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

He's unlikely to ever be anywhere near that kind of a shooter.... and there's just too many young guys who are either already better than Jalen or project to be much better than him who will eventually need to be paid to waste 25 mill on a backup caliber SG.

 

4/100 is still way too much based on what he's shown so far. If 4/100 was the number but it was sort of like KPJ's deal and only fully guaranteed year 1, partially guaranteed year 2, and then there are some milestones that could trigger fully guaranteeing future years (i.e. make an all-star team, shoot over 38% from 3 for a season on at least X number of attempts, etc.) I'd do that for sure.

But he won't accept that. So it's either see what he does next year going into RFA or trade him if you can use him as a piece to get a Markannen, Bridges, etc.

 

If it's structured like DB's deal and starts out higher then declines in value I'd be okay with it I think. Maybe not quite $100M, but close to there. I think that's a tradeable deal as the cap continues to increase. By the end you're paying what, $21M or so? That's probably "good bench player" salary in a few years.

Jalen is a guy who is going to keep getting chances until he's at least 25-26 years old even if he continues to be extremely inconsistent and treads water. Some GM would take the risk at that pay level even if we had to include a protected 1st or something.

 

Holy ****, you guys want to pay a guy $100M that showed up for work 25% of the time.

 

I’m honestly not trying to hate. I always said it would take 3 years to know what we have in Jalen. I’m disappointed that heading into season 4 we still don’t know what we have. I find him a very frustrating player to track. In March i was thinking to myself, I’m really happy to see Jalen proving the doubters wrong (including myself), and I do think he’s improved his game. But disappointed in his final stretch of games, and I’m just not sold on him at this point. So talented. Hope he puts it together but certainly hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt imo. Definitely not rooting against him. Just think not having a consistent shooting guard has hurt the team and I don’t think we can go another year with poor shooting at that position.

 

In fairness, they'd want to pay Jalen 100 mill even if he never showed up to work ever.

 

Fred could have just taken the money and do nothing but he took Green under his wing even in summer after signing that contract....

 

I get the argument but I don't know. Guys who flash high potential get chances for a while but those deals are usually pretty low once they get into bust-y territory as well. It's a very different situation but look at Cam Reddish signing for 2/4.6 with the Lakers. Those deals are very common for lottery picks who don't get a second deal with their original teams.

Say Jalen for the most part is ~2% better generally next year but doesn't have an insane stretch as long as this past March. He'd be getting into bust-y territory and that deal would be an albatross. Yeah a team bottoming out would probably take it on with sweetners, but it might take a lot more than just a protected pick.

This is a separate issue but I'm a little skeptical the next cap explodes as well. I know that's the general assumption and it's probably right, but seeing how much content distributors are cutting back on paying for rights, programming, and squeezing every lost dollar combined with the NBA having tv ratings that are not particularly good, I'm having a hard time seeing why the rights will be so much more valuable in the next tv deal.

 

Let him play his way into it next season. There’s no reason to jump the gun when he’s never been consistent. Don’t pay for potential pay for production.

 

as a man should...

 

I think people just like to make a mountain out of a mole hill with Jalen like this is some huge issue we have right now. It's simple, he plays next year and we either extend him or let him hit RFA depending on how well he plays. No stress until we see what he's like next season.

 

I think the point would go like this: if we can prognosticate, we have the chance to do one of two good things.
A. Sign him to a relatively team-friendly deal versus paying him after he really has a great season next year (if we think that happens).
B. Trade him now after circulating a March highlight reel. Then if he regresses or has another inconsistent year, at least we got something before he walks away in free agency.

Standing pat, like you say, makes sense to me too, but you kinda lose both of those options, if you feel strongly about what's going to happen with him next season. (I don't have a clue, but he usually starts these seasons slowly. I'd feel confident saying we'll all be worrying about his bad play in December, again.)

 

Again, I'm just responding to your claim that we should all agree he's eternally a bad shooter with no hope in sight. You can believe it if you like but it's a fringe opinion.

Btw your claim is that if a person sucks at shooting their first 3 years then they will never be a good shooter. In another thread you advocate trading Jalen for someone who was a 33.9% shooter on small volume for over half a decade and only just had a passable shooting season (Dejounte). Meanwhile back in this thread you act like it's unprecedented for that to happen for anyone. If Dejounte took 7.5 attempts and hit 34% next season exactly 0 people would be surprised. You're just not consistent with your view.

The HC, player development coach, starting PG and backup PG of the team stated that they are proud of him taking these steps up and working hard. They believe in his evolution. This is not a "common sense" opinion you're sharing nor a data-driven one.

 

That's because people aren't evaluating him honestly without their own bias. Go talk to a non CF member, especially a non Rockets fan and say "a lot of Rockets fans want to trade Jalen for Murray" and see the reaction. I said that to a Warriors (eww) fan at work today and his response was literally "are they ****ing mental or something?" I'm not sure why, but people are desperate to throw away a player who's shown that at his peak level of production he can be all-NBA caliber. That's actually not as common as people seem to think it is. You take that gamble. That's not the KPJ gamble where you take it because it's cheap, you take this because there is actually a chance this kid becomes the top scorer in the league. You pair that with what's looking like a top 5 big man in the league in his prime and how is that not a contender?

 

If people were evaluating him honestly, without bias, they'd acknowledge that he's been a terrible basketball player overall for his first 3 seasons despite the hot 8 or 9 games a while back.

They'd acknowledge that right now he doesn't deserve ANY kind of extension, no matter how cheap.

What he's shown the first 3 years isn't a player you definitely want on the roster beyond next season.


... but then again, most can't be honest about it.

 

Did you once write the Rockets were dumb for not trading Harden for Ben Simmons?

 

You know what you have, don't let your mind play tricks on you. He is a streaky player who is given starter minutes when he should be given bench minutes. Ask yourself, if he was the 32nd or 42nd pick in the draft what would you think of him? Would you think you found the diamond in the rough or did you give a talent level of the 32nd or 42nd pick way too much starter time when he should have been learning from the bench?

 

No.

 

I don't even think it's his 3PT% that makes the haters think he's a horrible shooter, it's his inconsistency. While a SG hitting a third of his attempts isn't great, if he had converted just a single one of those misses every other game (on average), he'd be at 40%. Just one fewer miss every three games puts him around 38%, and that's definitely not out of the realm of possibility. The problem is that we've just wrapped up year 3 and he's yet to find a way to be consistent.

 

The other thing to consider is whether we think Cam can either outperform him or come very close to his production.

Udoka said that he thinks Cam will be a 20++ ppg scorer "when it is his turn". Cam showed in the last three games with 4,4,5 assists that he can absolutely pass if he only wants to.

Frankly, averaged out on the season, I don't see Jalen's production very far ahead of Cam's, starting as soon as next year.

I don't see any player younger than Alpi in the entire league (outside of Wemby) who would produce more than Alpi.

But we might already have a player like that for Jalen's position on the roster - who is almost 3 years younger than Jalen.

So why pay Jalen the max...