The Houston Rockets may be currently sitting outside of the playoff picture in the Western Conference, but the team is the hottest team in the NBA right now, with Ime Udoka’s squad winning 10 straight games and hoping to jump ahead of Stephen Curry’s Golden State Warriors in the standings.
Even though the Rockets haven’t had their best player on the floor lately, with Alperen Sengun dealing with an ankle injury that is expected to keep him out the rest of the regular season, Jalen Green and company have been able to pick up the slack and make the postseason a possibility in the final stretch.
Green’s points per game may be down from last season, as he’s currently averaging 19.8 points per game compared to last year’s 22.1, but he has played well this season, with Houston seemingly starting to turn things around in the Udoka era.
With Green turning a lot of heads lately, Justin Termine of SiriusXM NBA Radio makes the case that the young guard would’ve been taken No. 1 overall if there was a redraft of the 2021 NBA Draft, via NBACentral.
“I can see [Jalen Green] maybe going one overall, right now, if you did a redraft,” Termine said.
“I can see [Jalen Green] maybe going one overall, right now, if you did a redraft.”
– @TermineRadio on the 2021 NBA draft
(Via @SiriusXMNBA ) pic.twitter.com/4l2A0uUH52
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 29, 2024
With Cade Cunningham taken No. 1 overall in that draft with the Detroit Pistons bringing him in, Green would almost certainly go ahead of him now, as he’s been able to stay healthy in these first three seasons, which is something that Cunningham can’t say.
It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds for Green and whether the Rockets can become a force to be reckoned with as he starts to become the leader of the squad with Sengun.
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