The Forgotten Man?
Jae’Sean Tate is absolutely one of my favorite players to watch on the Rockets. He’s an old school baller – fiercely competitive, tough, well-rounded. He can defend, rebound, handle, pass, score inside on a strong post game and is a general agitator and irritant.
He’s a player you’d want on your side on any concrete court. In another time, or if he was four inches taller, he’d likely have been an All Star.
As things stand on the Rockets today, he probably shouldn’t play that much.
The problem doesn’t lie with Tate exactly, but more with the fact that the Rockets have Tari Eason, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith, Cam Whitmore and Dillon Brooks. Only a couple of those players can do as many things as Tate, but most of them have one or two things they do better. Or one thing — specifically, shoot the basketball.
This is really the thing that separates Tate from being “first man off the bench” versus “handy to have on the bench to change the energy of a game”.
Well, it’s not shooting, per se, because from two-point range, Tate is great. He shot 56 percent from two. He is a very good finisher around the rim, as mentioned above. The problem is, he also needs to space the floor, especially if the Rockets have Alperen Sengun, Steven Adams, or Amen Thompson on the court. And when he’s out there, they do need another big most of the time, because Tate is essentially a 6’4” point forward. Unfortunately, thus far, the three-point game hasn’t come around for Tate. He shot 29 percent from three last season.
Tate isn’t expensive, and he’s good injury insurance. He’s the sort of guy that can help a bench hold down a lead. He’s a good guy to put into a game where the other team likes to engage in “the dark arts” or the Rockets need someone to put six fouls to their best use.
Jae’Sean Tate is great for a team that needs someone to be what he is: a Swiss Army Knife. He can do a lot of things pretty well, and all in one package. But he doesn’t do any one thing excellently well. The Swiss Army Knife is there for convenience, to to a little bit of work in a pinch, or to do a lot in an emergency. But if you’re, say, making dinner, you’d rather use a chef’s knife. And if you’re assembling kit furniture, you’d rather use a full sized screwdriver. It’s nice that this small device has that, along with a corkscrew, of course, and who can live without the fish scaler, but if you can plan for the job, you don’t grab the multiblade knife.
Unfortunately for Tate’s playing time, the Rockets have players that actually can do various tasks at a”serious work” level. Moreover, most of those guys are either taller or shoot it better, or both.
It’s unfortunate for Tate, but he’s not a salary anchor for the Rockets, and he is a fantastic player to have deep on a bench. The Rockets simply have better guys, or if not better in your opinion, guys about whom they must make up their minds in terms of their future with the team in fairly short order.
Tate is the kind of player I love, and it saddens me to see him not get to deploy his “certain set of skills” in NBA games. Not that long ago, Tate was the only light in a very dark time for the Rockets, and now that the future is brighter, his light doesn’t shine quite so powerfully.
I’d love for him to get a chance to play more, but not for anyone the Rockets might meet in the playoffs. His set of skills, or various blades, scissors, whatnot still alarm me a little.