We’ve Never Seen This Version of Jalen Green

We’ve Never Seen This Version of Jalen Green

The third-year leap is this idea that a player who’s projected to become a star caliber player usually experiences that Ascension in their third season there’s a problem with this thinking though and it’s that it places all players into one confined timeline of development when the reality is that Player Development

Often times is far from a linear thing a lot of people think that Player Development looks like this when the reality is that it’s more often like this it’s very predictable highly volatile and it’s far from having any fixed parameters Jaylen green has been a fantastic example of this Jaylen green

Had a promising rookie year where he showed plenty of flashes on a team that wasn’t under any pressure to win his sophomore season he took a little bit of a step back in some areas but there were some factors working against him like a lack of reliable coaching and a less

Than ideal infrastructure around him this year though the Rockets were clearly aiming for a playoff push given the offseason moves that they made so the pressure was on when jayen green didn’t immediately take that next step this season there was a rush to give up

On him and even calls for the Rockets to throw him out into the trade market to see what kind of return they could get for him but based on what we’ve seen from him over this recent stretch of the Season he looks like an entirely different player over his last 15 games

Jaylen green is averaging 28 points six rebounds 3 and 1 half assists and he’s shooting 48.2% from the field along with 42.3% from three on nearly 10 attempts a night the best part about all of this aside from just having good box score numbers is that it’s leading to wins the

Rockets are on a 10 game win streak right now and Jaylen green has been a major part of that success for Jaylen green we’ve established that at a ground level things are going to start with his scoring he’s a ridiculous athlete he’s an incredibly gifted ball handler very

Shifty and he has absolutely no problem creating space to get a shots off that’s where it all begins with him but what’s more important than the shot creation ability is that he isn’t just strictly scoring in isolation and slowing down the offense he’s scoring within the flow

Of the offense at a high level and everything’s just coming to him naturally when he’s operating as the pick and roll ball handler and teams are opting to use drop coverage against him he’s using that as an opportunity to generate high percentage threes over the last 15 games he’s shooting around 40%

From three as the pick and roll ball handler which is a testament to his ability to punish this drop coverage this shooting ability extends to when Houston draws up plays for him to get the ball coming off of offall screens allowing him to read defenses and decide

What the best course of action is depending on how they’re set up and you can really see how good he’s gotten at reading the floor when he’s coming off of those screens if his Defender gets hung up on the screen and he has the space he can pull the trigger for those

Movement threes if the defense is pulled too far back leaving space inside the arc open for him to attack he can use that ridiculous athleticism and burst to get going downhill and get himself good looks at The Rim if the defense runs him off the three-point line but they’ve

Established a good defensive presence in the paint to try and prevent a drive to the basket he’s been able to work in that in between area for mid-range pull-up jumpers that three-level ability as a score inherently makes him a lot more difficult to game plan against

You’ve got to have guys to run him off the three-point line and fight over screens plus you have to have the Defenders available to contain him when he’s driving off those screens and then if that mid-range becomes a reliable aspect of his game like it has been

Lately then you’ve also got to make sure that there’s going to be somebody there in the vicinity to prevent that on the season as a whole he’s shooting 62% at The Rim 40% on Long mid-range shots and 39% on corner 3es and 34% on non- Corner threes but in this recent 15 game

Stretch he’s shooting 67% at the 44% on Long mid-range shots 47% from the corner and 42% on non- Corner threes that’s a drastic improvement making him a multi-level scorer that can play both on and off the ball to be a versatile offensive threat depending on what you

Need him to do on any given night this Elite level of scoring that he’s reached over the last couple of months naturally leads us into his Improvement as a playmaker one of the biggest developments to Jaylen Green’s game has been an overall Improvement as a passer and playmaker and that was something

Coming into this year that a lot of people wanted to see from him the thing with Jaylen is that he has absolutely no issue creating his own shot but now that the shots are falling defenses are going to be significantly more keyed in on him and that’s going to allow him to

Leverage the scoring ability into open looks for his teammates to generate highly efficient offense let’s take a look at how OKC defended him in the game last night to see this in Act he’d bring the ball up the floor and it would look like they’re

Going to set up for a pick and roll and OKC would hedge against him in the pick and roll and green was able to make the right reads each time that it happened to get the ball to the open man so that they could capitalize on the advantage

That was created from that initial hedge one of his most valuable assets as a primary offensive facilitator is how good he is at knifing through defenses in splitting two Defenders you’ve got two Defenders here on the ball with landale and green and green is just going to split both of them and force

Kabali into help and with Fred Van vet flaring in the corner and Brooks setting this pin in screen Green’s Drive leaves the defense completely out of position so nobody’s going to be there to rotate and contest that corner three the driving threat usually Forces help from

The backline of defense and when he gets by a Kong wo here Johnson is going to slide over off of Jabari Smith Jr and greed’s going to make the right read to connect with him for the corner three the fact that Jaylen green is not only

Only good enough of a scorer to generate this type of defensive attention but also that he’s aware of the fact that he’s generating this much defensive attention is what’s really allowed his overall playmaking ability to be unlocked drawing all that defensive attention means very little if you’re not leveraging it into opportunities for

Your team all it does is wind up in you taking a lot of contested shots and don’t get me wrong Jaylen green takes his fair share of contested shots but the difference now is that he knows when to take those shots and when to defer to his teammates because he knows he’s

Created a good look an added bonus is the fact that he’s been connecting on some very tight passing windows so even when Defenders aren’t making a ton of mistakes and they’re more disciplined against him and not overh helping he’s still able to create high percentage looks by being able to thread the needle

Through small confined passing windows so he can capitalize on defensive mistakes and openings this was the next leap that Jaylen green needed to make to his game the base level was the scoring we’ve established that but what separates an All-Star caliber player from a microwave scoring sixthman Off

The Bench is whether or not that score can be a primary fulcrum and backbone of an efficient offense the assist numbers are still on the lower end for Jaylen green but I don’t think that’s going to last long plus the defensive attention that he’s been getting is probably only

Going to increase once teams realize that they have to be a lot more intentional about not giving up anything easy to him as a scorer and probably one of the most noticeable improvements from him lately has been how impactful he’s been as a Defender he’s been very much

Engaged on the defensive end and while it’s difficult to stand out on defense with how solid Houston’s overall defensive infrastructure is green has been able to hold his own and not get targeted by opposing offenses at least not successfully he does a great job of containing drives without fouling and

That athleticism that we see him make use of so often on the offensive end is something that he’s able to let into blocked shots on the defensive end he’s an active Rotator and even though sometimes he can overhelmed as long as he’s consistently capable of being at least a neutral

Defensively then the offensive contributions that you’re going to get from him are going to outweigh any defensive downsides that you might get taking a look at his estimated plus minus which is one of the few Advanced stats that I think does a good job of measuring overall Improvement the

Improvement is clear as day a frequent talking point with Jaylen green that’s been pared lately in regards to his recent breakout is that he always turns it up over the last 15 20 20 25 games of the season to that I’d say this year there’s been some pretty clear

Differences one in Prior years the extent to which he’s improved for the final 25 games or so isn’t even close to the Improvement that he’s shown during the final stretch this year you can clearly see that his numbers during this stretch are notably better in all areas

Aside from just raw assist numbers and I’d argue the film from this recent stretch supports the idea that his passing right now is the best that it’s ever been even if his raw assist numbers are lower in second this leap that he’s taking at the end of the year is

Contributing to wins the Rockets have the longest active winning streak in the NBA and I don’t think that would be happening if Jaylen green was just putting up quote unquote empty numbers Jaylen green is once again another perfect example of why you shouldn’t give up on young players in particular

Young scorers that are thrust into less than ideal situations green was always going to need some time to develop and I think a lot of people forget that he just turned 22 years old Player Development is far from a linear thing in green could still run into some bumps

In the road but the Improvement that he’s shown lately doesn’t seem like it’s just a flash in the pan it’s a replicatable blueprint for future success in an infrastructure that allows him to lean into what he does best hope you guys enjoyed this video I’d appreciate it if you considered leaving

A like and subscribing if you’re new to the channel and you like this this kind of stuff shout out to all my patrons for supporting the channel thank you all so much for watching and I’ll see you in the next one

Jalen Green has been on a tear recently, helping the Houston Rockets make a strong push for a playoff spot as we approach the end of the 2023-24 NBA season. At the start of the year, it was unclear how Jalen Green was gonna fit into the Houston Rocket’s long term plans due to his shaky play. But over the course of the last 15-20 games, Jalen Green has been on fire and solidifying himself as a fantastic player to have on your roster.

Despite the Alperen Sengun injury, the Rockets are close to beating out some other teams in the Western Conference for a play-in spot, and I took a look at how Jalen Green has been the primary catalyst behind it all.

➥ 𝙎𝙪𝙗𝙨𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙗𝙚: https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexHoops?sub_confirmation=1
➥ 𝙏𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧: https://twitter.com/AlexHoops_
➥ 𝘽𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙖 𝙋𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙣: https://patreon.com/AlexHoops

➥ 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙢𝙚
Providing NBA analysis by making film digestible and using analytics thoughtfully to contextualize on-court production. I cover the NBA in various capacities as a writer and digital content creator. If you love basketball and the NBA, be sure to subscribe to my channel.

DISCLAIMER: I do not claim ownership of any footage or clips used in this video. The use of these clips is protected under Fair Use Policy.

#JalenGreen #HoustonRockets #NBA