After the last couple of years we’ve all been through, it’s easy to be pessimistic. With all that’s gone on in the world, having your favorite NBA team miss the playoffs this season might just be the revoltingly bitter icing on a cake that was mixed with salt instead of sugar.
But, as the great 18th-century French philosopher Voltaire once said, “Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.” So, feel free to delude yourselves as we identify one beaming reason for hope for every team that missed out on the 2022 NBA postseason. From LeBron James to Franz Wagner, every one of these teams contains the signs of a promising future, provided you look at them through properly adjusted rose-tinted lenses.
Jalen Green’s elite finish to the season
For most of his rookie season, Green looked like so many young guards who have played for a bad team with a ton of responsibility. In his first 45 games, Green shot just 39 percent from the field and 31 percent from the field en route to 14.7 points per game — with essentially as many turnovers as assists. But, as Rockets fans are well aware of, Green appeared to figure things out during the final month of the season.
In 20 games from March 1 to April 5, Green put up 22.4 points per game on 49/41/77 shooting splits, while averaging 3.3 assists compared to 1.7 turnovers. He also had a run of five consecutive 30-point games, something no NBA rookie had done since Allen Iverson. During that stretch, Green shot 49 percent on mid-range jumpers, a far cry from the 33 percent he made before that, and knocked down 41 percent of his pull-up 3-pointers, according to NBA.com. Overall for the season, Green is in the 77th percentile with 0.974 points per possession on shots off the dribble, according to Synergy Sports.
All of these numbers spell a much more confident offensive player who’s starting to figure out how to get to his…
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