January 14, 2025 • 41 mins
With both Jalen Green and Amen Thompson in starring roles, the Rockets (26-12) have won four straight games and are holding a strong No. 2 placement in the Western Conference standings. Tuesday’s episode explores how Houston is getting it done, including the sustainability of both Green and Thompson retaining their current lineup roles and performance levels.
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Thanks for checking out another fresh episode of the logger Line,
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USA Today's Rockets Are and contributor to Sports Talk seven
ninety official Flag Show, Fordotiation of your Houston Rockets. Powlo
Owl's our usual co host and producer, has been a
bit under the weather the last few days. We hope
(00:59):
to have him back in the not two distant future,
but I did want to get an episode out in
the interim because it's been a very good week for
the Rockets. Ever since Aman Thompson came back from that
league suspension and joined the starting lineup in place of
the injured Jabari Smith Junior. The Rockets are four to
o and of those four wins, three have been at
the statement variety, one against the Lakers, with both Lebron
(01:20):
James and Anthony Davis playing well and two against the
Memphis Grizzlies, your closest competition for the number two seed
in the Western Conference. Rockets are now twenty six to
twelve and have a lead of three games in the
lost column over both Memphis and Denver for a top
two seed, and the Rockets, by virtue of going three
and oh against the Grizzlies and their four head to
head meetings this season, have already clenched the tiebreaker in
(01:44):
the event that the two teams end depth tied at
the end of this season. So lots to like on
the court these days, with the Rockets four straight wins
five of six overall, a lot of cushion for the
number two seed in the West as things stand on
this Tuesday morning, January fourteenth, So I wanted to do
a quick chat updating what we've seen the last few
(02:05):
games and what some of the bigger takeaways are, especially
within the context of the broader season and where the
Rockets are wanting to go. For me, the obvious headliner
is Jalen Green. I've been updating his stats on my
Twitter timeline at pendupos since Thanksgiving Eve, and they are incredible.
In nineteen games, that's officially half of the Rockets sample.
Right now, Jalen is averaging almost twenty four points per
(02:28):
game on better than sixty percent true shooting, forty seven
percent from the field, almost thirty nine percent from three
above eighty eight percent from the free throw line. He
tied his career high in just a feel good win
over the Grizzlies on Monday night forty two points and
really willed the Rockets back after John Morant hit a
(02:49):
shot with eight minutes left that put the Grizzlies up twelve.
It felt like, you know, the Rockets made several runs,
but that it just wasn't going to be enough. The
Grizzlies clearly want that game, and we're playing hard after
losing to the Rockets on their home court a few
nights earlier. The Grizzlies are a good team. They are
a top five offense, a top five defense. They went
into Minnesota in between these two games against the Rockets.
(03:13):
Of course, Houston had its game in Atlanta scrapped due
to ice on Saturday. But Minnesota is a good team
and Memphis went out there and led by John Morant
down the stretch, executed and won the game when it
mattered in a way that they could not do against
the Rockets, And so for Houston to bounce back from
(03:33):
a twelve point deficit with eight minutes to go, it
felt like undoing some of the damage and the scarring
of that Minnesota game a few weeks ago, not quite
to that extent, Minnesota was down sixteen to the Rockets
with about five minutes left. In this case, the Rockets
down twelve with eight minutes left, but still a fantastic comeback,
and Jalen Green was the big story. Every time it
(03:53):
felt like the Rockets were on the verge of being
knocked out, it seemed like Jalen had the answer. Right
after Jaw hit that three from nearly half court to
put the Grizzlies up twelve, Jalen responded with an and
one that got the Rockets back to single digits, and
it ended up sparking a sixteen to two run as
the Rockets put themselves in front entering the closing stages,
(04:14):
and then you know, Jalen hit the game winner with
thirty five seconds left, and the Rockets stopped Ja Morant
again down the stretch of that game and Men Thompson
playing fantastic defense, as really he's done the entire year,
but with the minutes being scaled up since since he
joined the starting lineup, it's even more obvious right now.
And we heard from Jalen Green post game. I thought
(04:36):
his comment was very telling about a men being able
to take on a heavier workload defensively. That's really helped
Jalen to conserve more of his energy for the offensive
endo the court, because if you watched how Jalen got
his points laid against the Grizzlies, he took a pounding
that one where he fouled Zach Edy out and got
(04:58):
to the free throw line trying to jump over a
seven foot four guy and absorbing that contact just to
get a couple of free throws. That's tough. You need
to be able to conserve your energy a bit with
easier matchups on the defensive end, and that's what postgame,
Jalen was clearly tipping his hat to a Men Thompson
for allowing him to do, even if he didn't want
(05:18):
to fully spell it out that hey, I'm taking some
possessions off defensively. Come on, we know how this works,
and so I would be very surprised for that reason
to many others if a Men Thompson comes out of
the starting lineup. I'll talk more about that in a
few minutes, because I want to lead off talking about
Jalen Green, because I think Jalen not just since the
calendar turned to twenty twenty five, Rockets are five and
(05:40):
one since then, and the only loss was to the
defending NBA champion in Boston Celtics, in a night when
you didn't have a Men Thompson, Jabari Smith Junior or
Tari East until you were extremely shorthanded in the defending
champs for playing well, that's what it took to beat
the Rockets. Other than that, they've been lights out since
the calendar turned to twenty twenty five, and Jalen Green
has been the biggest factor in why the Rockets have
(06:03):
played at that level. And so I want to start
talking about Jalen not just in the micro, but in
the macro, because I do think you can look at
this recent stretch, maybe even the nineteen games since Thanksgiving Eve,
and say there's some small sample sized theater to it
that he's just on a heater and against the Grizzlies. Look,
(06:24):
he was outstanding, but thirteen of eighteen overall, five of
six from three. It's tough to be that efficient against air.
So he is going to come back down to earth
at some point. As this week closes out, the Rockets
have a difficult road trip three games and four nights
at Denver, at Sacramento, at Portland. I don't think you
should expect Jalen Green to play like a top ten
(06:47):
player every single night the way he has for the
last six or so games, really ever since we got
to the new year. I think that would be an overreaction.
I think you know, there's been a lot made of
the improvements to Jalen's game since a men Thompson joined
the starting lineup. I mentioned the defensive connection. I also
think a men playing at a faster pace, what he
(07:10):
offers at the dunker slot, being able to move without
the ball function as something of a lob threat. I
think that benefits Jalen as well. But I also think, again,
some of this is just simply Jalen being hot right
now in much the same way he had the untradeable
Tour about this time a year ago. And then we
know what he did in March when he was a
very nearly Western Conference Player of the Month. I think
(07:33):
some of it is hot shooting that will stabilize. There's
perhaps some connection to a man joining the starting lineup,
but I don't think it's as simple as saying, a
man join the starting lineup and snap your fingers. Everything
has been fixed and now Jalen is a stunt now.
I don't think it's that simple. However, when you look
back to really this time a year ago, Jalen over
(07:53):
his last seventy eight games, and I posted this in
an X thread or an ex post, I should say, God,
I still want to call it Twitter. But ever since
the last forty games of last season and the first
thirty eight of this season, so last seventy eight game,
basically a full eighty two game season, Jalen is averaging
(08:14):
twenty one point seven points, five point one rebounds, three
point three assists per game, shooting about forty four percent
from the field, thirty four and a half percent on threes,
eighty four percent on free throws, true shooting percentage of
ride at fifty six, and he's averaging over thirty three
minutes per game during that stretch, that should tell you
that he's defending well enough that Emo Udoka does not
(08:36):
view him as a liability on that end, he's competing
and as far as winning, over the last sixty one
games of that sample ever since the end of February
last year, the Rockets are forty two to nineteen. That's
a sixty nine percent win clip, which equates to a
pace of fifty six plus wins for a full season.
And the reason I keep going back to the macro
(08:59):
rather than the mic grow is that it incorporates both
peaks and valleys. One of the things I really hate
with some of the Jalen Green discourse is this focus
on consistency and folks saying well, even if the average
numbers look pretty good in to give him sample, he
has so many peaks and valleys. We have these games
where he looks breathtaking Titus career high with forty two
points against the Grizzlies, and others where he really struggles well.
(09:20):
A lot of that comes with Jalen's archetype as a player.
For guards, especially smaller guards, there is going to be
more volatility because your formula depends on taking and ideally
making a decent amount of threes and getting to the
free throw line enough to boost your efficiency some night
should get the calls. He went to the line eleven
times against the Grizzlies on Monday night, and we heard
Jalen in the postgame locker room asked about his lock
(09:41):
his efficiency. He quickly pointed to that the first words
out of his mouth, basically saying, hey, you give me
the calls, I'll look much more efficient because I'm getting
to the line. And also those calls dictate how physical
other teams can guard him. If Jalen gets to line
much more frequently, they're not going to be as handsy,
they're not going to be as physical, and that's going
to help him make more shots because it changes the
way they defend him on his drives. So it's not
(10:03):
just the free throws that he gets. It also influences
the overall shot diet and how teams defend or don't
defend him on a given night. But the bottom line
is when you aren't a super freakishly large or athletic
type of player. Now Jalen is athletic, but he doesn't
combine it with overwhelming size, You're not going to be
(10:24):
getting the majority of your shots right at the rim,
and so because of that, there's going to be more volatility.
There always is if you're looking at guards, especially smaller
guards in the NBA, and in Jalen's case his archetype,
his value is strictly as a scorer. You're not asking
him to be a top shelf as cist guy or
(10:46):
a top shelf defender. I think sometimes if you're looking
at someone who might average tennisists per game, the volatility
is still there for that player as a scorer, but
it's not noted as much by the casual because if
he's putting up nine to ten eleven assists in a
given game, he's still stuffing the stat sheet. He still
(11:06):
looks really good on the box score, as opposed to
for someone of Jalen's archetype, someone you want to be
a tip of the spear scorer. If he's not doing
the scoring at a high or efficient level, that's going
to stand out much more because it's not like he
has those other elements of his game to pick up
the slack, at least statistically. Now, if you talk to
(11:27):
people inside the building it to outa center, they'll say
that even when Jalen is struggling. He still has a
large impact on games because of his willingness and ability
to take difficult shots, to challenge the defenses at all
three levels, to draw attention on the scouting reports. Even
if the shots aren't going in on a given night,
there's still a certain gravity that Jalen has. That's actually
(11:50):
a word that Aman Thompson used postgame talking about the
open looks he got in the fourth quarter off of
Jalen Breen drawing a second defender and then either Steven
Adams are all for inch and good making the play
on the short role and finding the men often out
of the dunker slot for either an easy bucket or
going to or drawing a foul to go to the
foul line as he did in the final ten seconds
to put the game away. I think if you talk
(12:11):
to people in the building, they'll say that even if
Jalen shoots five or fifteen on a given night, that
there's still a lot more value than that because of
how he changes the way defenses guard the rockets and
what he unlocks for other players. Yet, in terms of
the discourse on social media and on TV shows and whatnot,
(12:32):
that doesn't always get captured the same way it does
with a point guard who's averaging ten to eleven assists
per game. And so even if they score just fourteen
points on five to fifteen shootings something like that, well,
if they're putting up a double double, it's not going
to stand out as much. With Jalen it statistically stands
out a lot more, and so I think that tends
(12:53):
to drive the discourse a little bit, and sometimes overly so.
But to circle back to the main point in the
little tangent, you need to compare apples to apples. Don't
compare the volatility or lack thereof in a player like
Jannis or Jokic and look at them as the superstar
path that Jalen Green either needs to emulate or he's
(13:16):
just not ever gonna be at that level. He might
not be at that level, but if he does get
to that level, it's going to be with a very
different formula. And so again I think some of the
comps are just not taking into account who Jalen is
as a player, what his efficiency formula is going to
(13:36):
look like, because there are gonna inherently be a lot
of peaks and valleys. It's just par for the course.
When you have a player of Jalen Green's profile, his
physical stature, the Rockets know that. So I think, you know,
sometimes that can lead to some flawed discourse just at
(13:57):
the outset, because an expectation is being put on Jalen Green,
especially at twenty one, twenty two years old, that's just unfair.
With all that said, I would actually argue that because
of that, it's even more important to look at the averages,
the aggregate, the longer term trends. Someone point to the
peaks and valleys and say, well, when he cleans that up,
(14:18):
that's when he's really going to take the next step. No,
that's always going to be there. And so because of that,
it's even more important to look at the longer term trends,
the hot games, the cold games, to let everything normalize
and to see what the overall value looks like. And again,
ever since really the midpoint of last year, he's averaging
(14:39):
almost twenty two points per game on about fifty six
percent true shooting, five boards, over three assists per game,
respectable shooting. That's an above average starter at shooting guard
for a good NBA team. Actually, I call it a
good starter for a very good team. When you look
at again a fifty six plus win pace over their
last sixty one games. For Yllan at twenty two years old,
(15:02):
to be doing that in a full season's worth of data,
good starter on a very good team, that is tremendous.
That is something that should be celebrated. Now, that's not
to say that Jalen is the superstar that we all
wanted him to be when he was drafted at number
two overall in twenty twenty one. No, there's still another
(15:25):
leap that he needs to make to get to that level.
It would be very premature, just as it was last March,
to say that Jalen has flipped the switch and that
he's figured it out. No, until he does what he's
done the last few games, maybe you can argue the
last nineteen games on a much more permanent basis. I'm
inclined to think that this is just one of the
(15:47):
peaks in much the same way that when he struggled
coming out of the gate, really the first three three
and a half weeks of November, that that was a valley.
I'm looking at this in the aggregate at the longer
term trend. But even if we consider that the fair representation,
and I think it is to be a good starter
(16:07):
on a very good team at twenty two years old.
That's something to celebrate. That validates the extension at over
thirty million dollars a year that the Rockets gave to
him before the season. That is not easy to do
at twenty two years old at a position where it's
difficult to be a winning player because it's so easy
to be inefficient and you aren't bringing value in all
(16:27):
these other areas, or at least all these easily visible
other areas. I think the bus scenarios are off the table.
Jalen Green. We have enough evidence right now to say
he is a good starter on a very good team
that should be celebrated. Now, does that mean that he's
going to be here for ten to fifteen years and
he's going to win a championship as the best player
(16:48):
on the Rockets in a few years. Not necessarily. We
have established now that he is a good player. Whether
he can become a great player in the same class
as someone like Devin Booker or Donovan Mitch that's still
to be determined, and we'll see if he can make
that leap. But what I think we can celebrate today
is that the bus scenarios are off the table. Jalen
(17:10):
is good. He is contributing to winning right now, and
he has done so for basically a full calendar year.
There are still questions, and if he doesn't take another leap,
he's still got time again. Shooting guard is a tough
position to make an impact from a winning perspective. It
typically takes unto guys get twenty three to twenty four,
twenty five years old before they can really do that
(17:31):
on a consistent basis. So Jalen still has time. He
might get there, he might not, and if he doesn't,
then sure we can talk about trade scenarios down the line.
But what I think he has shown you right now
is that he is not going to miss worst case.
He's a solid player that will have certainly some value
in trades, but best case, and this is why I
(17:52):
don't think the Rockets are going to rush into trades.
And I've been saying that this for some time. The
Rockets want to give this a longer runway, certainly the
rest of this season then maybe beyond, to see if
they don't have to make a big trade, if guys
like Jalen can just take the next step organically and
make it work with the current foundation, because certainly the
(18:13):
stretch of January twenty twenty five, but really going back
to Thanksgiving Eve, we're on a sharp upper trend in
his trajectory. Time will tell as to how sustainable it is.
But I think when you tie it back in with
what we've seen really in the second half of last season,
it's pretty clear that this is not just statistical noise. No,
this is a good player still to be determined if
(18:35):
he can be great. But at twenty two years old
and just in year four, he's got plenty of time.
And in terms of why it sort of clicked for
Jalen midway through last year, I would urge people to
recall the specific circumstances that he had joining the Rockets
as a nineteen year old at the twenty twenty one
draft class. He was the one guy who had the
(18:57):
most bad habits to shape. Two full year of Steven
Silas ball and two full years as the focal point.
He was not functioning largely as a role player someone
like Alperin Shagon or Tari Easan. Jalen Green was the
focal point of multiple Steven silas years. I think he's
the only player that you can say that about, and
(19:21):
he plays a position where it is difficult to be
a winning player because so much of the formula depends
on efficiency. He's also undersize, he's not super physical, and
so you're bringing in a coach like imy Udoka that
wants physicality on defense, and a lot of things had
to change for Jalen Green, and I think because of that,
(19:45):
it took him some time longer than it did for
other guys on the roster to shake those bad habits
to be the player that he may wanted him to be.
We remember early last season all the times that Jalen
got benched in the fourth quarter because he maj just
did and trust him. Defensively, again, that's stopped. Even on
nights when Jalen isn't shooting well on the offensive end,
(20:07):
he's still finishing games. Jalen is trusted by the coaching
staff now again, averaging more than thirty three minutes per
game over basically the last year, the last seventy eight games.
He's also insanely durable. It started over one hundred and
forty games in a row, which in the load management
era of the NBA speaks to how seriously he puts
in work on his body in the off season and
(20:28):
staying in shape and getting more physical. We saw that
on the game winner, in which he absorbed some contact
and finished at the rim. Great feel, great athleticism, great strength,
So many things combined into one package. Jalen had to
do a lot of work. He had to shake a
lot of bad habits. So when you're looking at things
he has to do physically, mentally, and all the normal
(20:51):
things at a company. Being twenty one, twenty two years
old in the NBA and at a difficult position to
impact winning, it took him a little bit of time.
But ever since the midway point of last season, he
has been legitimately good. And I think we should celebrate that,
and I think we should throw the bus scenarios in
(21:13):
the trash that's off the table. And I think you
know one reason this is sort of surprising people locally
and certainly nationally. I think it's important to remember that
while statistics get sorted on a season by season basis
because it's more digestible that way, and the NBA crowns
a new champion each season, when it comes to an
(21:36):
individual players development. Those are arbitrary cutoff points. We can't
act like each season is its own distinct entity because
many times who a player is at the end of
six plus months and eighty plus games is very different.
Certainly with young players they get better, and conversely with
older players, sometimes they slip a lot as a season
(22:00):
progresses and they're in their thirties because they're on the
downhill side of their careers. So that's where it's important
to look at stats, not just through the lens of
how they look on the front page of ESPN or
Basketball Reference showing you what they're doing in this current season,
but also within the context of their careers. Because Jalen
(22:20):
did not forget how to do what he did in
March and January of last year. He just needed a
larger sample so that it could all sort itself out
and normalize, and that's what started to happen over certainly
the last six games, I would argue the last nineteen
ever since the day before Thanksgiving in Philadelphia when he
went for forty plus. Jalen did not forget how to
(22:41):
do what he did in the second half of last season.
He just got off to a bad start and so
because of that really wasn't bad start. He was good
through the first five games, and then just struggle for
most of November, the first fourteen games, if I recall,
but because that was virtually the entire sample for this season,
(23:01):
when you pull up his profile page on ESPN or
NBA dot Com or whatever it may be, it looks
worse than it is. It's so easy to say, hey,
this is your four Typically when guys start to take
the leap because they're eligible for contract extensions, and he's
putting up numbers that are just unacceptable from an efficiency standpoint,
it's easy to say that. But if you looked back
(23:23):
to last season, and not just the month of March,
but really the second half, it should have been clear
that the fourteen games that he struggled in early November
certainly not encouraging, But it also shouldn't have led to
the level of despair that it did for certain corners
of the fan base and certainly nationally, just the reputation
(23:44):
of Jalen Green. There was always hope that with time
this could stabilize, and that's exactly what's happened now. I
tend to believe that this current stretch is a little
exaggerated A men might help him some, but I think
a lot of it is just Jalen being hot, and
until proven otherwise, I think he's probably gonna revert back
(24:06):
to the guy that he's been for most of the
past year. Now. Maybe that's being too bearish. Maybe he's
turned another corner. I hope that's the case. Time will tell.
Let's see how the next few months unfold as the
Rockets get closer to what I think is at this point,
assuming there are no major injuries and inevitable playoff appearance,
there's gonna be playoff basketball at Aeria Center for the
(24:28):
first time since twenty nineteen, and I am so fricking
excited about it. But as far as Jalen, he's a
good starter on a very good team. That's how I'm
gonna close the loop on this discussion, and you should
celebrate it. The sample is not too small to say
that it is conclusive when you look back at how
he finished last season where he is halfway through this season,
(24:48):
again basically giving you a full season's worth of data,
And you remind yourself, or you should remind yourself, that
with young players, it doesn't always click in a symmetric
or linear fashion that at the start of year three,
the start of year four, that's when he's going to
take off statistically and the front page of his ESPN
(25:11):
profile is going to pop. You know. Sometimes it's midway
through a quarter of the way through three quarters of
the way through a given season, and then it largely
translates to the next season. But maybe the start is
a little bumpy, which it was this year. It's not
always going to be the most statistically digestible format, but
(25:31):
if you look at the entirety of the data, I
think enough it's there to where we can confidently say
this is not just a hot stretch for jail and Green.
He has figured out how to be a good, effective
starter in the NBA and that should be celebrated. Time
will tell if he can go from good to great.
I hope he can. I certainly wouldn't bet against him,
(25:53):
But for now I think we can say he is
confirmed good and given some of the dialogue as recently
as a month or so go, I think that's something
we should celebrate because Jalen's a guy who again he's
other than Jay Sharon Tate, the longest tenured guy on
the roster. He's been through, you know, certainly the highs now,
but the lowest of lows his first couple of years.
We know the vitriol he's taken on social media, and
(26:15):
so to see him getting to the other side of it,
I could not be more happy for him, certainly for
the Rockets individually again twenty six and twelve, and they've
got more big games coming up at Denver tomorrow night.
That's going to be big. But the big story is
Jalen individually, because not only has he helping you win
games now in terms of the longer term formula, he's
(26:36):
showing you that at a bare minimum, he can be
a valuable piece of that, and maybe he can be
one of the lead pieces of that's still again, only
twenty two years old. I know it feels like he's
been here a while because it's your four but in
NBA years, he's still pretty young in the grand scheme
and still has lots of time to improve, as we've
seen the last few weeks. All right, So to close
(26:57):
out this episode, wanted to spend most of this a
mini episode without Powell, who's been a bit under the weather.
I want to talk about what we've seen from Jalen Green.
I also want to talk about a Men Thompson, who
has been tremendous since joining the starting lineup in place
of Jabari Smith Junior. On a permanent basis, I think
it's pretty clear that he is the best player on
this team. We know how elite he is defensively, with
(27:18):
the athleticism, the versatility, the length, can basically guard anybody
one through five. Offensively, we know certainly how he can
function off ball, but he's also doing a bit more
on ball in terms of creation reps, and so the
Rockets are able to transition Fred Vanvlee to something more
of an off ball roll. He shot only five shots
(27:38):
last night, which, by the way, kudos to Fred for,
despite not really being in rhythm, still making one of
the biggest three's biggest shots of the game, the three
that put the Rockets up with about four minutes left.
And Fred, even despite shooting just five times of the game,
actually made two of his three from distance, including that
big one in the final four minutes or so of
(27:59):
that game. But A Men is a guy who because
of his ability to handle the ball, we know he
was drafted as a point guard. The Rockets are leaning
on him a little bit more because when Jalen gets going,
we know the way defenses are going to try to
double and trap him, get the ball out of his hands,
and so you need a release valve, and so a
(28:20):
man being able to function not just off the ball,
but as someone who can actually drive and initiate when
the ball is forced out of Jalen's hands, it's valuable
and at something the Rockets are going to lean more
into as Sjalen's production increases and as he draws more
attention from other teams who are determined to make someone
other than Jalen Green beat them. So a men just
(28:43):
a tremendous player. And again, I think it would be
a little premature to say that Jalen Green has just
miraculously figured it out solely because of a men. Thompson
certainly not hurting, but I think some of this is
hot shooting. But I do think that a man is
a good enough player overall. I would be stunned if
(29:06):
he doesn't start the rest of the way. It won't
be easy when Jabari Smith Junior comes back, because he's
been a starter for his first two plus seasons in
the league. But a men is just better. And unless
the results for the Rockets as a team or Jalen
and a Men individually go down significantly over the next
(29:28):
couple of weeks until Jabari comes back, likely in early February,
I would be very surprised if Emi Udoka doesn't say,
you know what, we're going to stick with what's working,
because the bottom line, a Men Thompson being able to
play thirty six thirty eight minutes per night, that's how
you get the best version of the Rockets. And will
(29:49):
it be a little bit delicate with egos, for sure?
It always is when you take someone who's been a
starter out of the starting lineup, and in Jabari's case,
I think he'd probably be the on coming out. I
don't think Javaris all that much worse than Dylan Brooks.
It's just politically easier for Jabari to be the guy
because A he's younger and b he's out right now,
so you can say, hey, we're just not going to
(30:10):
take away from what's working. But I think, well, Javari
is not a huge ego guy to begin with, and
even if he was, you can point to Tari Eason,
someone drafted in the same draft class, who when healthy,
has probably been a better NBA player to this date
than Jabari, and say, hey, if Tari can come off
the bench, so can you. And I don't think Jabari
(30:31):
is the type of guy who would look at it
as a slight. They know how deep this team is,
they know how good a men Thompson is. They practice
against him all the time, and so if someone has
to take a seat for a men to get to
thirty six thirty eight minutes, I think ultimately they'll be
willing to do it without rocking the boat. And I
think I may Udoka will do it as well. It
(30:54):
won't be easy, But I just think if a man
comes off the bench, I've spelled this out before or
but it's just impossible for him to get over twenty
eight to thirty minutes per game, because whoever starts is
going to play the first six minutes of the first
and third quarters. Barring extreme foul trouble, nobody makes a
sub that early. It just doesn't make sense. If you're
(31:15):
going to do that, why are you not just starting player?
You're summing in at like the nine minute mark, and
so if you're taking the first six minutes of the
first and second halves off the table, there's only thirty
six minutes left to potentially play, and to play thirty
six you would have to literally play all eighteen minutes
consecutively in the first half and the second half. That's ridiculous.
(31:37):
That's not going to happen. And so even if you
want to play someone off the bench of majority of
those minutes, they're going to at least have a two
or three minute stint at each half where they catch
their breath and they go to the bench. And so
because of that, you're artificially capping them at you know,
the twenty eight to thirty minute range, which a man
was averaging right at twenty eight minutes per game before
he went in the starting lineup in place of Jabari.
(31:59):
I know some will well, the Rockets didn't make the
change before, Why would they now? Because we're getting close
to the playoffs and the Rockets are to the number
two seed in the Western Conference. I don't know if
they're on the level of the Oklahoma City Thunder in
terms of legit contention. I tend to think they're still
not there. But if you're good enough to potentially get
to the Western Conference finals, to be the second best
(32:21):
team in a tough West, Margins matter. Opportunity is not
a lengthy visitor in the NBA, and I can't see
Emyudoka saying, yeah, we're just going to play a men
Thompson six eight minutes less per game for the sake
of politics, because it's easier politically in the locker room,
because I don't have to hurt someone's feelings. That does
(32:41):
not sound like emy Udoka to me. I think certainly
last year, but even to start this year. It's a
long season. There's a lot of players and things you're
trying to evaluate, and so in that environment, you can say,
you know what, even if we're not totally maxing out
a men Thompson, it's okay. There's a lot of things
are trying to balance. Now as you get into the
(33:03):
second half of the season and closer to the playoffs
and the team that's number two in the West, maximizing
margins is going to matter. The Rockets are not going
to act like, even if they're ahead of schedule, organizationally,
I think they are that this season is irrelevant and
that it's all gravy. No, there is an opportunity that
comes when you were this good and the men. Thompson
is a big part of unlocking that opportunity and taking
(33:24):
full advantage of it. And so I cannot see a
scenario where come March, April and hopefully May, he's not
playing thirty six plus minutes per night, assuming he's healthy,
and for him to do that, he's going to have
to start now. It doesn't have to be in place
of Jabari. It could be in place of Dylan Brooks
or somebody else, But I just think Jabari is someone
who would be the cleanest swap because you keep the
(33:47):
roles as they are right now and you just say, well,
we're not going to change up what's working, and we
can reevaluate how everything looks in the off season, or
who knows, maybe there's an injury somewhere else and Jabari
can step in at that time. Or maybe it's that
bringing Jabari off the bench and having him as a
backup five options for the matchups we're all for. In
(34:07):
Shangoon is really struggling defensively, as we saw at times
against the Grizzlies. When they'd get a switch in Desmond
Baine would cook Shangoon one on one. Maybe it becomes
easier lean into the switchable Jabari at the five lineups
if he's coming off the bench. I don't know. That's
another thing, but I think far and away the biggest
consideration is how do you max out at men Thompson's minutes?
(34:29):
And for a team that's number two in the West,
I don't think they're going to say, eh, because it's
easier in the locker room, We're going to go back
to playing a men twenty eight minutes and if it
hurts us a little bit, whatever, No, they're going to
maximize their chances of winning, and that means maximizing the
minutes of a men Thompson. It's that simple. He is,
on a permanent basis, the best player on this team
(34:50):
already at just twenty one years old in year two.
He is that good. And it's not a shot at
anyone else on the roster, not Jabari, not anyone else
that he might take the minutes from. It's just a
compliment to a men and how rare, how good his
skill set is. And so I wouldn't attribute everything of
this recent Jalen Greed surge to a men. Again, some
(35:12):
of that goes back to hot shooting, but I do
think that a men makes the game easier for everyone.
Certainly in some ways for Jalen, I think doing the
heavier lifting defensively, as he hinted at after the Memphis games,
that's part of it. But I think it just comes
down to your a better basketball team. When a men
(35:33):
Thompson plays, everyone benefits because of what he does on
both ends of the court, and so because of that,
you need to max out his minutes. That's going to
resolve itself over the next few weeks because of the
injuries to Jabbari and tare no confirmed return dates for either,
but even when those guys come back, a men is
in his own class. I think the Rockets know that,
(35:56):
and so because of that, I would be very very
prize barring a downturn at a team level or a
men individually over the next couple of weeks, I would
be very surprised if he comes out of the starting lineup.
One last thing I want to hit on before we
close out this mini pod. Kim Whitmore was grave against
(36:17):
the Grizzlies sixteen points, six of nine, shooting off the
bench four seven from three. But I think the play
he made at the end of the third quarter when
the clock was running down and he could have pulled
up for a mid range shot, but he kicked it
to Aaron Holliday in the corner for a buzzer beating
three that brought the Rockets back within five and really
(36:38):
choosed up the environment at Toyota Center for the closing
stretch of that game. That's something that Cam wouldn't have
done even at the start of this year. That's why
ima Udoka has had a tight leash with him. That's
why they've sent him to the G League. The talent
is there. We know what he can do. We know
he can score points at an NBA level when he
(37:00):
rolls out of bed. But plays like that are the
difference between good and great. I made that distinction with
Jalen and obviously there's things he's working on with Cam.
It's a little different in that physically, his stature is
different than Jalen Green. He has some gifts in terms
(37:21):
of his size and power that Jalen doesn't. Now, Jalen
is much more of a play creator. Cam at this
point is a play finisher. So again, it was never
an apples to apples comp but for Jalen to improve
or for Cam excuse me. To improve on those deficiencies.
He needs reps. And that's why, even though it was
delicate and clearly not easy on gayvs. Some of the
(37:42):
body language stuff is certainly real. There's been some frustration.
That's why the Rockets did it to get from good
to great to mitigate those deficiencies, make him more of
a team player, less tunnel vision, more aware in general
offensively to know where his teammates are, defensively not to
get lost off the ball and in the maze of screens.
(38:05):
He needs reps with the injuries. He's got that with
the Rockets right now, and I suspect he's shown enough
that they'll find a way to keep him in the
rotation even after everyone comes back. But that's why the
Rockets sent him down to the G League earlier. That's
why they've had a tight leash. The gifts are there,
and he can be a good player as is, but
(38:26):
he's not that far off from being a really good player.
There's just some clearing deficiencies that keep him from reaching
that next level. I think that game against the Grizzlies,
certainly the play where he found holiday with the assists,
but also jumping the passing lanes, making some big steels defensively,
that's that awareness off ball. You can see the light
(38:46):
bulb turning on, and I think that's a victory for
emi Udoka in this organization as well. That's why they've
had such a tight leash on him. To go back
to that analogy. It hasn't been easy, not for Cam,
not for theanization, because I think on some level there's
games where you could use Cam's juice, his scoring punch
when you just can't get you can't throw it in
(39:09):
the ocean the way it felt like the Rockets had
a stretch in December. But they are mindful of the
bigger picture, and the bigger picture is to have a
championship formula, you need to shore up some of these
glaring deficiencies so there aren't these holes. That's why they
sent Cam down and we are seeing clear progress. So
on an episode where we started talking about celebrating the
(39:29):
win of Jalen Green establishing a higher baseline, that's how
I would frame it. I think another win we should celebrate.
Cam Whitmore is making clear progress on some of those
deficiencies that we saw, certainly last year as a rookie
and coming out of Villanova, we know he was considered
raw and that's probably why he fell to twenty in
the draft in twenty twenty three. But we are seeing
(39:52):
those weaknesses improve. We are seeing exactly what the Rockets
wanted him to work on dividends, and so that's a
one that you should celebrate as well. Again, it's a
little thing. I think statistically that's always going to be
what stands out, and he words in sixteen points and
twenty more minutes on good efficiency, but watch the little things.
(40:13):
That's why they sent Cam down. And even if it
led to some awkward body language at times and a
weird interview and you know the vibes aren't quite right,
there's a bigger picture to this. That's why the Rockets
did what they did. And if this works out as
they hope and think that it will, then ultimately it's
gonna play a big role in achieving what we hope
(40:35):
is a championship ceiling down the line for this team. Anyway,
I'll bring the episode to a close right here. Just
wanted to hit on what we saw certainly Monday night
against the Grizzlies, but also just in general over the
last few weeks of Houston Rockets Basketball. Haven't had a
lot of episodes here at the logger Line because Paolo
has been under the weather, but we're all feeling so
good about the team today, I wanted to come out
(40:58):
with something and then hopefully we'll have a full episode
later in the week as Palo returns to health. Anyway,
until our next full show, this is where I will
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(41:18):
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I'm then Dubo's editor of USA Today's Rockets. To our
host of the logger Line Pod, thanks for listening and
please come back soon for another new episode. Go Rockets.
Cheers, Rockets fans, Welcome to the Logger Line, an exclusive
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Thanks for checking out another fresh episode of the logger Line,
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USA Today's Rockets Are and contributor to Sports Talk seven
ninety official Flag Show, Fordotiation of your Houston Rockets. Powlo
Owl's our usual co host and producer, has been a
bit under the weather the last few days. We hope
(00:59):
to have him back in the not two distant future,
but I did want to get an episode out in
the interim because it's been a very good week for
the Rockets. Ever since Aman Thompson came back from that
league suspension and joined the starting lineup in place of
the injured Jabari Smith Junior. The Rockets are four to
o and of those four wins, three have been at
the statement variety, one against the Lakers, with both Lebron
(01:20):
James and Anthony Davis playing well and two against the
Memphis Grizzlies, your closest competition for the number two seed
in the Western Conference. Rockets are now twenty six to
twelve and have a lead of three games in the
lost column over both Memphis and Denver for a top
two seed, and the Rockets, by virtue of going three
and oh against the Grizzlies and their four head to
head meetings this season, have already clenched the tiebreaker in
(01:44):
the event that the two teams end depth tied at
the end of this season. So lots to like on
the court these days, with the Rockets four straight wins
five of six overall, a lot of cushion for the
number two seed in the West as things stand on
this Tuesday morning, January fourteenth, So I wanted to do
a quick chat updating what we've seen the last few
(02:05):
games and what some of the bigger takeaways are, especially
within the context of the broader season and where the
Rockets are wanting to go. For me, the obvious headliner
is Jalen Green. I've been updating his stats on my
Twitter timeline at pendupos since Thanksgiving Eve, and they are incredible.
In nineteen games, that's officially half of the Rockets sample.
Right now, Jalen is averaging almost twenty four points per
(02:28):
game on better than sixty percent true shooting, forty seven
percent from the field, almost thirty nine percent from three
above eighty eight percent from the free throw line. He
tied his career high in just a feel good win
over the Grizzlies on Monday night forty two points and
really willed the Rockets back after John Morant hit a
(02:49):
shot with eight minutes left that put the Grizzlies up twelve.
It felt like, you know, the Rockets made several runs,
but that it just wasn't going to be enough. The
Grizzlies clearly want that game, and we're playing hard after
losing to the Rockets on their home court a few
nights earlier. The Grizzlies are a good team. They are
a top five offense, a top five defense. They went
into Minnesota in between these two games against the Rockets.
(03:13):
Of course, Houston had its game in Atlanta scrapped due
to ice on Saturday. But Minnesota is a good team
and Memphis went out there and led by John Morant
down the stretch, executed and won the game when it
mattered in a way that they could not do against
the Rockets, And so for Houston to bounce back from
(03:33):
a twelve point deficit with eight minutes to go, it
felt like undoing some of the damage and the scarring
of that Minnesota game a few weeks ago, not quite
to that extent, Minnesota was down sixteen to the Rockets
with about five minutes left. In this case, the Rockets
down twelve with eight minutes left, but still a fantastic comeback,
and Jalen Green was the big story. Every time it
(03:53):
felt like the Rockets were on the verge of being
knocked out, it seemed like Jalen had the answer. Right
after Jaw hit that three from nearly half court to
put the Grizzlies up twelve, Jalen responded with an and
one that got the Rockets back to single digits, and
it ended up sparking a sixteen to two run as
the Rockets put themselves in front entering the closing stages,
(04:14):
and then you know, Jalen hit the game winner with
thirty five seconds left, and the Rockets stopped Ja Morant
again down the stretch of that game and Men Thompson
playing fantastic defense, as really he's done the entire year,
but with the minutes being scaled up since since he
joined the starting lineup, it's even more obvious right now.
And we heard from Jalen Green post game. I thought
(04:36):
his comment was very telling about a men being able
to take on a heavier workload defensively. That's really helped
Jalen to conserve more of his energy for the offensive
endo the court, because if you watched how Jalen got
his points laid against the Grizzlies, he took a pounding
that one where he fouled Zach Edy out and got
(04:58):
to the free throw line trying to jump over a
seven foot four guy and absorbing that contact just to
get a couple of free throws. That's tough. You need
to be able to conserve your energy a bit with
easier matchups on the defensive end, and that's what postgame,
Jalen was clearly tipping his hat to a Men Thompson
for allowing him to do, even if he didn't want
(05:18):
to fully spell it out that hey, I'm taking some
possessions off defensively. Come on, we know how this works,
and so I would be very surprised for that reason
to many others if a Men Thompson comes out of
the starting lineup. I'll talk more about that in a
few minutes, because I want to lead off talking about
Jalen Green, because I think Jalen not just since the
calendar turned to twenty twenty five, Rockets are five and
(05:40):
one since then, and the only loss was to the
defending NBA champion in Boston Celtics, in a night when
you didn't have a Men Thompson, Jabari Smith Junior or
Tari East until you were extremely shorthanded in the defending
champs for playing well, that's what it took to beat
the Rockets. Other than that, they've been lights out since
the calendar turned to twenty twenty five, and Jalen Green
has been the biggest factor in why the Rockets have
(06:03):
played at that level. And so I want to start
talking about Jalen not just in the micro, but in
the macro, because I do think you can look at
this recent stretch, maybe even the nineteen games since Thanksgiving Eve,
and say there's some small sample sized theater to it
that he's just on a heater and against the Grizzlies. Look,
(06:24):
he was outstanding, but thirteen of eighteen overall, five of
six from three. It's tough to be that efficient against air.
So he is going to come back down to earth
at some point. As this week closes out, the Rockets
have a difficult road trip three games and four nights
at Denver, at Sacramento, at Portland. I don't think you
should expect Jalen Green to play like a top ten
(06:47):
player every single night the way he has for the
last six or so games, really ever since we got
to the new year. I think that would be an overreaction.
I think you know, there's been a lot made of
the improvements to Jalen's game since a men Thompson joined
the starting lineup. I mentioned the defensive connection. I also
think a men playing at a faster pace, what he
(07:10):
offers at the dunker slot, being able to move without
the ball function as something of a lob threat. I
think that benefits Jalen as well. But I also think, again,
some of this is just simply Jalen being hot right
now in much the same way he had the untradeable
Tour about this time a year ago. And then we
know what he did in March when he was a
very nearly Western Conference Player of the Month. I think
(07:33):
some of it is hot shooting that will stabilize. There's
perhaps some connection to a man joining the starting lineup,
but I don't think it's as simple as saying, a
man join the starting lineup and snap your fingers. Everything
has been fixed and now Jalen is a stunt now.
I don't think it's that simple. However, when you look
back to really this time a year ago, Jalen over
(07:53):
his last seventy eight games, and I posted this in
an X thread or an ex post, I should say, God,
I still want to call it Twitter. But ever since
the last forty games of last season and the first
thirty eight of this season, so last seventy eight game,
basically a full eighty two game season, Jalen is averaging
(08:14):
twenty one point seven points, five point one rebounds, three
point three assists per game, shooting about forty four percent
from the field, thirty four and a half percent on threes,
eighty four percent on free throws, true shooting percentage of
ride at fifty six, and he's averaging over thirty three
minutes per game during that stretch, that should tell you
that he's defending well enough that Emo Udoka does not
(08:36):
view him as a liability on that end, he's competing
and as far as winning, over the last sixty one
games of that sample ever since the end of February
last year, the Rockets are forty two to nineteen. That's
a sixty nine percent win clip, which equates to a
pace of fifty six plus wins for a full season.
And the reason I keep going back to the macro
(08:59):
rather than the mic grow is that it incorporates both
peaks and valleys. One of the things I really hate
with some of the Jalen Green discourse is this focus
on consistency and folks saying well, even if the average
numbers look pretty good in to give him sample, he
has so many peaks and valleys. We have these games
where he looks breathtaking Titus career high with forty two
points against the Grizzlies, and others where he really struggles well.
(09:20):
A lot of that comes with Jalen's archetype as a player.
For guards, especially smaller guards, there is going to be
more volatility because your formula depends on taking and ideally
making a decent amount of threes and getting to the
free throw line enough to boost your efficiency some night
should get the calls. He went to the line eleven
times against the Grizzlies on Monday night, and we heard
Jalen in the postgame locker room asked about his lock
(09:41):
his efficiency. He quickly pointed to that the first words
out of his mouth, basically saying, hey, you give me
the calls, I'll look much more efficient because I'm getting
to the line. And also those calls dictate how physical
other teams can guard him. If Jalen gets to line
much more frequently, they're not going to be as handsy,
they're not going to be as physical, and that's going
to help him make more shots because it changes the
way they defend him on his drives. So it's not
(10:03):
just the free throws that he gets. It also influences
the overall shot diet and how teams defend or don't
defend him on a given night. But the bottom line
is when you aren't a super freakishly large or athletic
type of player. Now Jalen is athletic, but he doesn't
combine it with overwhelming size, You're not going to be
(10:24):
getting the majority of your shots right at the rim,
and so because of that, there's going to be more volatility.
There always is if you're looking at guards, especially smaller
guards in the NBA, and in Jalen's case his archetype,
his value is strictly as a scorer. You're not asking
him to be a top shelf as cist guy or
(10:46):
a top shelf defender. I think sometimes if you're looking
at someone who might average tennisists per game, the volatility
is still there for that player as a scorer, but
it's not noted as much by the casual because if
he's putting up nine to ten eleven assists in a
given game, he's still stuffing the stat sheet. He still
(11:06):
looks really good on the box score, as opposed to
for someone of Jalen's archetype, someone you want to be
a tip of the spear scorer. If he's not doing
the scoring at a high or efficient level, that's going
to stand out much more because it's not like he
has those other elements of his game to pick up
the slack, at least statistically. Now, if you talk to
(11:27):
people inside the building it to outa center, they'll say
that even when Jalen is struggling. He still has a
large impact on games because of his willingness and ability
to take difficult shots, to challenge the defenses at all
three levels, to draw attention on the scouting reports. Even
if the shots aren't going in on a given night,
there's still a certain gravity that Jalen has. That's actually
(11:50):
a word that Aman Thompson used postgame talking about the
open looks he got in the fourth quarter off of
Jalen Breen drawing a second defender and then either Steven
Adams are all for inch and good making the play
on the short role and finding the men often out
of the dunker slot for either an easy bucket or
going to or drawing a foul to go to the
foul line as he did in the final ten seconds
to put the game away. I think if you talk
(12:11):
to people in the building, they'll say that even if
Jalen shoots five or fifteen on a given night, that
there's still a lot more value than that because of
how he changes the way defenses guard the rockets and
what he unlocks for other players. Yet, in terms of
the discourse on social media and on TV shows and whatnot,
(12:32):
that doesn't always get captured the same way it does
with a point guard who's averaging ten to eleven assists
per game. And so even if they score just fourteen
points on five to fifteen shootings something like that, well,
if they're putting up a double double, it's not going
to stand out as much. With Jalen it statistically stands
out a lot more, and so I think that tends
(12:53):
to drive the discourse a little bit, and sometimes overly so.
But to circle back to the main point in the
little tangent, you need to compare apples to apples. Don't
compare the volatility or lack thereof in a player like
Jannis or Jokic and look at them as the superstar
path that Jalen Green either needs to emulate or he's
(13:16):
just not ever gonna be at that level. He might
not be at that level, but if he does get
to that level, it's going to be with a very
different formula. And so again I think some of the
comps are just not taking into account who Jalen is
as a player, what his efficiency formula is going to
(13:36):
look like, because there are gonna inherently be a lot
of peaks and valleys. It's just par for the course.
When you have a player of Jalen Green's profile, his
physical stature, the Rockets know that. So I think, you know,
sometimes that can lead to some flawed discourse just at
(13:57):
the outset, because an expectation is being put on Jalen Green,
especially at twenty one, twenty two years old, that's just unfair.
With all that said, I would actually argue that because
of that, it's even more important to look at the averages,
the aggregate, the longer term trends. Someone point to the
peaks and valleys and say, well, when he cleans that up,
(14:18):
that's when he's really going to take the next step. No,
that's always going to be there. And so because of that,
it's even more important to look at the longer term trends,
the hot games, the cold games, to let everything normalize
and to see what the overall value looks like. And again,
ever since really the midpoint of last year, he's averaging
(14:39):
almost twenty two points per game on about fifty six
percent true shooting, five boards, over three assists per game,
respectable shooting. That's an above average starter at shooting guard
for a good NBA team. Actually, I call it a
good starter for a very good team. When you look
at again a fifty six plus win pace over their
last sixty one games. For Yllan at twenty two years old,
(15:02):
to be doing that in a full season's worth of data,
good starter on a very good team, that is tremendous.
That is something that should be celebrated. Now, that's not
to say that Jalen is the superstar that we all
wanted him to be when he was drafted at number
two overall in twenty twenty one. No, there's still another
(15:25):
leap that he needs to make to get to that level.
It would be very premature, just as it was last March,
to say that Jalen has flipped the switch and that
he's figured it out. No, until he does what he's
done the last few games, maybe you can argue the
last nineteen games on a much more permanent basis. I'm
inclined to think that this is just one of the
(15:47):
peaks in much the same way that when he struggled
coming out of the gate, really the first three three
and a half weeks of November, that that was a valley.
I'm looking at this in the aggregate at the longer
term trend. But even if we consider that the fair representation,
and I think it is to be a good starter
(16:07):
on a very good team at twenty two years old.
That's something to celebrate. That validates the extension at over
thirty million dollars a year that the Rockets gave to
him before the season. That is not easy to do
at twenty two years old at a position where it's
difficult to be a winning player because it's so easy
to be inefficient and you aren't bringing value in all
(16:27):
these other areas, or at least all these easily visible
other areas. I think the bus scenarios are off the table.
Jalen Green. We have enough evidence right now to say
he is a good starter on a very good team
that should be celebrated. Now, does that mean that he's
going to be here for ten to fifteen years and
he's going to win a championship as the best player
(16:48):
on the Rockets in a few years. Not necessarily. We
have established now that he is a good player. Whether
he can become a great player in the same class
as someone like Devin Booker or Donovan Mitch that's still
to be determined, and we'll see if he can make
that leap. But what I think we can celebrate today
is that the bus scenarios are off the table. Jalen
(17:10):
is good. He is contributing to winning right now, and
he has done so for basically a full calendar year.
There are still questions, and if he doesn't take another leap,
he's still got time again. Shooting guard is a tough
position to make an impact from a winning perspective. It
typically takes unto guys get twenty three to twenty four,
twenty five years old before they can really do that
(17:31):
on a consistent basis. So Jalen still has time. He
might get there, he might not, and if he doesn't,
then sure we can talk about trade scenarios down the line.
But what I think he has shown you right now
is that he is not going to miss worst case.
He's a solid player that will have certainly some value
in trades, but best case, and this is why I
(17:52):
don't think the Rockets are going to rush into trades.
And I've been saying that this for some time. The
Rockets want to give this a longer runway, certainly the
rest of this season then maybe beyond, to see if
they don't have to make a big trade, if guys
like Jalen can just take the next step organically and
make it work with the current foundation, because certainly the
(18:13):
stretch of January twenty twenty five, but really going back
to Thanksgiving Eve, we're on a sharp upper trend in
his trajectory. Time will tell as to how sustainable it is.
But I think when you tie it back in with
what we've seen really in the second half of last season,
it's pretty clear that this is not just statistical noise. No,
this is a good player still to be determined if
(18:35):
he can be great. But at twenty two years old
and just in year four, he's got plenty of time.
And in terms of why it sort of clicked for
Jalen midway through last year, I would urge people to
recall the specific circumstances that he had joining the Rockets
as a nineteen year old at the twenty twenty one
draft class. He was the one guy who had the
(18:57):
most bad habits to shape. Two full year of Steven
Silas ball and two full years as the focal point.
He was not functioning largely as a role player someone
like Alperin Shagon or Tari Easan. Jalen Green was the
focal point of multiple Steven silas years. I think he's
the only player that you can say that about, and
(19:21):
he plays a position where it is difficult to be
a winning player because so much of the formula depends
on efficiency. He's also undersize, he's not super physical, and
so you're bringing in a coach like imy Udoka that
wants physicality on defense, and a lot of things had
to change for Jalen Green, and I think because of that,
(19:45):
it took him some time longer than it did for
other guys on the roster to shake those bad habits
to be the player that he may wanted him to be.
We remember early last season all the times that Jalen
got benched in the fourth quarter because he maj just
did and trust him. Defensively, again, that's stopped. Even on
nights when Jalen isn't shooting well on the offensive end,
(20:07):
he's still finishing games. Jalen is trusted by the coaching
staff now again, averaging more than thirty three minutes per
game over basically the last year, the last seventy eight games.
He's also insanely durable. It started over one hundred and
forty games in a row, which in the load management
era of the NBA speaks to how seriously he puts
in work on his body in the off season and
(20:28):
staying in shape and getting more physical. We saw that
on the game winner, in which he absorbed some contact
and finished at the rim. Great feel, great athleticism, great strength,
So many things combined into one package. Jalen had to
do a lot of work. He had to shake a
lot of bad habits. So when you're looking at things
he has to do physically, mentally, and all the normal
(20:51):
things at a company. Being twenty one, twenty two years
old in the NBA and at a difficult position to
impact winning, it took him a little bit of time.
But ever since the midway point of last season, he
has been legitimately good. And I think we should celebrate that,
and I think we should throw the bus scenarios in
(21:13):
the trash that's off the table. And I think you
know one reason this is sort of surprising people locally
and certainly nationally. I think it's important to remember that
while statistics get sorted on a season by season basis
because it's more digestible that way, and the NBA crowns
a new champion each season, when it comes to an
(21:36):
individual players development. Those are arbitrary cutoff points. We can't
act like each season is its own distinct entity because
many times who a player is at the end of
six plus months and eighty plus games is very different.
Certainly with young players they get better, and conversely with
older players, sometimes they slip a lot as a season
(22:00):
progresses and they're in their thirties because they're on the
downhill side of their careers. So that's where it's important
to look at stats, not just through the lens of
how they look on the front page of ESPN or
Basketball Reference showing you what they're doing in this current season,
but also within the context of their careers. Because Jalen
(22:20):
did not forget how to do what he did in
March and January of last year. He just needed a
larger sample so that it could all sort itself out
and normalize, and that's what started to happen over certainly
the last six games, I would argue the last nineteen
ever since the day before Thanksgiving in Philadelphia when he
went for forty plus. Jalen did not forget how to
(22:41):
do what he did in the second half of last season.
He just got off to a bad start and so
because of that really wasn't bad start. He was good
through the first five games, and then just struggle for
most of November, the first fourteen games, if I recall,
but because that was virtually the entire sample for this season,
(23:01):
when you pull up his profile page on ESPN or
NBA dot Com or whatever it may be, it looks
worse than it is. It's so easy to say, hey,
this is your four Typically when guys start to take
the leap because they're eligible for contract extensions, and he's
putting up numbers that are just unacceptable from an efficiency standpoint,
it's easy to say that. But if you looked back
(23:23):
to last season, and not just the month of March,
but really the second half, it should have been clear
that the fourteen games that he struggled in early November
certainly not encouraging, But it also shouldn't have led to
the level of despair that it did for certain corners
of the fan base and certainly nationally, just the reputation
(23:44):
of Jalen Green. There was always hope that with time
this could stabilize, and that's exactly what's happened now. I
tend to believe that this current stretch is a little
exaggerated A men might help him some, but I think
a lot of it is just Jalen being hot, and
until proven otherwise, I think he's probably gonna revert back
(24:06):
to the guy that he's been for most of the
past year. Now. Maybe that's being too bearish. Maybe he's
turned another corner. I hope that's the case. Time will tell.
Let's see how the next few months unfold as the
Rockets get closer to what I think is at this point,
assuming there are no major injuries and inevitable playoff appearance,
there's gonna be playoff basketball at Aeria Center for the
(24:28):
first time since twenty nineteen, and I am so fricking
excited about it. But as far as Jalen, he's a
good starter on a very good team. That's how I'm
gonna close the loop on this discussion, and you should
celebrate it. The sample is not too small to say
that it is conclusive when you look back at how
he finished last season where he is halfway through this season,
(24:48):
again basically giving you a full season's worth of data,
And you remind yourself, or you should remind yourself, that
with young players, it doesn't always click in a symmetric
or linear fashion that at the start of year three,
the start of year four, that's when he's going to
take off statistically and the front page of his ESPN
(25:11):
profile is going to pop. You know. Sometimes it's midway
through a quarter of the way through three quarters of
the way through a given season, and then it largely
translates to the next season. But maybe the start is
a little bumpy, which it was this year. It's not
always going to be the most statistically digestible format, but
(25:31):
if you look at the entirety of the data, I
think enough it's there to where we can confidently say
this is not just a hot stretch for jail and Green.
He has figured out how to be a good, effective
starter in the NBA and that should be celebrated. Time
will tell if he can go from good to great.
I hope he can. I certainly wouldn't bet against him,
(25:53):
But for now I think we can say he is
confirmed good and given some of the dialogue as recently
as a month or so go, I think that's something
we should celebrate because Jalen's a guy who again he's
other than Jay Sharon Tate, the longest tenured guy on
the roster. He's been through, you know, certainly the highs now,
but the lowest of lows his first couple of years.
We know the vitriol he's taken on social media, and
(26:15):
so to see him getting to the other side of it,
I could not be more happy for him, certainly for
the Rockets individually again twenty six and twelve, and they've
got more big games coming up at Denver tomorrow night.
That's going to be big. But the big story is
Jalen individually, because not only has he helping you win
games now in terms of the longer term formula, he's
(26:36):
showing you that at a bare minimum, he can be
a valuable piece of that, and maybe he can be
one of the lead pieces of that's still again, only
twenty two years old. I know it feels like he's
been here a while because it's your four but in
NBA years, he's still pretty young in the grand scheme
and still has lots of time to improve, as we've
seen the last few weeks. All right, So to close
(26:57):
out this episode, wanted to spend most of this a
mini episode without Powell, who's been a bit under the weather.
I want to talk about what we've seen from Jalen Green.
I also want to talk about a Men Thompson, who
has been tremendous since joining the starting lineup in place
of Jabari Smith Junior. On a permanent basis, I think
it's pretty clear that he is the best player on
this team. We know how elite he is defensively, with
(27:18):
the athleticism, the versatility, the length, can basically guard anybody
one through five. Offensively, we know certainly how he can
function off ball, but he's also doing a bit more
on ball in terms of creation reps, and so the
Rockets are able to transition Fred Vanvlee to something more
of an off ball roll. He shot only five shots
(27:38):
last night, which, by the way, kudos to Fred for,
despite not really being in rhythm, still making one of
the biggest three's biggest shots of the game, the three
that put the Rockets up with about four minutes left.
And Fred, even despite shooting just five times of the game,
actually made two of his three from distance, including that
big one in the final four minutes or so of
(27:59):
that game. But A Men is a guy who because
of his ability to handle the ball, we know he
was drafted as a point guard. The Rockets are leaning
on him a little bit more because when Jalen gets going,
we know the way defenses are going to try to
double and trap him, get the ball out of his hands,
and so you need a release valve, and so a
(28:20):
man being able to function not just off the ball,
but as someone who can actually drive and initiate when
the ball is forced out of Jalen's hands, it's valuable
and at something the Rockets are going to lean more
into as Sjalen's production increases and as he draws more
attention from other teams who are determined to make someone
other than Jalen Green beat them. So a men just
(28:43):
a tremendous player. And again, I think it would be
a little premature to say that Jalen Green has just
miraculously figured it out solely because of a men. Thompson
certainly not hurting, but I think some of this is
hot shooting. But I do think that a man is
a good enough player overall. I would be stunned if
(29:06):
he doesn't start the rest of the way. It won't
be easy when Jabari Smith Junior comes back, because he's
been a starter for his first two plus seasons in
the league. But a men is just better. And unless
the results for the Rockets as a team or Jalen
and a Men individually go down significantly over the next
(29:28):
couple of weeks until Jabari comes back, likely in early February,
I would be very surprised if Emi Udoka doesn't say,
you know what, we're going to stick with what's working,
because the bottom line, a Men Thompson being able to
play thirty six thirty eight minutes per night, that's how
you get the best version of the Rockets. And will
(29:49):
it be a little bit delicate with egos, for sure?
It always is when you take someone who's been a
starter out of the starting lineup, and in Jabari's case,
I think he'd probably be the on coming out. I
don't think Javaris all that much worse than Dylan Brooks.
It's just politically easier for Jabari to be the guy
because A he's younger and b he's out right now,
so you can say, hey, we're just not going to
(30:10):
take away from what's working. But I think, well, Javari
is not a huge ego guy to begin with, and
even if he was, you can point to Tari Eason,
someone drafted in the same draft class, who when healthy,
has probably been a better NBA player to this date
than Jabari, and say, hey, if Tari can come off
the bench, so can you. And I don't think Jabari
(30:31):
is the type of guy who would look at it
as a slight. They know how deep this team is,
they know how good a men Thompson is. They practice
against him all the time, and so if someone has
to take a seat for a men to get to
thirty six thirty eight minutes, I think ultimately they'll be
willing to do it without rocking the boat. And I
think I may Udoka will do it as well. It
(30:54):
won't be easy, But I just think if a man
comes off the bench, I've spelled this out before or
but it's just impossible for him to get over twenty
eight to thirty minutes per game, because whoever starts is
going to play the first six minutes of the first
and third quarters. Barring extreme foul trouble, nobody makes a
sub that early. It just doesn't make sense. If you're
(31:15):
going to do that, why are you not just starting player?
You're summing in at like the nine minute mark, and
so if you're taking the first six minutes of the
first and second halves off the table, there's only thirty
six minutes left to potentially play, and to play thirty
six you would have to literally play all eighteen minutes
consecutively in the first half and the second half. That's ridiculous.
(31:37):
That's not going to happen. And so even if you
want to play someone off the bench of majority of
those minutes, they're going to at least have a two
or three minute stint at each half where they catch
their breath and they go to the bench. And so
because of that, you're artificially capping them at you know,
the twenty eight to thirty minute range, which a man
was averaging right at twenty eight minutes per game before
he went in the starting lineup in place of Jabari.
(31:59):
I know some will well, the Rockets didn't make the
change before, Why would they now? Because we're getting close
to the playoffs and the Rockets are to the number
two seed in the Western Conference. I don't know if
they're on the level of the Oklahoma City Thunder in
terms of legit contention. I tend to think they're still
not there. But if you're good enough to potentially get
to the Western Conference finals, to be the second best
(32:21):
team in a tough West, Margins matter. Opportunity is not
a lengthy visitor in the NBA, and I can't see
Emyudoka saying, yeah, we're just going to play a men
Thompson six eight minutes less per game for the sake
of politics, because it's easier politically in the locker room,
because I don't have to hurt someone's feelings. That does
(32:41):
not sound like emy Udoka to me. I think certainly
last year, but even to start this year. It's a
long season. There's a lot of players and things you're
trying to evaluate, and so in that environment, you can say,
you know what, even if we're not totally maxing out
a men Thompson, it's okay. There's a lot of things
are trying to balance. Now as you get into the
(33:03):
second half of the season and closer to the playoffs
and the team that's number two in the West, maximizing
margins is going to matter. The Rockets are not going
to act like, even if they're ahead of schedule, organizationally,
I think they are that this season is irrelevant and
that it's all gravy. No, there is an opportunity that
comes when you were this good and the men. Thompson
is a big part of unlocking that opportunity and taking
(33:24):
full advantage of it. And so I cannot see a
scenario where come March, April and hopefully May, he's not
playing thirty six plus minutes per night, assuming he's healthy,
and for him to do that, he's going to have
to start now. It doesn't have to be in place
of Jabari. It could be in place of Dylan Brooks
or somebody else, But I just think Jabari is someone
who would be the cleanest swap because you keep the
(33:47):
roles as they are right now and you just say, well,
we're not going to change up what's working, and we
can reevaluate how everything looks in the off season, or
who knows, maybe there's an injury somewhere else and Jabari
can step in at that time. Or maybe it's that
bringing Jabari off the bench and having him as a
backup five options for the matchups we're all for. In
(34:07):
Shangoon is really struggling defensively, as we saw at times
against the Grizzlies. When they'd get a switch in Desmond
Baine would cook Shangoon one on one. Maybe it becomes
easier lean into the switchable Jabari at the five lineups
if he's coming off the bench. I don't know. That's
another thing, but I think far and away the biggest
consideration is how do you max out at men Thompson's minutes?
(34:29):
And for a team that's number two in the West,
I don't think they're going to say, eh, because it's
easier in the locker room, We're going to go back
to playing a men twenty eight minutes and if it
hurts us a little bit, whatever, No, they're going to
maximize their chances of winning, and that means maximizing the
minutes of a men Thompson. It's that simple. He is,
on a permanent basis, the best player on this team
(34:50):
already at just twenty one years old in year two.
He is that good. And it's not a shot at
anyone else on the roster, not Jabari, not anyone else
that he might take the minutes from. It's just a
compliment to a men and how rare, how good his
skill set is. And so I wouldn't attribute everything of
this recent Jalen Greed surge to a men. Again, some
(35:12):
of that goes back to hot shooting, but I do
think that a men makes the game easier for everyone.
Certainly in some ways for Jalen, I think doing the
heavier lifting defensively, as he hinted at after the Memphis games,
that's part of it. But I think it just comes
down to your a better basketball team. When a men
(35:33):
Thompson plays, everyone benefits because of what he does on
both ends of the court, and so because of that,
you need to max out his minutes. That's going to
resolve itself over the next few weeks because of the
injuries to Jabbari and tare no confirmed return dates for either,
but even when those guys come back, a men is
in his own class. I think the Rockets know that,
(35:56):
and so because of that, I would be very very
prize barring a downturn at a team level or a
men individually over the next couple of weeks, I would
be very surprised if he comes out of the starting lineup.
One last thing I want to hit on before we
close out this mini pod. Kim Whitmore was grave against
(36:17):
the Grizzlies sixteen points, six of nine, shooting off the
bench four seven from three. But I think the play
he made at the end of the third quarter when
the clock was running down and he could have pulled
up for a mid range shot, but he kicked it
to Aaron Holliday in the corner for a buzzer beating
three that brought the Rockets back within five and really
(36:38):
choosed up the environment at Toyota Center for the closing
stretch of that game. That's something that Cam wouldn't have
done even at the start of this year. That's why
ima Udoka has had a tight leash with him. That's
why they've sent him to the G League. The talent
is there. We know what he can do. We know
he can score points at an NBA level when he
(37:00):
rolls out of bed. But plays like that are the
difference between good and great. I made that distinction with
Jalen and obviously there's things he's working on with Cam.
It's a little different in that physically, his stature is
different than Jalen Green. He has some gifts in terms
(37:21):
of his size and power that Jalen doesn't. Now, Jalen
is much more of a play creator. Cam at this
point is a play finisher. So again, it was never
an apples to apples comp but for Jalen to improve
or for Cam excuse me. To improve on those deficiencies.
He needs reps. And that's why, even though it was
delicate and clearly not easy on gayvs. Some of the
(37:42):
body language stuff is certainly real. There's been some frustration.
That's why the Rockets did it to get from good
to great to mitigate those deficiencies, make him more of
a team player, less tunnel vision, more aware in general
offensively to know where his teammates are, defensively not to
get lost off the ball and in the maze of screens.
(38:05):
He needs reps with the injuries. He's got that with
the Rockets right now, and I suspect he's shown enough
that they'll find a way to keep him in the
rotation even after everyone comes back. But that's why the
Rockets sent him down to the G League earlier. That's
why they've had a tight leash. The gifts are there,
and he can be a good player as is, but
(38:26):
he's not that far off from being a really good player.
There's just some clearing deficiencies that keep him from reaching
that next level. I think that game against the Grizzlies,
certainly the play where he found holiday with the assists,
but also jumping the passing lanes, making some big steels defensively,
that's that awareness off ball. You can see the light
(38:46):
bulb turning on, and I think that's a victory for
emi Udoka in this organization as well. That's why they've
had such a tight leash on him. To go back
to that analogy. It hasn't been easy, not for Cam,
not for theanization, because I think on some level there's
games where you could use Cam's juice, his scoring punch
when you just can't get you can't throw it in
(39:09):
the ocean the way it felt like the Rockets had
a stretch in December. But they are mindful of the
bigger picture, and the bigger picture is to have a
championship formula, you need to shore up some of these
glaring deficiencies so there aren't these holes. That's why they
sent Cam down and we are seeing clear progress. So
on an episode where we started talking about celebrating the
(39:29):
win of Jalen Green establishing a higher baseline, that's how
I would frame it. I think another win we should celebrate.
Cam Whitmore is making clear progress on some of those
deficiencies that we saw, certainly last year as a rookie
and coming out of Villanova, we know he was considered
raw and that's probably why he fell to twenty in
the draft in twenty twenty three. But we are seeing
(39:52):
those weaknesses improve. We are seeing exactly what the Rockets
wanted him to work on dividends, and so that's a
one that you should celebrate as well. Again, it's a
little thing. I think statistically that's always going to be
what stands out, and he words in sixteen points and
twenty more minutes on good efficiency, but watch the little things.
(40:13):
That's why they sent Cam down. And even if it
led to some awkward body language at times and a
weird interview and you know the vibes aren't quite right,
there's a bigger picture to this. That's why the Rockets
did what they did. And if this works out as
they hope and think that it will, then ultimately it's
gonna play a big role in achieving what we hope
(40:35):
is a championship ceiling down the line for this team. Anyway,
I'll bring the episode to a close right here. Just
wanted to hit on what we saw certainly Monday night
against the Grizzlies, but also just in general over the
last few weeks of Houston Rockets Basketball. Haven't had a
lot of episodes here at the logger Line because Paolo
has been under the weather, but we're all feeling so
good about the team today, I wanted to come out
(40:58):
with something and then hopefully we'll have a full episode
later in the week as Palo returns to health. Anyway,
until our next full show, this is where I will
break it, and if you want more content before then,
follow me on Twitter, slash x at Bendubo's Polo at
Palo ALVE's NBA in the show at the logger Line,
or if you hit the link tree in the bio,
you can find links to our distributors Apple, Google, Spotify, subscribe,
(41:18):
leave positive review if you have not already, but also
our friends partner sponsors of the program WORKSHOF seven ninety
USA Today's Rockets are Carver by Brewing. Hit up their
links and you can enjoy their content as well. All
right with the blods fleet, we will adjourn until next time.
I'm then Dubo's editor of USA Today's Rockets. To our
host of the logger Line Pod, thanks for listening and
please come back soon for another new episode. Go Rockets.
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