I'm not sure why people are even shocked at performances like that. He's had them since his rookie year. His problem was never the ability to have monster scoring games, his problem was not being able to do it all of the time and instead having 1 third of his games as an average starter, 1 third of his games as total trash and then a third where he varied between solid starter and actual superstar production. Genuinely has insane games every year of his career with ridiculous efficiency in said games (more than most players have in their entire career tbh) but that was never the problem...
apparently it can. My understanding is that the Suns were trying to reroute Jalen for a draft pick, but couldn’t. Getting off Jalen’s bad contract was one of the big reasons I thought the trade was a home run.
I thought so too, but it seems like less of one now. I don't think any of us realized how huge Dillon Brooks was for our team culture, or exactly how toxic KD could be in that regard. Still probably a good trade in isolation though, especially if we can turn around and flip KD for a FRP to replace the one we used acquiring him.
sadly we don’t even have anyone on our team currently who can do this for 1/3 of the season… KD is only a consistent scorer throughout the game
I think even more sadly, the guy we had who was able to do it could never get his **** together enough to be a consistent performer. If he did we'd be legit contenders. It's not in his favour that we had to move him because he was never reliable. Jalen not living up to his expectations is actually the #1 reason we didn't keep up with our contemporaries in their rebuild and are probably going to have to go for round 2. It's actually ****ed up how many 30-40+ point games he has with over 50% from the field AND 50% from deep for somebody who never actually broke out as even a solid starter. I was a huge Jalen fan as I'm sure most will remember, and I wish all the best to him, but he is easily the person most responsible for our rebuild failing so far.
it’s not 100% on JG - Rockets dropped the ball by never giving him a vet SG to learn from, and Ime offensive system we also see is a total mess once teams decide to key on 1 player …. I look at the growth/variety in JG game just from learning from Booker this season - just like we are seeing Bari learn and take from KD
Variety in his game and his worst efficiency ever on the season. It's on-brand for Jalen tbh. Like I say, I wish him all the best, but he's still clearly not even hit half of his potential based on his flashes. Most players who flash like he did are chasing MVP's and chips by the time they're his age, you realise that right? It might not be 100% on him, but it's still heavily his fault more than most other people that our rebuild didn't go as planned.
This team's future would already be a lot brighter if Jalen had "only" been as good of a shooter as a guy like Austin Reaves. Would have put us in a lot stronger of a position to make trades to balance out the flawed roster construction, and we wouldn't be relying on a soon to be 38yo KD to carry our offense. It's a shame he couldn't even be a #2 option and looks likely to end up as a bench player.
That's what I'm saying though. If he actually hit the potential his flashes showed, we'd be a legit contender. We'd be up there with OKC and the Spurs and we would never have had to make the trade for KD at all. HIs flashes are genuinely top 5-10 player level, that's what makes the disappointment even worse for me. I'd rather he was just a bust from the start rather than someone who showed at times he can clearly be a transcendent player on offense. He actually has quite a lot of 30+ point games on better than 50% from the field and 40% from 3, like more than almost anybody else in the league did at the same age. I've not actually managed to find a comparable player anywhere in NBA history who has those level of superstar peaks and didn't actually become a superstar, I've genuinely looked.
Wait, so he had a random fluke hot game in a disastrous season overall from him? Have we ever seen this before?
One difference is: His 3P% does not suck overall. Another difference is, he showed significant year-to-year improvement, which is something Jalen never really did. All of that said, I've been very vocal in stating that Reed needs to either/or: Improve his consistency and become a truly elite 3P shooter, or find another level in other parts of his game like defense and passing, if he wants to be a starting caliber guard on a championship team. If he were to just stay at this level, he would be a 6th man IMO. I do have more hope he'll keep improving than I eventually did with Jalen, but we'll see.
Jalen is actually least efficient this season in his career. But I'd give him some slack for coming back from injury and missing Booker for a little while. His per minute assists and rebounds are pretty much the same as when he was with us.
Rockets legend? That’s a bedtime story... Is this the Phoenix Suns forum? Two games later when he plays like trash, you’ll all disappear. We’re not surprised anymore when you show up after one good game. He’s not a Rockets player anymore—if you’re gonna cry for him, go sign up for the Phoenix Suns forum. Even on the Phoenix forums they talk about how inconsistent he is. They got it, but here some people still don’t. JG a Rockets legend? That’s disrespectful to the real legends like Olajuwon, Malone, Yao Ming, Clyde Drexler, Murphy, and Harden. Here is Suns forum link. :Phoenix Suns - RealGM , Suns/NBA - Phx-Suns.Net
Literally every ex-Rocket scrub gets the tag "Rockets Legend." It's a forum meme you dumbass, you're clearly a SOF though with how butt hurt you're getting over people discussing an ex-player (most of whom not even that favourably) in a forum where it's literally says right at the top of the ****ing page you can discuss ex-Rockets.
“Sure, talk about it—but this is for the ones who pop up only after a good game. Thinking he’ll ever be consistent is just dumb. We all saw last year’s playoffs. Some legends are just myths. The only downside of that trade was losing Brooks. Calling me SOF without knowing a thing about me is hilarious.
