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

Objectively already he's one of the worst shooters in the league and overall he's not a starting caliber player. If his play "falls off a cliff", he's playing at local YMCA's out of EVERY league. If his play only marginally improves over his career best numbers, just about any extension looks terrible.

If he maintains his typical career average numbers, he's out of the NBA in a few years and looking to get picked up in China.

 

Thanks for the refresher on relative cap to help put it in perspective. Kinda forgot how much lower it was then. A few things.

1. 5/160 is still quite a bit bigger risk than 4/130 in this context. 2 to 3 years at a high salary could be problematic but is less likely to be a franchise crippling anchor than getting out to the 4th and especially 5th year with a very risky player like where Jalen is now.

2. One thing that just looking at the relative salary cap leaves out is how much more punitive the luxury tax is now and the aprons/hard cap. Bad money over the cap is a lot harder to deal with now than it was back then.

3. The Poole contract is exactly what I'm thinking of and was going to bring up in the offseason thread. GSW was in a very similar situation locking him up early at a "discount" and he seemed like much more of a sure bet after his third year than Jalen does now. Now that's one of the worst contracts in the league.

4. I get that locking Jalen up on what could turn out to be a "discount" at something like 5/160 could give the opportunity to keep someone promising we couldn't keep if he proves it next year and turns out to be a full max guy. But if he turns out to be a legit full max guy and Sengun is, or is close to it, too then that's the hardest part of the rebuild done and there are always going to be opportunities to fill out the roster if the FO is smart. If that deal turns into Poole's contract things get a lot harder, especially since our owner is not going to pay tax bills for just a play-in team.

Whether an FO should do that deal really all boils down to how likely you think it is that he becomes a full max guy. Since I'm not in the true believer camp I think the downside is way too high and wouldn't do it.

 

Not really. If he's going to dominate that ball then he better be able to run plays and set up the offense as well.

I just don't see any justifiable reason as to why we believe Jalen is important to this team's success when there are 2 other players that could very easily produce very soon.

I don't think he's so bad that he'll play in China but unless he can handle the point duties, it's going to be tough with the way the league is trending.

 

At least the next 2 years are crucial to him, even if he becomes a minor star, that is probably not enough for contention ....

Enough for a lower Playoff seed and maybe perennially but that is arguable.

The good thing for his followers is that they would get more ROI betting on him......

 

No one is winning anything without 2 big scorers and 2 big playmakers and these 4 don't have to be the same 2 people. There's absolutely no reason why Amen, Green and Sengun can't co-exist and I suspect that's exactly what's going to happen. It's crazy to me people can't see how perfect these 3 are for each other (including off ball scorers and defenders Jabari/Tari/Whitmore who fit perfect).

The big 3 are exactly capable of each handling 30-50% of the load and creating multiple points of attack that will drive the opponent crazy. Amen needs more than one summer but he will get there in less than 2 years and by that time Green and Sengun's 3PT shooting will get a lot more polished.

You guys are nitpicking about an amazing situation.

 

They are perfect for each other if Jalen is playing somewhere between his streak level and 50% of his streak level. If he plays like he did for most of last year he makes both Sengun and Amen(and everyone else) worse. His streak was so good I am back to having a glimmer of hope for his future so I really want to see him start next season playing well. If he does we will make noise in the West although we are likely still a couple a years away from making real noise.

 

All depends on the shooting though. They're a good fit together if at least 2 of the 3 become average-or-better three point shooters.

 

Yes but define average. Volume makes a big difference. We need Jalen to make over 36% of like 6 attempts. We need Sengun to make 36% of just 2 attempts or so (which I wouldn't call league average, but will suffice). Amen it will take time but whenever he can hit 33% of 3-4 attempts will be unstoppable.

Yes absolutely. I don't care about the streak level, I just need Jalen to improve his 3PT% which would increase his TS% too. The rest of his game was very good for more than half the season. Don't forget he improved EVERYTHING except scoring efficiency before the super long streak - rebounding, defense, effort, passing, everything else that makes a winning player and without which he would be an empty stats guy.

Amen is playing as an off ball big man who has to be parked at the dunker's spot, no one is making him worse, he's not a factor in our offense yet. He was just getting garbage points and the occasional drive to the rim. Let's see him have a streak like Jalen at least before we talk about how players have to suit him. I know there's stardom in his future but it's very premature to be talking about whether Jalen Green fits around him.

 

Don’t agree on Amen. He was definitely a factor on offense as well as defense. I think next year he will be more and more involved in actually running the team. I think we can have a 3 headed monster with Sengun, Jalen, and Amen getting lots of touches initiating the offense. I don’t think we really need to have a traditional pg role on this team and it actually will make us impossible to game plan for when all 3 are in that position. FVV may stick the whole year at less minutes while Amen continues to float around as a point forward, but I wouldn’t be horribly surprised if he is moved at the deadline. I think there is less than a 1/3 chance he sticks after next year. If Jalen doesn’t work out than FVV might be around for a 3rd year as we will have to find a SG that can shoot before we hand over PG to the new Magic Johnson.

 

Yeah, I agree. I'd say for Jalen and Alpi, given they'll never be elite defenders like Amen, they need to get to roughly average 3P% for their position, average # of attempts for their position.

For Amen... *Shrug*. He's already pretty effective without a jump shot, I'd say, but you need to surround him with shooters if you want to have a top offense. If he can develop any kind of usable shot I'll be happy.

 

He needs a midrange as Giddey did.

 

The reason why they wouldn't coexist is due to Jalen Green never ever showed he's even an average 3pt shooter. And in fact he's gotten worse at 3pt shooting each year of his career. People keep talking about how the Rockets need shooting but never seem to realize their lack of shooting is due in large part to Green being a crappy 3pt shooter. Jabari is fine. Brooks is fine. FVV is good. Tari and Cam both look at least sufficient to spread the floor. But Jalen Green has been the big liability here. And it's not even because he shoots a lot. He's just as bad in catch and shoot situations and he's still bad in open/wide-open scenarios.

Until Jalen Green can show he can shoot 3s at a league average level, him and Amen/Sengun will not mix well.

 

Why make up controversy? Got nothing better to do?

 

On offense according to cleaning the glass Green this past season with all his struggles is in the 72 percentile in on/off ppp at + 2.4.


Cam is at 40th percentile in -1.6
Tari at 62 percentile at +1.1
Amen at 40th percentile at -1.6


Green had the hardest adjustment having to expend high energy on both sides of the ball while playing 82 games and 30+ mpg. He had to adjust roles. A lot of hardships but you need to stop with this fake analysis you do because you hate the kid.

Green has elite traits that even if he was an average shooter causes havoc on opposing defenses. Again he has the agility, on ball creativity, speed of 6'0- 6'3" speed demons like Maxey, AI, Fox, Ja but around 6'6" in height. That is a unicorn talent that provides gravity and ability to constantly collapse defenses

Edit and just to confirm just in case someone places the excuse that Jalen plays with starters so his on/off numbers on ppp with be propped up with playing with guys like FVV and Sengun more often:

Jabari Smith jr: 28th percentile at -3.1 ppp
Dillon the Villain: 58th percentile at +0.5
FVV is obviously really high at 82nd percentile at +4.0
Sengun is surprisingly at 57th percentile at +0.4

That last one is the one i find the most shocking.

So essentially Green has the second highest on/off impact on offense amongst the starters.

 

1. There are a ton of options with regards to $ and length, I think there's an argument that both sides might prefer a shorter deal; a 3-year term would allow Jalen to hit FA earlier without being locked in to a far below-max deal if he really is this all-star capable player, and for Houston, would mitigate the truly painful years if he doesn't continue to develop consistency.

2. It's true, haven't seen a full season with the new luxury tax/aprons yet. But I'd also argue that the League is in a far better financial situation than they were in 2012, where they were coming off of a lockout and a flat cap for 5 consecutive years. That was when expiring contracts were actually seen as valuable, since they allowed teams to dump high-priced, long-term deals. Right now with cap smoothing in the new CBA, teams can comfortably project 10% growth in the salary cap per year, meaning that long term deals are going to get more palatable over time.

3. I would say that Poole should actually be seen as a potential positive to locking up Jalen; despite him not continuing to develop on the same trajectory once he had secured his big money, the Warriors were able to move off of his contract quickly in their CP3 trade and pick up a valuable rotation piece without attaching significant compensation to do so. Green would really have to start going back to pre-fatherhood levels of play to make him unmovable, in my opinion, as long as the Rockets act fairly quickly and decisively.

4. I think that it's quite valid for the Rockets to just let RFA play out and decide later with more information on Jalen; this is more of the DeAndre Ayton path, and the Suns were able to move off of him with relative ease once they decided he wasn't a championship-level player, despite matching a max-level offer sheet.

At the end of the day, I agree you have to believe in Jalen the player first, and the contract is probably going to be mostly window dressing. I honestly don't know where I stand on him, and can see arguments for many different strategies over the summer. Maybe my posts make it seem like I'm pro-Green; but honestly, I am just trying to address all of the perceived risks and downsides of the extension. The safest and most logical path is to just let it ride, that's the smart play. You can't lose what you don't put in the middle, but you can't win much either.

 

Jalen goes as his shooting goes and so does the team in terms of wins and losses.

29 times last season Jalen shot at or above league average from 3 (that's .366 for the record) .

The team had a winning percentage of .623 in those games.

That's good enough for #2 seed in the East and #4 in the West.

In the 52 games he shot .333 or below the team had a winning percentage of .442 going 23/29 in those games. Only better than those teams that openly tanked this year.


Next year he has to have more of the league average or better games than the below average games.

 

I find it strange you defend Jalen in the weirdest ways by mentioning stuff that has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

The poster I responded to was specifically talking about a situation where him, Sengun, and Amen all play together. If you want to use stats, the Rockets when all 3 of them were on the court last year at a net rating of -3.24 per https://www.fantasylabs.com/nba/on-off/. While the overall Rockets net rating was +1.1 for the year. So you can clearly see the 3 of them not working well together through on-court results.

 

So would Green be the odd man out here?

We want to pretend this kid without being a good shooter is worthless when he has unicorn traits. Green as a shooter doesn't even belong in the conversation with Amen and Sengun in the fact he's not a bad shooter, just an inconsistent one.

No one is going to feast Amen from the outside of he makes one in a row. As soon as Green makes a three pointer teams have the fear of God in them that he might make 5 straight.

He isn't spacing the floor poorly.