worst shooters in the entire league. I still think a partially guaranteed 4 year 60 million dollar contract is about what you'd want to offer someone like Jalen Green.

Either that, or give him one more year to show that he finally learned how to play basketball and then decide to match or let him walk in RFA.

There's a pretty good chance IMO that this time next year the Rockets have 3 guys getting minutes at the guard spots who are all better than Jalen Green.....FVV, Amen, and Cam. In that scenario, do you even want Jalen back?

 

I think your position is pretty clear on Green, and I think it's perfectly valid to prefer letting him go to RFA rather than offer him an extension.

An offer of 4/$60M is such a lowball that it's not even worth discussing; that's the projected non-taxpayer MLE in 2025. His qualifying offer just for the Rockets to retain his RFA rights is 1/$16M.

Curry in 2012 might have been one of the greatest shooters in league history, but his third year in the league he played only 26 games and suffered five different ankle sprains; he was literally at the point where he was having exploratory/cleanup surgeries and they had no idea what was causing him to be so injury prone.

By chance, he found the right trainer that designed a program for him to avoid injury; it took him until his fifth year in the league for the lightbulb to go off with regards to his physical conditioning and strength. Turning a guy who could barely deadlift 225lbs into the gold standard for human late-career stamina and strength (LeBron obviously does not count, that guy is an enhanced human at minimum, and more likely a straight up mutant) has to be at least on the order of Jalen finding shooting consistency to go with his athletic gifts.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...rs-stephen-curry-got-best-worst-ankles-sports

Obviously if Jalen's play falls off a cliff, or if March was just a complete hot streak (and I'm not ruling this out, to be clear), then an extension of any reasonable size will look terrible. If he remains inconsistent, and you want to move him after the season, I still think that having him locked into a long-term, relatively cheap contract will return greater value in a transaction versus a sign-and-trade. Both RJ Barrett and Jordan Poole show that contracts in the $100M - $140M range are moveable, and can bring back real rotation members.