25-under-25: You can't quit Jalen Green

"I'm out," you tell yourself for the hundredth time. You've done this before, but this time you mean it. Jalen Green will not convince you ever again that he has "Donovan Mitchell-like scoring upside." After years of false hope that Green was turning a corner, you're walking away for good.

Jalen Green literally the next night:

Is this an experience you relate to? Have you fallen victim to the smooth elegance that Jalen Green scores with, only to have your hopes dashed when he follows up a 30-point game with a week of 28 percent shooting games, only to get your hopes up again when he drops 35 a few nights later? You're not alone. Your experiences are valid.

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Jalen Green exemplifies the pull of promise

Young NBA players get scrutinized, criticized and hyper-analyzed more than young people at essentially any other job in the world. What other position could a 22 year-old work in which they're expected to be near the best in the world? None! And yet, Jalen Green, the Houston Rockets explosive 22 year-old guard has shown us on many occasions that he can be one of the best in the world at his job; specifically, the "scoring" part of his job.

Green was picked second overall in the 2021 NBA Draft because of his rare combination of speed, vertical bounce, quickness, ball control and scoring upside. You don't have to be an X's and O's genius to pick out Jalen Green on the court; his acceleration, burst and ability to cover space in a flash all jump off the screen. He's one of the most impressive overall athletes in the NBA, managing to stand out in a league full of the world's best athletes. Those traits, most of which are unteachable, paired gloriously with a natural scoring touch that made NBA scouts woozy. Green averaged 17.9 points per game on 61.3 percent true shooting during his one season with G League Ignite. As a teenager, Green was scoring at a high level while playing against adults.

He was an obvious choice at number two overall when Houston was officially on the clock in the 2021 NBA Draft, and the Rockets scooped him up with the intention of developing him into the NBA's next great guard scorer.

And three years in, the hope that Green can be a top-end scorer in the NBA still persists among NBA fans because Jalen Green has been a top-end scorer in the NBA ... for very short periods of time.

Jalen Green is on precipice of becoming an elite scorer

But the consistency required to be that elite scorer and join the likes of Mitchell, Tyrese Maxey and De'Aaron Fox continues to evade him.

In his third season, Green did the same thing he did in his first two seasons. He perfectly balanced his horrible games with his sensational games in order to fully confuse fans on what kind of player he is. Okay, he probably didn't do that on purpose. Still, as bad as Green's bad games were — and they get pretty ugly, with Green forcing contested shots, constantly turning the ball over and slowing Houston's offense to a halt — his good games are just as good. His scoring seems to come effortlessly in those games, as he blows past defenders for dunks, connects on long-range 3s, and sprinkles in some midrange creation proficiency for good measure.

When one aspect of his scoring flicks on, his entire offensive package seems to follow suit. And when he's on, he can almost single-handedly carry an offense. Look at this highlight package in a game against OKC this year:

Green successfully pulled off about a half-dozen moves in this game that fewer than 10 NBA players are physically capable of. Houston's announcers are screaming deliriously in response to his final two buckets, and that is quite frankly the correct response.

In February 2024, Green averaged 15.8 points per game on 36.8 percent shooting and 26.3 percent from 3-point range. In March 2024, Green averaged 27.7 points per game on 46 percent shooting and over 40 percent from beyond the arc. Houston went 13-2. Green might have been the best player in the NBA for that month. For the season, he finished somewhere between those two months, averaging 19.6 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.5 assists on just 54.1 percent true shooting.

He doesn't need to do what he did in March every game. It would be great if he did, but Houston would be thrilled with Green becoming a consistent 22 point-per-game scorer. The craziest part is that no one would be surprised if Green did turn full-time into the player he was in March because that outburst was not an isolated incident. Green has flashed that scoring expertise multiple times in the past, and not just for a game or two; he's had multiple month-long scoring excursions where Rockets fans are ready to crown him as the most exciting scorer in the NBA.

Should Jalen Green's efficiency be so heavily criticized this early in his career?

There are two ways to view Jalen Gren at this juncture of his career. The first way is the pessimistic view, and it goes something like this: Jalen Green is a shot-chucker who has impressive physical gifts but doesn't provide much value for a team other than scoring and he can't even do that efficiently or consistently. He hasn't improved in three seasons and his hot streaks always come in March when stats are notoriously inflated.

The other way, the optimistic view, goes like this: Jalen Green is 22 years old and averages basically 20 points per game over his very short career. In two of his three seasons, the Rockets have been abysmal, making any development basically impossible. He was the sixth-youngest player in NBA history to score 1,500 points in a season behind Luka, KD, Carmelo, LeBron and Wemby. He has (very randomly) become a great rebounder and is a better passer now than he was three years ago. Plus, very few high-level scorers were efficient immediately — even players who ended up being stars.

There's some middle ground between these two views, of course. And maybe Green deserves to exist in that middle ground instead of in a world of absolutes. Because giving up on a 22 year-old scorer who's done a lot of scoring in three years sounds pretty silly when you say it out loud. But wanting more from a player who has shown that he can deliver more sounds fair, too. Sigh...

We'll never be able to quit, will we?

Jalen Green ranked No. 23 on FanSided's 2024-25 25-under-25, ranking the best young players in the NBA. Check out the rest of the list here.