Jalen Green news and discussion

[Saberestar]

Brian Gregory on Jalen Green:

"Jalen is an explosive scorer who has already shown impressive productivity across the board throughout his young career. His athleticism and natural ability are off the charts.

Jalen has already proven his commitment to putting in the work that excellence requires, and we believe that his approach to the game will allow him to further unlock his incredible upside here in Phoenix."

[lilfishi22]

Watched a bunch of highlight tapes of Green over the weekend to try and hype myself up....I just can't get exciting. He just plays a brand of basketball I neither find compelling nor enjoyable. There's a lot of dribble pull ups, a lot of off the dribble 3's, a lot of ISO's....I mean the rim pressure and dunks are nice but everything else I kinda hate.

A few positives though, for a guy with his reputation and is so focused on scoring, having a 16-17% assist rate is actually decent. Early career CJ was around 17-18%, first few seasons of Book was around 16%, Klay has historically been a low AST% guy (sub 15%). I think he could get to 20% with more of a playmaking role.

+ He's been a remarkably consistent turnover guy and it's a positive because for a relatively high usage self creator, just over 11% turnover rate is pretty good and he's been at this rate his whole career despite going up from just under 24% usage rate to 27-28%. For comparison, guys like Scottie Barnes, Sexton, Sengun, Garland and KAT are all around 27% usage guys, but with higher turnover rate. Only someone like Kyrie and CJ have lower TO%.

+ He's a pretty strong rebounder at his size/position. The first 4 years of Westbrook before he was a triple double machine, he was an 8% total rebounding rate guy, not far from Jalen's 7% career average. Wade was an 8% guy. Book is a 6.5% guy. So Green is definitely grabbing his fair share.

+ His defense has improved quite substantially from yr2 to this past season. He has a -2.9DRPM in his 2nd season which is god awful but was able to improve the next two seasons to -0.5 DRPM. Statistical Book was a worse defender than Green until his all-NBA season. I don't know how much further improvement he can have given his size though

+ Last season he was only 1 of 11 guys who played 82 games. The season before he was 1 of 17 guys who played 82 games. He's been a really healthy and available guy for most of his career.

[Qwigglez]

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[WeekapaugGroove]

His improved defensive metrics are by far the most encouraging aspect of Greens numbers. The flat shooting numbers are the least encouraging. 35% from 3 is workable but just barely for a G these days.

[lilfishi22]

His improved defensive metrics are by far the most encouraging aspect of Greens numbers. The flat shooting numbers are the least encouraging. 35% from 3 is workable but just barely for a G these days.

I think he just takes a lot of the type of shots which aren't conducive to a good shooting %. Like no one shoots off dribble pull ups from iso well, even the best aren't shooting these as well as a catch and shoot type of shot. You take them when you have to but he takes them when he wants to. His catch and shoot 3's are actually really good though. Not elite (50% plus) but like in that 3rd tier (better than 40% but less than 45%) which has a lot of guys in it including Steph, Klay, Grayson, EG and Kyrie.

But I do agree, his improvement on the defensive end is nothing to scoff at. It's a genuine and measurable improvement. Only question is how close he is to his ceiling given his size.

[Dr Manute]

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Go positive video on the Jalen Green fit with Booker.

[Biff]

Watched a bunch of highlight tapes of Green over the weekend to try and hype myself up....I just can't get exciting. He just plays a brand of basketball I neither find compelling nor enjoyable. There's a lot of dribble pull ups, a lot of off the dribble 3's, a lot of ISO's....I mean the rim pressure and dunks are nice but everything else I kinda hate.

A few positives though, for a guy with his reputation and is so focused on scoring, having a 16-17% assist rate is actually decent. Early career CJ was around 17-18%, first few seasons of Book was around 16%, Klay has historically been a low AST% guy (sub 15%). I think he could get to 20% with more of a playmaking role.

+ He's been a remarkably consistent turnover guy and it's a positive because for a relatively high usage self creator, just over 11% turnover rate is pretty good and he's been at this rate his whole career despite going up from just under 24% usage rate to 27-28%. For comparison, guys like Scottie Barnes, Sexton, Sengun, Garland and KAT are all around 27% usage guys, but with higher turnover rate. Only someone like Kyrie and CJ have lower TO%.

+ He's a pretty strong rebounder at his size/position. The first 4 years of Westbrook before he was a triple double machine, he was an 8% total rebounding rate guy, not far from Jalen's 7% career average. Wade was an 8% guy. Book is a 6.5% guy. So Green is definitely grabbing his fair share.

+ His defense has improved quite substantially from yr2 to this past season. He has a -2.9DRPM in his 2nd season which is god awful but was able to improve the next two seasons to -0.5 DRPM. Statistical Book was a worse defender than Green until his all-NBA season. I don't know how much further improvement he can have given his size though

+ Last season he was only 1 of 11 guys who played 82 games. The season before he was 1 of 17 guys who played 82 games. He's been a really healthy and available guy for most of his career.

I'm gonna wager that JG's improving numbers have more to do with Rockets team defense massively improving over that period of time. JG doesn't really pass the eye test defensively and he doesn't have great physical tools to be a plus defender. He has poor BBIQ and wingspan isn't great. I don't expect him to have the same kind of advanced stats on the Suns.

[lilfishi22]

Watched a bunch of highlight tapes of Green over the weekend to try and hype myself up....I just can't get exciting. He just plays a brand of basketball I neither find compelling nor enjoyable. There's a lot of dribble pull ups, a lot of off the dribble 3's, a lot of ISO's....I mean the rim pressure and dunks are nice but everything else I kinda hate.

A few positives though, for a guy with his reputation and is so focused on scoring, having a 16-17% assist rate is actually decent. Early career CJ was around 17-18%, first few seasons of Book was around 16%, Klay has historically been a low AST% guy (sub 15%). I think he could get to 20% with more of a playmaking role.

+ He's been a remarkably consistent turnover guy and it's a positive because for a relatively high usage self creator, just over 11% turnover rate is pretty good and he's been at this rate his whole career despite going up from just under 24% usage rate to 27-28%. For comparison, guys like Scottie Barnes, Sexton, Sengun, Garland and KAT are all around 27% usage guys, but with higher turnover rate. Only someone like Kyrie and CJ have lower TO%.

+ He's a pretty strong rebounder at his size/position. The first 4 years of Westbrook before he was a triple double machine, he was an 8% total rebounding rate guy, not far from Jalen's 7% career average. Wade was an 8% guy. Book is a 6.5% guy. So Green is definitely grabbing his fair share.

+ His defense has improved quite substantially from yr2 to this past season. He has a -2.9DRPM in his 2nd season which is god awful but was able to improve the next two seasons to -0.5 DRPM. Statistical Book was a worse defender than Green until his all-NBA season. I don't know how much further improvement he can have given his size though

+ Last season he was only 1 of 11 guys who played 82 games. The season before he was 1 of 17 guys who played 82 games. He's been a really healthy and available guy for most of his career.

I'm gonna wager that JG's improving numbers have more to do with Rockets team defense massively improving over that period of time. JG doesn't really pass the eye test defensively and he doesn't have great physical tools to be a plus defender. He has poor BBIQ and wingspan isn't great. I don't expect him to have the same kind of advanced stats on the Suns.

Defensive RPM specifically aims to reflect individual defense, net of any team defense effects. That's to say, a player with a stagnant DRPM in the context of the team's defense is improving, would suggest no improvement even in light of the team's defense getting better.

But that isn't the case with Green. His DRPM has steadily been improving and it just happens to line up well with the improvement in the Rocket's defense. If he's being carried by the improving Rocket's defense as you're suggesting, we should still see the poor -2.4 and -2.6 DRPM from Green's first couple of years in the league.

[Biff]

Watched a bunch of highlight tapes of Green over the weekend to try and hype myself up....I just can't get exciting. He just plays a brand of basketball I neither find compelling nor enjoyable. There's a lot of dribble pull ups, a lot of off the dribble 3's, a lot of ISO's....I mean the rim pressure and dunks are nice but everything else I kinda hate.

A few positives though, for a guy with his reputation and is so focused on scoring, having a 16-17% assist rate is actually decent. Early career CJ was around 17-18%, first few seasons of Book was around 16%, Klay has historically been a low AST% guy (sub 15%). I think he could get to 20% with more of a playmaking role.

+ He's been a remarkably consistent turnover guy and it's a positive because for a relatively high usage self creator, just over 11% turnover rate is pretty good and he's been at this rate his whole career despite going up from just under 24% usage rate to 27-28%. For comparison, guys like Scottie Barnes, Sexton, Sengun, Garland and KAT are all around 27% usage guys, but with higher turnover rate. Only someone like Kyrie and CJ have lower TO%.

+ He's a pretty strong rebounder at his size/position. The first 4 years of Westbrook before he was a triple double machine, he was an 8% total rebounding rate guy, not far from Jalen's 7% career average. Wade was an 8% guy. Book is a 6.5% guy. So Green is definitely grabbing his fair share.

+ His defense has improved quite substantially from yr2 to this past season. He has a -2.9DRPM in his 2nd season which is god awful but was able to improve the next two seasons to -0.5 DRPM. Statistical Book was a worse defender than Green until his all-NBA season. I don't know how much further improvement he can have given his size though

+ Last season he was only 1 of 11 guys who played 82 games. The season before he was 1 of 17 guys who played 82 games. He's been a really healthy and available guy for most of his career.

I'm gonna wager that JG's improving numbers have more to do with Rockets team defense massively improving over that period of time. JG doesn't really pass the eye test defensively and he doesn't have great physical tools to be a plus defender. He has poor BBIQ and wingspan isn't great. I don't expect him to have the same kind of advanced stats on the Suns.

Defensive RPM specifically aims to reflect individual defense, net of any team defense effects. That's to say, a player with a stagnant DRPM in the context of the team's defense is improving, would suggest no improvement even in light of the team's defense getting better.

But that isn't the case with Green. His DRPM has steadily been improving and it just happens to line up well with the improvement in the Rocket's defense. If he's being carried by the improving Rocket's defense as you're suggesting, we should still see the poor -2.4 and -2.6 DRPM from Green's first couple of years in the league.

Don't agree at all. DRPM isn't the best stat. His Darko score defensively is not good and I find Darko far more reliable. He's in like the 15th percentile defensively. He's not good and when he's on this team and not the Rockets, you'll see that.

[lilfishi22]

I'm gonna wager that JG's improving numbers have more to do with Rockets team defense massively improving over that period of time. JG doesn't really pass the eye test defensively and he doesn't have great physical tools to be a plus defender. He has poor BBIQ and wingspan isn't great. I don't expect him to have the same kind of advanced stats on the Suns.

Defensive RPM specifically aims to reflect individual defense, net of any team defense effects. That's to say, a player with a stagnant DRPM in the context of the team's defense is improving, would suggest no improvement even in light of the team's defense getting better.

But that isn't the case with Green. His DRPM has steadily been improving and it just happens to line up well with the improvement in the Rocket's defense. If he's being carried by the improving Rocket's defense as you're suggesting, we should still see the poor -2.4 and -2.6 DRPM from Green's first couple of years in the league.

Don't agree at all. DRPM isn't the best stat. His Darko score defensively is not good and I find Darko far more reliable. He's in like the 15th percentile defensively. He's not good and when he's on this team and not the Rockets, you'll see that.

His Darko DPM has been steadily improving from a poor -3 to -3.5 DDPM when he first came into the league to average around 0 which is league average. I didn't say he was elite or anything, I said he's been steadily improving which is a good sign for a young player with a reputation for poor defense. And I am of course taking the projections made by DARKO with a grain of salt, I'm just saying factually, he's improved consistently year on year.

https://apanalytics.shinyapps.io/DARKO/_w_1147d6d618f247f8baa5d1c68cc887cb/#tab-2729-4

Watch on YouTube

[Biff]

Defensive RPM specifically aims to reflect individual defense, net of any team defense effects. That's to say, a player with a stagnant DRPM in the context of the team's defense is improving, would suggest no improvement even in light of the team's defense getting better.

But that isn't the case with Green. His DRPM has steadily been improving and it just happens to line up well with the improvement in the Rocket's defense. If he's being carried by the improving Rocket's defense as you're suggesting, we should still see the poor -2.4 and -2.6 DRPM from Green's first couple of years in the league.

Don't agree at all. DRPM isn't the best stat. His Darko score defensively is not good and I find Darko far more reliable. He's in like the 15th percentile defensively. He's not good and when he's on this team and not the Rockets, you'll see that.

His Darko DPM has been steadily improving from a poor -3 to -3.5 DDPM when he first came into the league to average around 0 which is league average. I didn't say he was elite or anything, I said he's been steadily improving which is a good sign for a young player with a reputation for poor defense. And I am of course taking the projections made by DARKO with a grain of salt, I'm just saying factually, he's improved consistently year on year.

https://apanalytics.shinyapps.io/DARKO/_w_1147d6d618f247f8baa5d1c68cc887cb/#tab-2729-4

Watch on YouTube

Yeah, gonna be hard for to take that video seriously. A guy in the 15th percentile is not a lockdown defender. He had a minus defensive darko this past year. On one of the best defensive teams in the league.

[Ghost of Kleine]

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[Saberestar]

The Players' Tribune.

I got a team out in Phoenix who wants me to be me. I get to play alongside one of the best in the game in Book. It’s another opportunity to build a winning culture. Another opportunity to show people how deep my love for this game really is. And another opportunity to shut up y’all petty-ass haters, too. (I see everything, and I thank you for it.)

So I’ll miss Houston and all my guys down there, but I’m smiling, man. I get to play basketball for a living. How can I have a bad day? Every day I’m hooping is a good day.

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/jalen-green-nba-basketball-houston-rockets-phoenix-suns