I wished you played more fam….
Jae’Sean Tate’s third season with the Houston Rockets has been an one interesting to describe.
If you can sum it up to one word, it would be unavailable.
The un-drafted Swiss-army knife wing out of Ohio State only played 31 games due to a right ankle injury.
However, when Tate was available to play, his impact was felt.
The Rockets wing put up a more than meets the eye triple single stat line of 9/4/3, while shooting from the field 48 percent as a notable member of the “goon squad“ bench unit.
While not eye popping, we all know that counting stats lie, but impact doesn’t.
The chaotic energy that Tate brings to Rockets, is something the this young team missed.
From his touted ‘Game 7’ defense:
to his crisp passing as a secondary playmaker:
and his relentless drives to the hoop haven’t gone unnoticed amongst fans.
I know the Debbie-Downers are going to mention his stats are worse than his previous 2022 and 2021 NBA campaigns.
Nonetheless, if you take a deeper dive in the numbers, you’ll realize that he was still one of the team’s best players, as Jae’Sean was featured in four lineups that were a net positive in 100 possessions.
The most notable lineup is the Tari Eason, Jalen Green, Kenyon Martin Jr, Alperen Şengün, Jae’Sean Tate rotation where they ran opponents of the floor registering a whopping +27 pts in the 22 minutes this lineup as playing together.
Why this lineup wasn’t used, I have no idea.
Maybe it could’ve been because of Tate’s lack of availability or previous coach Stephen Silas being tasked to lead the tank.
Regardless of the reason, now that Houston Rockets owner Tillman Fertitta has announced that the organization is at phase two of the rebuild during Ime Udoka’s introductory press conference, one would believe they will utilize this more than they have done in the past.
Overall Tate’s season was ok, it wasn’t anything to particularly write home about as he wasn’t on the floor.
However, I would imagine if he was healthy, he would’ve taken another leap forward as important piece to the roster.