Has Jalen Green Finally Arrived?

3 improvements that are changing the way we think about the Rockets’ young star

Plenty has been written about all of the question marks attached to Jalen Green’s role and future with the Rockets that I don’t need to retread each note. He was incredibly disappointing for the majority of his first three seasons, with highs that made the overall disappointment even more frustrating to endure. He struggled to score consistently and brought very little to the table when the shot wasn’t falling.

Then comes March of 2024, when the old Jalen died and a new one was born. Then, the season ended… and fans were forced to wonder if “new Jalen” was a flash in a pan or a permanent resident of this Houston Rockets team. Fast forward to the early stages of the 2024 season, believers in the star trajectory of the 22 year old Fresno native, like myself, are being vindicated for all their patience and long suffering in the face of the naysayers. The real question is, has Jalen Green finally arrived?

Let’s look at the three most impactful changes that are reshaping the way the NBA landscape thinks about Jalen Green.

Fluid Decisiveness

I know it’s an oxymoron. What better way to start off an explanation of what has made Green so much better this year. Last season, we saw Jalen get benched many times in large part because of his inability to make the right reads with the ball in his hands. Instead of deciphering what he could get from the defense with his blinding athleticism and potential shot-making, whether it be getting to the basket, creating separation for a quality three point attempt, or getting a teammate open and delivering an accurate pass, he would go into each possession already knowing how he was going to finish the play. At least, that’s what was clear to the viewer.

This season, coach Udoka is already praising the fourth year guard’s growth when it comes to making the right reads on ball. He’s clearly developed in his feel for the game both as a scorer and setup man for his teammates and has grown in confidence at the same time. This makes it possible for him to adjust to what the defense is doing, making him fluid, while he is able to make an effected read and get the right play started with confidence, making him decisive. Thus, fluid decisiveness. Take the play below for example…

Jalen collects the inbound then backs out with the aggressive defender, Marshall, ready to smother him. He waits for the Adams screen and as soon as he recognize that the only thing standing between him and the basket is a slow-footed Powell he accelerates to the cup and finishes what should have been an and-1 opportunity. We saw him do similar things to Wembanyama and other centers whenever they get caught in between drop and playing the ball handler off the screen.

The other side of his improved scoring is his ability to make the right pass at the right time. He made the most important decision of the game to close out the Spurs while running one of the Rockets’ go-to late game actions:

It might look like the obvious move, but years 1-3 Jalen would be very likely to take matters into his own hands and potentially force a difficult shot out of a double team or by confronting Wembanyama at the rim. Like Lachard Binkley notes in the post, one of the great signs that Green’s playmaking has greatly improved is his ability to simply make the right play at the right time.

He’s not predetermining who he’s going to be on any given possession, but once he makes his mind up he seeing it through with confidence. That’s why we’re calling it fluid decisiveness and that’s the first of three ways Green is showing off his new form.

Defensive stability

This one might present the biggest challenge when your arguing with the casual fans in your life. Green has objectively been a negative on defense for most of his career. It’s not 100% his fault because of the situation he found himself in on a terrible defensive team, but it’s definitely not NOT his fault. He spent the first two and two-thirds of his time in the Association looking lost and moveable, two things you never want to see in a league full of guards who are getting bigger and craftier.

Fight the knee jerk reaction to what you’re about the read. Jalen Green has been a good defender. I know, I know. “Big deal! Do you know how many good defenders there are in the leage?” Yes I do, and the shooting guard on my favorite team has turned into one of them. Per NBA.com, he held opponents to a 37.5 DFG% (Defended Field Goal Percentage) on 12.8 attempts per game in October. He’s staying in front of creative ball handlers and finishers and using his vertical to affect jumpers with close outs.

Look at this from game one:

Yes, that is not against a particularly explosive creator. Fair enough. Regardless of who he is (Vasilije Micić), there’s no arguing how solid this defense is from Green. He’s shown us this several other times throughout the first six games, with the loudest exceptions coming from his most recent disappointment against the Warriors.

One of the key reasons for Green’s defensive development is his ability to use his S-tier athleticism to become a playmaker. He’s been more active in the passing lanes, better at recovering and scrambling, and shown he can be a difference maker if he has the chance to elevate against an elite shot maker like a Kyrie Irving.

Still room for improvement, of course, but his ability to go from a negative on defense to someone that Ime Udoka should be willing to trust down the stretch of close games is one of the primary reasons our confidence in Green is skyrocketing.

Confidence in the Clutch

Before I really flesh this one out, yes, I do know that Udoka sat Jalen for the fourth quarter and then he came out embarrassingly cold in overtime of the Rockets most recent loss to the Warriors. However, we’re acknowledging that the stage has flipped for Green this season. In the past, we’ve seen mostly duds with a few glimpses at star power sprinkled in. Since March of the ’23 season, the star moments have become the norm. Until that changes and there is some sort of substantial regression over a reasonable sample size, we’re going to ride the wave.

That being said, Jalen Romande Green, has become the closer. Do you want the numbers or the eye-test first? Numbers? Ok:

Unfortunately, all four of those games listed were chaotic endings where the Rockets needed Green to take over because they had either surrendered what was once a big lead or had to mount a significant comeback. The point is, because of Green’s nerve and productivity, the Rockets were able to actually pose a threat or hold off the opponent. Green entered November in the top 10 for NBA.com’s clutch scoring metric, which typically measures a player’s productivity in close games during the final five minutes.

Don’t let the stat nerds hold you though, the eyes will tell you the same story. In situations where the Rockets have performed well to close out games, it has been because VanVleet moves to more of an off-ball role and defers to Jalen’s creation. He’s already come through in swelling moments, including this one against the reigning Western Conference champs:

Luka and Kyrie had done their best to drag the Mavs back from what was almost a blowout loss, and Jalen Green came through with a run-ending dagger precisely when the team needed it most.

He’s here

There are segments of the NBA fandom that probably think that Rockets fans are reactionary baboons for all the gawking we’ve done about Jalen start. They’ll continue to see some inefficient box scores and call him a shot chucker because they thinking scoring is the only relevant stat field and they pretend like they understand how much of a basketball game you can’t understand without seeing the whole game play out. They probably think we’re hyping up a player aspirationally and should be ashamed at the way we’ve propped him up.

I feel zero shame. The numbers do not lie and neither do my eyes. For all his own flaws as a coach (for another day), Ime Udoka has managed to tear Jalen Green down to the foundation and rebuild him into the player many of us have held out hope he one day be. Even on the nights when he isn’t the super nova scorer he can be at his best, he is still finding ways to impact winning basketball on a club hopeful to make a splash into the postseason for the first time since 2020.

Perhaps the most exciting thing with all of this is that there is still clearly room for Jalen to grow and truly ascend into superstardom, becoming the face of this franchise that drafted him as the first piece in a rebuild that they hope will yield championship fruit.

Jalen Green, baby. He’s here.