Yeah this is crazy disrespect to JJ. NAW has been insanely hot since the all star break, and he has been more impactful over that stretch because of that, but Jalen had a quiet month by his standards and was still arguably as good. Like JJ quietly put up 22/8/8 on 49/40/80 last month and we are acting like he isn’t the best player on this team. A quiet month for him is still nearly as good as Nickeils best month ever. No slight to Nickeil who has been playing at an all star level, but JJ has set the bar so high that an all star month for him is like “oh he was okay this month”.

I didn’t watch this game, so none of my opinion on the topic was based off of it.

I guess my point is that the well-roundedness of Jalen Johnson’s game feels pretty overstated. What kickstarted this Hawks run was CJ getting acclimated and taking over running the offense while NAW kind of became the go-to scorer.

When Johnson was the running the offense earlier in the season, he was racking up a lot of assists (and points) but it wasn’t resulting in a super efficient team-level offense. Even on film, he’d make the “right” pass, but his passing repertoire is pretty simplistic. If he was running a PnR, he could make the kick to the corner, but he didn’t but the defense in rotation while he was doing it. I don’t think that he actively manipulates defenses with high level passes to create substantial advantages. As a defensive player I think that he looks like he’d be better than he actually is. I don’t love his rotations and court mapping on that end, nor do I think that he has very good hips.

Now, this isn’t to say that I think he’s a bad player, because he does do good things on the court. It’s more to think that I don’t think that his numbers are reflective of his impact on the game. I also think that NAW is really good and has kind of the perfect skillset, on both offense and defense, to play as a modern version of an off guard.

Agreed and a huge NAW glazer here. I’m excited for his future though. This was not the role he signed up for and yet he’s been a beast even after other teams started focusing on him. Would be amazing if Atlanta could have an all nba JJ and NAW + whoever the pelicans pick gets you

Sure he could be. He’s currently not though

He’s a ²⁄₃ and Tatum is a ³⁄₄

Exactly why I didn’t put him cause I thought of him as a wing, but yeah he’s def a top 5 guard if he’s a guard

Ok, there’s still 7 other names there

Ajay, Cason, Caruso, and Dort isn’t enough?

This is accurate. He struggled with ball in his hands on offense especially in the playoffs.

He had always shown some flashes of really impressive shot creation every now and then when given the chance