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

I don't know who would be the odd man out because I don't know what the future brings. I'm just saying the 3 of them don't go together unless Green can shoot a lot better.

 

But between the three of them Green has by far the worst issue with spacing the floor as he's by far the most feared outside shooter by a wide margin of the three.

 

Its just so tiring how people who want to move on from Green hammer on and on about a lack of improvement from a shooting aspect, and absolutely ignore his impressive improvements in every other part of the game.

He was tasked with becoming a "Winning Player" by coach Udoka, not a more 'efficient player'.

He responded in kind by doing exactly that. Lots of ups and downs and bumps in the road, but the "payday" showed itself come March.

His March wasn't spectacular because he was efficient. no no no. He had quite a few innefficient games sprinkled in that run. The Glory was how much we were WINNING. How much he was improved in all aspects. Fans started noticing all the other things he had been show signs of improvement on. Because fans stopped hyper focusing on makes/misses they were begin to see all the commitments elsewhere showing through.

The improved handle.
The improved finishing at the rim.
The improved finishing through contact.
The improved reads.
The improved passing.
The improved rebounding.
The improved defense.
The improved effort.
The improved communication.
The improved "bag".

There was a LOT of improvement this year under Udoka. There was also a lot of mental lapses and tough love. Oh, the ups and downs of a young prospect/player.

That said he didn't improved on his efficiency and he needs to. Just wasnt the more important growth he needed this year according to the team and coaching staff. Building culture and a winning product was the goal first and Green improved in that area a LOT compared to where he came from yr 1 and 2.

Im not ignoring efficiency or saying it isn't important, it most certainly is. In order to become a star in this league and play up to his potential, he will HAVE to become more efficient.

But to just dismiss him being able to improve his efficiency because its already been 3 years is just ignorant.

 

I sincerely believe they don't actually watch games. They stare at a ts% number and call it a day.

 

JG is a slight improvement away from jumping to a JamMurray/SGA type player. It may or may not happen, but I don’t think any reasonable person would give up on him after the prolonged flashes of dominant play.

In Udoka we trust.

Amen and JG could be the nastiest backcourt ever with a little more seasoning.

 

just improving his efficiency to league average results in a star level player tbh.

47.4% is the league fg average, Jalen shot 42.2%
36.6% is the league 3pt average, Jalen shot 33.2%
58% is the league ts average, Jalen had a 54.1%

Just needs a

5.2%
3.4%
3.9%

increase in FG%, 3PT%, and TS% to become league average in efficiency.

Thats just not a lot and should be exciting for fans that such a small improvement, in connection with all his other improvements, would make him a star.

For further data on the same exact amount of attempts he would need to make;

69 more shots on the year to reach the league average fg%, less than 1 make a game.
21 more 3s made on the year to reach the league average, 1 additional make every 4 games.
i dont want to get into the nuance of ts here (just being honest lol)

People dont think this is doable?

Edit:
For fun, if he made the 1 extra 3 every 4 games, and in the other 3 games he made just that one more 2pt shot needed, it would have increased his ppg by 2.25pts. With everything else staying the same that would have brought his scoring average up to 21.8ppg.

Heres to hoping he makes the efficiency leap this year because his overall all around improvement, paired with his March explosion, has me excited.

 

His three-year BIG sample is that he's a .337 shooter from 3. Not horrid, but significantly lower than it needs to be. I would say he needs to be at least at Harden's level (career .364), but I won't be comfortable unless he can get to around .375-.385, which might be a tall order. In November and March this season, he was above that, but the other five months he was WAY below it.

I still say keep him and see if he improves with more time under Udoka and staff, especially in overall consistency. If not, trade him at the deadline and let someone else decide whether to max him or not.

All those other parts of his game that people whine about (defense, handles, passing) he's improved on steadily every year, most noticeably once he got a real coach. The poor shooting for most of the year is the thing that's holding him back.

 

While these are small numbers.... what they represent is massive.

Remember you are talking about a guy who is bottom 10 in the league in FG%, bottom 15 in 3pt%, and bottom 25 in TS%

Going from an absolute laughing stock.... bottom of the entire league to average would require massive improvement.... and he's shown none whatsoever in 3 years.

Just getting to top 100 in the league in those metrics would require a level of improvement that is highly unlikely in 3 years, let alone one offseason.

 

Yes, that's obvious but only a fringe sub group of NBA fans feel like he will never improve his shooting. As has been discussed time and time and time and time and time and time again, any respectable HC would not have had Jalen taking 7 3PA per game in his first two seasons. You're confusing overshooting with poor shooting. If he took 3-4 attempts he would have been league average and the narrative would be different even though he'd be the exact same player with the same skills.

Any of Sengun or Green can improve their shooting and they will be fine playing together. Amen is irrelevant to the formula, he is not a primary scorer and has never - not even in a long streak - shown he can do that. He is coming off the bench when we're healthy, how can two starters have to fit around him? Amen is at the phase in his career where he has to fit with Sengun/Green - you know the offense that our HC was fantasizing about in his exit interview. There's no one in the world thinking Jalen Green has to fit in with Amen/Sengun, be realistic even if it's not an opinion you agree with.

 

I don't think we really disagree except in terms of how much time Amen needs. I agree with what you're saying, I just think it will take a year longer than you think. Pretty routine grey area for young player.

 

Well, at least you should be getting used to Amen being one of the main focal points in the near future.......

 

Its posts like these that make me wonder if people here actually watch games. Cause if you did you would not feel this way, but rather feel that Jalen Green is more like Harden in that he shoots better in motion rather than as a regular catch and shoot guy.

And stats agree with this BTW. He's 31.6% on catch and shoot 3s per nba.com tracking, which is lower than his overall 3pt%. In comparison Cam is 43%, FVV is 42%, Jabari and Tari are both at 37%, all these number are higher than their overll 3pt%.

In fact if you watched Rockets games this year, you would realize one of the biggest issues with Jalen Green is that he has been unable to perform in a smaller role on the team. He needs to get in rhythm and ramp up, which is not what you want out of a role player. He's really someone who either succeeds spectacularly as a star, or need to reinvent himself before he can be a role player.

 

I didn't say anything about catch and shoot or motion. By the way, those stats are heavily skewed by 26+ footers he takes as "Catch and shoot" with no one remotely near him with no motion (34% of his attempts and he's making 33.5% of them). That's when he stupidly starts believing he's Damian Lillard and takes a shot that he is not close to being good at. If you watched the games, you would see this and wonder where it's reflected in the stats. Those are just bad shot choices and since he has 6+ feet of space he should step into them where he's making over 37%. That's shot selection, it has nothing to do with whether he's an bad or average catch and shooter. More importantly, if he reduces his shot attempts by selecting shots more carefully, he will shoot better. It doesn't matter the level of openness. There's no one who shoots the same at huge volumes as they do at small volumes. The reason no one is convinced that he can't improve his 3PT% is because shot selection is easy to improve and he has already shown improvement in that regard. If Ja Morant can survive on 3-4 attempts per game, then it's not an impediment.

Regardless, practically everyone feels like he's going to improve his shot and we've all seen the same stats you have. Udoka has seen them. Royal Ivey has seen them. Rafael Stone has seen them. There is plenty of evidence to dismiss the idea that he will not improve. Shooting poorly when shooting too much for two seasons is not strong evidence that he won't improve - so to take the efficiency numbers and define the rest of his career by it is misguided. Having a high work ethic and improving EVERYTHING else in his first season under a coach seeking wins is very strong proof that his lauded work ethic will deliver results. Udoka is not out here dishing out work ethic and resilience compliments to people, he's in fact VERY stingy with compliments.

More important to your main point, you're asking for Green to FIT around Sengun/Amen >> this is an unreasonable assertion. Amen Thompson comes off the bench for us. He was starting because we were missing a starter. There are no starters who have to suit a bench player. I think you're a huge Amen fan and want him to start immediately but this is not what's going to happen. No one's going to start a 16% shooter around Sengun. The dunker's spot is not going to be empty because Sengun operates in the post. The drives are not going to be available because we won't be playing with a stretch 5 (Jabari). You're going to pick the better shooter out of Green and Amen and the choice is very clear there. He's not replacing Brooks, FVV or Jabari - we need better shooting from the 3 players around Green/Sengun, not worse, especially because they're not good shooters yet.

We have 0 problems merging Sengun/Green/Amen except that they all have to improve their 3PT shooting to elevate themselves in this league. Green is the closest to doing that because he doesn't have to improve his actual shooting form as much as the other two, his issue is more with shot selection than them.

 

I'm trying to understand why even have a person who has the agility and quickness of all time elite small guards like AI or Ja with the ball but at 6'6" range needs to be a role player?

That's so weird. Why? You want someone with that ability to be some stand still dude? That's such a stupid thing to believe. I'm sorry but just incredibly dumb.

 

I'll explain.

It's because he's one of the worst offensive players in the league.

There's almost certainly not a future for him as a starter on the Rockets unless he gets a lot better at things he's never shown any improvement at.

I'm not sure that there is much value to having a run and gun inefficient chucker starting.... even if casuals like the occasional flash over substance he provides, so it would definitely be better if he could learn how to shoot a basketball at an NBA level.

If he learns how to shoot a basketball, it might revive his career as a starter or at the very least keep him in the league as a bench player till the athleticism starts to dip.

 

Can you repeat this but rephrase it in another way?

Interesting take. Have you mentioned that he's a poor shooter before?

 

I like how you just ignored the fact that I said his 3pt shooting has gotten worse each year in the league, while also spouting how it's so clear to everyone his shot will certainly improve. And this is despite the fact that this year, the Rockets got a much better coach and every young player got better playing under him. Sengun and Jabari both got much better. Even Tari's numbers improved a bit despite his injury issues. Only one of the major young prospect got worse.

 

When dealing with zealots and other stupid people, you often have to repeat yourself because you'll find those feeble minded zealots will simply ignore reality and carry on as if their rhetoric was not flat out debunked time and time again.

When you ask questions that have been answered many times before, you'll get the same or similar answers.

You talk about someone as if they should be viewed as a star despite KNOWING they are one of the worst offensive players in the league.....what do you expect people to say?

 

Green has the second highest on/off impact on offense behind FFV this season.


Tari played a small sample of games and doesn't have the same burdens Green does.


Jabari Smith jr had a -3.1 on/off impact on points per possession

Green had a +2.4 on/off impact on the same metric.

Stand still jump shots isn't the only aspect of basketball. Why do you think it's the only aspect of basketball?

 

Next year is the ultimate prove it season for JG. He has shown improvement under Udoka and flashes of brilliance but it's time to put it altogether consistently, otherwise he will pay for it financially.