It's time to start thinking about moving Jalen before the deadline

For Dejounte Murray? What do you think Dejounte Murray is worth in both UFA as well as the trade deadline market?

 

except he finished out last night game, made nice reads, and didn't force bad shots in the 4th...

the "jalen has only played under a real coach for 20 games" narrative is as equally pedantic as the "jalen shows no improvement" argument. both have validity but what irks me about the latter is that we are rated the 2nd best defense in the entire league with him playing starter minutes. he also is in one of the highest rank starting 5 as far as net rating goes.

Yes we all want him to shoot the ball better, but you can't ignore his improvement defensively. He has undeniably produced on that end of the floor which many of you would agree that was his biggest weakness prior to this season.

Furthermore, he started off slow each of the last two season in terms of shooting the basketball. Spring Green is what I called him after he came alive in the later part of the season and hopefully it rings true again this year. He isn't going to get a max on any team and is an RFA. I'm not sure what ya'll are so worried about. This team has done nothing but exceed expectations this year. Some of ya'll be acting like we're 5-15.

 

Maybe you didn't watch, but Jalen finished out last night's game on the bench yet again.....

They went with

Jeff Green
Jabari Smith
Tari Eason
Dillon Brooks
FVV

You know, so they could win.

 

that's pretty disingenuous, but maybe we have different definitions of "finished it out".

6:51 Jalen Green enters the game for Tari Eason
3:41 Jeff Green enters the game for Jalen Green
3:15 Jalen Green enters the game for Tari Eason
39.1 Tari Eason enters the game for Jalen Green 99 94

 

Not really, they didn't let him shoot the ball at all in the 4th so that he couldn't hurt them on that side of the ball and when it was time to ensure the Grizzlies couldn't come back they sent him to the bench and put in their more competent players.

Did they bench him the entire 4th like the previous 2 games? No, but they sure as hell weren't going to let him blow the game for them. They know he's one of the worst players on the team even if they'd never be able to admit it.

 

Trading him is dumb, while I am not a believer in him, I would rather gamble on his upside. If his only issue were his jumper, I would not be too worried long-term about him.

But given that it's his 3rd year in a row and he still cannot attack the rim if there is a big in the paint is a red flag. Will he eventually put it together? Who knows, I don't think it will be anytime soon though since he seems far off on that end

Sure G-League didn't help as far as growth goes, but then again I do think him going to the G-League route was the only reason he was taken 2nd overall in that stacked draft. This lack of feel for attacking the rim with big's in the paint would've either been a red flag in college or attributed to "he needs a lot of work" on that end

 

Rox were able to finally put the Grizz away while Green was on the floor.

Weird.

 

The guy confronted you with the facts and you pivot yet again. You’d be a decent poster if it wasn’t for the constant Green comments. Why not take a day or two off from commenting on Green and add something useful to the forum? Maybe stick to the Astros or Texans forum where you don’t seem to go off the rails in every thread.

 

The fact was that they sent him to the bench at the end so they could have their best players on the court to ensure the win. He did play in the 4th, but they ensured he took no shots so he couldn't hurt the team any more than he had done already.

I get that you want to simp for your man, but he's a terrible player, your unconditional love won't change that.

Being a Jalen Green apologist at this point is just absurd. With the Texans or Astros, if we had people pushing the worst players on those teams, it would get the same reaction....we did react that way to the one guy that was the Bill O Brien apologist.

Pointing those things out is not going "off the rails", it should just be obvious.

 

I don’t simp for Jalen. In fact, I have suggested several trades that I would support. I just trust Ime to do what is best for the team. He may give up on Green at some point, but obviously he sees something in Jalen that you don’t (over and over again). Ime is a better coach than you.

 

Jalen Green's career trajectory whether comparable or not...seems very similar to Zach Lavine. Insane athletic ability, but tbh think his basketball IQ has not gotten much better. Anyways. He is still very young, so this is a tough overall decision for the Rockets moving forward long term.

 

You say he sees something yet he sends Jalen to the bench when games matter most.

Sure he's kept him in the starting lineup, but I don't think he has a choice really, if he takes Green out of the starting lineup, instantly he loses any trade value he had left.

I'm just not willing to think that Udoka can't see what literally every metric shows....especially when he's currently benching Jalen at the end to win games.

To be clear, I'm not saying trade him, because I don't think any trade could be made that the Rockets wouldn't have to take back negative assets or get rid of too many draft picks to dump Jalen but I don't think it's fair to keep holding back better players to keep the Jalen Green experiment technically alive.

Now will Jalen eventually have another fluke hot shooting game? Of course, but the guy is a bench player, it's time to acknowledge that.

 

Ime is trying to win games. He is not concerned about “holding back players”. He is interested in managing his rotations to win games. If he does bench Green at some point, I’m ok with it, because I trust Ime do to what it takes to win. There is no way that Ime is letting Stone dictate who to start, like the p*ssy before him. Anyway, I’m done arguing about it.

 

You aren't merely "trying to win games" when you have a guy in your starting lineup that isn't a top 8 player on the roster, you are doing that for non-basketball reasons or you are incompetent. I think we both know it's not the latter.

Right now they are getting by letting him technically start and getting him the hell out of games when it matters but I don't think that's a long term solution.

Agreed that there's no point in arguing about it, we'll find out soon enough how they plan to handle having a starter that is that bad at basketball.

 

I don't think you can develop IQ.

There are two specific things to me that identify if you have it:

1) Ability to slow down the game and make things look effortless. Essentially finding holes or mistakes made by the other team.

2) Make decisions which indicate that you know what will happen before others around you.

Problem with Jalen is everything appears to come from his athleticism and too little from IQ. I don't think he will ever meet elite status as a player. I agree trading him makes sense.

 

Fans here eat their own better than any team, but Jalen has improved his all-round game. Just some people don't pay attention enough because he isn't scoring at a high clip. His defensive rating has dropped from 122 to 110 this season so far. That is a big improvement.

 

There certainly has been improvement




That's technically progress, but the issue is despite that improvement, he's still a really bad player.

 

He is just in a different system. He isn't a bad player at all. We just have more options now and share the ball more than having to rely on one player. they are improving as a team and that is all that matters.

 

When you say he's not a bad player, literally all metrics disagree with that assertion. Even if we go "eye test", there's really nothing that anyone can point to that he does particularly well. It's sort of more a belief than anything based in reality from what I've seen.