He has been a good shooter at every level until his NBA rookie year. Toward the latter part of last season, he showed that he could be a good shooter in NBA games. You don't turn from a good shooter into a bad shooter overnight. And if you watch the shots he took, a lot of the misses were open, including FTs. So it's not like he can't shoot over NBA level defense. It's clearly mental. At our current stage of rebuild, we have to balance between winning games and developing the young players. I don't think you should give up on a player at the beginning of his second season. Mental issue in shooting can be good news or bad news. Good news is that it can easily be turned around. Once he got over the mental block, he can quickly get back to hitting the shots he normally can hit. Bad news is that it may never be fixed because there is really nothing you can fix. He has good shooting form. It's not a mechanical issue that a shooting coach can help.
The poll is pretty simple, it just asks who are the top 5 guys under 25 you will build around. Getting mentioned is already a good thing for the Rockets since obviously there are 5 young guys better than what the Rockets have I mean there's Doncic, SGA, Ant, Banchero and Wemby so to be honest there shouldn't even be Rockets picked in the first place. I don't even know why people are mad like what everyone said during preseason these picks were obvious ones. Other than Green-Mobley there was no other logical choice for all of the Rockets draft picks, it's not Stone's fault there wasn't any Banchero level talent available when he was picking. He got whoever was the best available at the time.
Jabari was the right pick at 3. KPj was one of the most disastrous decisions in the history of the NBA.
Ok, so same as most of his entire rookie season. So nothing has changed. Call it mental or whatever, doesn't really matter. He was drafted for 3's and defense and he has provided very little of either. He's bad until he isn't, though I hope he gets there eventually.
i got no issues with the draft picks - dude took bpa... the draft is always a crapshoot... the kpj crap was inexcusable - esp when u should be working on building a culture while u have the luxury of not caring about wins... and i thought he sat on his hands too much through 'the process'.... waiting for it to come to fruition... Shoulda packaged some picks (rather than discarding former frps for nothing) and taken a couple shots along the way... wood, kpj, nix... if we were gonna invest the minutes we did - we shoulda took a real swing.
I don't know what you are complaining. Every young player is drafted based on potential without having played a single NBA game. Some are good at the outset. Some take more time to be good. Some never. So all of them are bad until they are not. It doesn't say anything at all. When a guy plays well, do you also say, he's good until he's not?
The point being...many are trying to rationalize Jabari Smith's ineptitude as some sort of given that, because he's young, he's automatically destined to end up being a good shooter/defender/etc. just by virtue of getting older. Many have done the same thing with Jalen Green, to no avail, obviously. Sure...these guys are young, but 9 times out of 10, if you're one of the better players in the league, you show it early on. You showcase both consistency and upside on a decently regular basis. Our guys are not doing that, except Sengun. We can be honest about that instead of just blindly saying "they're still young!" every other night to excuse bad performance from our guys who we expect to be building blocks of the franchise. And to be clear...I'm just talking about their ability to become franchise players, like you expect out of Top 5 picks. They aren't "busts" necessarily, but just clearly underperforming expectations.
"They are still young" is absolutely true, especially in Jabari's case. I don't know if he will be a star. But you seem to be saying that he won't. Writing a guy off after playing bad (under horrible coaching) for 80% of a season plus two games under a new coach is as premature as blindly calling him a star now. Most people don't think Jabari can be a franchise type of player because of his lack of playmaking talent, unless he becomes an unstoppable scorer. But he has a chance to become an elite 3&D guy.
I mean...yes? Of course I am. It is very rare that players with as bad of a start to their career as he has had become stars. THat's just the reality of the situation. It's not impossible, but it's increasingly unlikely. In terms of becoming an elite 3&D guy, maybe on the 3's if he can ever get over his mental block. Not sure about the defense, though. He clearly lacks the athleticism and lateral movement necessary for that.
There was ZERO wrong with taking a shot at a distressed asset in KPJ - there was nothing wrong with playing him at PG while we were tanking, the problem had nothing to do with basketball - it was that they enabled him instead of held him accountable. And the same for the rest of the team no accountability or development....I know it is popular to blame KPJ - but none of this is his fault..... Every single problem we have is based upon decisions Stone has made, this roster we have now - sucks it is unbalanced - STONE No accountability for KPJ - STONE Taking Green over Mobley - STONE No development for our young players - STONE And we are a mess ...and it is Stone's mess. DD
hindsight is 20/20... at the time it was a reasonable bpa pick.... i'm sayin dude didnt reach, didnt trade down, didnt give up future assets to move up.... he made reasonable picks... he didnt fk nothin up in that area i might say... lol
