An early Kobe Bryant lesson should terrify Rockets into keeping Jalen Green

The Houston Rockets' 2024-25 season is now over, and there are plenty of decisions to be made this offseason. Of course, among the Rockets' fanbase, one of the hottest topics of discussion since the end of Sunday's game has been Jalen Green.

Many have been calling for the Jalen Green era in Houston to be over after his inconsistent play in the opening round of the playoffs. But as we seek to contextualize this situation, let us consider a story from multiple decades ago that I believe could have some bearing on the Rockets' situation today.

The year was 1997, and the Los Angeles Lakers were up against the Utah Jazz in the Western Conference semifinals. Mind you, this was Kobe Bryant's rookie year, and he was far from the player he would eventually become.

With that said, it was nowhere near the typical playoff game we would eventually come to expect from Bryant. When the final buzzer sounded, Kobe finished with 11 points of 4-for-14 shooting, with a very uncharacteristic four airballs. It was humiliating, but Bryant would later speak on what that humbling night did for him.

The Lakers never gave up on Kobe Bryant after his early struggles

"I felt like everybody had written me off after those airballs, if this 18-year-old kid could ever come back from this," Bryant said. "After that, it's 'well, why did those airballs happen? They were all right on line, they were short. I got to get stronger.'"

If you know anything about Kobe's career, you know that is exactly what he proceeded to do. Those shots that were on line but short became shots Bryant could nail every time with a little more wind behind his sails.

Now, let's be clear here. In no way am I comparing Jalen Green's talent level or work ethic to that of Kobe Bryant. What I'm comparing is the overall situation. There's no expectation that Green will put in the kind of work Bryant did to level up, simply because Kobe was a different animal. Expecting any athlete to have his same mentality is frankly not realistic, so it's also not anything resembling a knock on Jalen.

But what I am saying here is this: If the Rockets gave up on Jalen Green now, when he's at his lowest, it would be much akin to the Lakers quitting on Kobe after he certainly looked like a player you couldn't rely on in the playoffs. There is such a thing as overreacting, and Houston would be doing just that by getting rid of number four right now.

All I'm really saying is that there is a lot of potential for change when it comes to Green's game and his reliability in a playoff environment. Call it an outlier, but we just saw him put up 38 points on 13-for-25 shooting with eight made threes in Game 2. The blueprint is there for him to reach a higher level consistently, and the Rockets do not want to end up looking back years from now, realizing they squandered an opportunity.