Bill Simmons isn’t a fan of Jalen Green.
Or maybe he is. He can't seem to decide.
The Houston Rockets rookie has been one of the lone bright spots for an otherwise awful team. That he gets a ton of playing time with Houston in a full-fledged rebuild has allowed for him to put up some occasionally gaudy numbers – which everyone knows doesn’t necessarily represent how valuable of a player someone is -- especially since Green is a subpar defender.
So as Simmons on his latest podcast talked about New Orleans Pelicans rookie Herb Jones, he shoehorned in criticism of Green.
“I put (Jones) first team All-Rookie. I put him over Jalen Green, f--k Jalen Green,” Simmons said. “I don’t care if you scored 40 points and your team’s 19-60. Congratulations, Herb Jones is guarding dudes in real games.
“Now the Houston people are going to be mad at me," Simmons quipped. "I’m sorry, I like winning players, I’m sorry. Jalen Green will get there, it’s just that team was 21-61 this year or whatever.”
While Simmons does point out that Green might be fine, it’s a weird shot to take seeing as Green is far from the only reason the Rockets were a disaster this season. If he was bad or even underwhelming on this year’s Rockets, Green would be criticized for that. But he also gets criticized for putting up numbers on a bad team. It’s an impossible spot.
In fairness to Simmons, he later said he was “pro Jalen Green” but just didn’t think he was a top-five rookie this season. Maybe Simmons was being flippant with his original remarks, but the whole thing was just weird.
Green was the West’s Rookie of the Month once this season, and that was in March. Whether that late push bolsters his case for an end-of-the-season honor remains to be seen, but it doesn’t sound like it swayed Simmons all that much.
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