Bringing The Rockets Cheer Until 12th Night!
Welcome back to The Twelve Takes of Christmas!
This is Day Two. So, in the song, it’s Two Turtle Doves.
In this short piece, it’s Two Jalen Thoughts.
Thought one is – Other NBA Teams Probably Respect Jalen Green More Than You Do.
Sure, they might not view him as a reliable top ten type player, for the obvious reason that he clearly isn’t that. But they do respect, fear, and plan against, the supernova of more or less effortless scoring that Jalen Green can become.
The defenses of other teams are set up to do two things, generally, against the Rockets.
One is to make Jalen Green uncomfortable on the ball, and get him to either make bad decisions, which he does less now, or to pass the ball to another Rocket. They want him to pass, not shoot. You might still be thinking of him as a rookie, you might still be seeing, rightly, numbers that aren’t convincing. But what you, and Nate Duncan, might possibly be missing is, pretty much every defense stacks itself against Jalen now.
Those defenses? They have access to better info than we have. Perhaps they’re all wrong, but they all pretty much do the same stuff.
The other thing the defenses do is have helpers crash into the paint around Alperen Sengun when the ball goes to him. This has the added bonus of taking away a driving lane from Jalen, as well as forcing Sengun to take a tough shot, or pass out, with lots of hands constantly out (or on him, if you’re a certain dazzlingly beloved defense).
If Green was as bad as you probably think he is, is this setup still what opponents would do? Possibly, but I’m unconvinced. Why? Because they didn’t do it his first two, almost three, seasons in the NBA.
We saw the Raptors call a timeout inside the first two minutes of the Rockets Annual Afternoon Ambush In Toronto (which they won anyway for the first time in five years). Why? Because Jalen had scored quickly, and got a blazing drive to the lane. The idea is to shut that sort of thing down immediately, because IF he gets going (not WHEN, he’s not Peak Harden), you’re pretty much guaranteed to lose to the Rockets. If Romande doesn’t start rolling, you have a much better chance.
Green isn’t where he’ll just punish defenses for doing that no matter what. I doubt we ever see anyone play literally behind Jalen on defense, to take away his stepback. But a good outing from him almost seals a Rockets victory, and that’s a positive step. So is the fact that he’s making the right pass out of traps and pressures more often than not.
Thought Two Is: Jalen is still 22 years old.
That’s right, still between two and five years from a typical NBA prime. He’s now a good, or at worst reliable
, one on one defender, as he moves his feet and stays in front of guys pretty well. He’ll fight for rebounds. He’s finishing better at the rim. He’s close to 90% from the free throw line.
Despite the frustrating shooting, this looks to me like a player who is still growing. As his new deal pretty much keeps him a Rocket for a while, this is a hopeful, if not good thing.
In the meantime, his stats don’t look great, but we see opponents stacking defenses against him. Not Dillon, Fred, or Jabari. Only Jalen, and Alpie, with the paint packing aspects of the approach doing double duty against both.
Still a baffling, frustrating, player in many respects. Still a hopeful one.