We need to draft Amen, they guy is 6’7 and 212 lbs. He can post up small guards, and he needs to work his floaters.
The Jalen Green delusion must stop. You apologists refuse to blame the punk for any of our losing or toxic culture.
I would draft Amen, make him a backup point guard and hire a shooting coach….Amen needs to work on his floater. Sign Harden and do a sign and trade for Kris Middleton or Cam Johnson….Boston is not going to trade Brown this Summer
Delusion is only getting worse. I hate how Amen's supposed strength (only shown against high school kids) are concrete skills. Stats against high school kids mean absolute nothing. With this disturbing trend, every top pick should just stay in high school until they are age 20.
I would take Amen or Ausar over Henderson. They all have the same floor but the twins have the higher ceiling by far. Give these dudes a few years in the league and they’ll be guarding small forwards The defense with Tari and Bari would be magical
Almost right. They are going to draft Amen, he will be a backup PG to KPJ. They will sign Cam Johnson and Jaxson Hayes
First of all, I don't think Amen is doomed a bust. If Rockets finally choose him, I will respect that decision and hope he improves with time. I just want to discuss my personal opinion from basketball perspective. 1.Uncertainty of OTE League. Amen has excellent physical gifts, which give him a great advantage in the OTE league mainly composed of high school students, and lead to his impressive 70% layup percentage on penetration. However, in reality, he only contributes an average of about 16 points per game in OTE, and his overwhelming physical attributes further lower the persuasiveness of his statistics. As a comparison, Boozer scored 28+20 against an OTE team in a preseason game last year when he was only 15 years old. 2.The effectiveness of penetration may be reduced. Although Amen has obvious advantages in physical gifts, speed, and explosiveness, he is still slightly inferior to Jalen Green. Green has an unstoppable first step, but his attacking efficiency against opposing defenses is only around 50%, which is not very efficient. In contrast, Amen has no advantage in penetration compared to Green, and even more embarrassingly, even if he draws fouls, he cannot ensure a stable free throw percentage. 3.Incompatibility with off-ball offense and Sengun It is well known that Amen Thompson's biggest problem is his shooting. In the early stages of his career, he will be often left wild open, which could put the team in an awkward situation in terms of half-court offense, especially when Sengun is on the court, as the space will be very congested. The Rockets' three-point shooting data was already at the bottom of the league last year, and it is clear that Thompson's arrival cannot solve this problem. Even when the 76ers used Ben Simmons in the past, they paired him with four shooters, Rockets currently do not have the resources to do that. 4.Fulfilling potential requires a lot of playing time. Therefore, due to Thompson's awkwardness in off-ball offense, he has to possess a lot of playing time on the offensive end, leaving his opponents the option to leave him open while counter-attacking Sengun and Green. Waiting for Thompson to develop a stable shooting ability is a long and uncertain process that could hinder the valuable growth time for other ball-dominant players on the Rockets team. 5.The rate of improvement is slow. Let's take Josh Giddey as an example. Giddey is only three months older than Thompson, but his stats in the NBA are already better than Thompson's in the OTE league. Thompson has played in the OTE league for two years, but his progress has not met the ideal expectations. There are also many new players who maintain a certain level of mystery before the draft, like Sharpe and Wiseman, but they cannot make quick contributions to their teams. If they fail to seize the opportunity, they may even be replaced by other talented rookies. 6.Ball handling skills. Another issue that I am skeptical about is whether Thompson has NBA-level ball handling skills as a point guard. He had an average of more than three turnovers per game in the OTE league, with a lot of mishandling due to fancy dribbling moves and passes intercepted due to failed drives. These issues will attract more attention and targeting from NBA coaches. Similarly, the scouting report on his defense potential is "has the potential to become a quality defender," which is the same comment given to Green by scouts. In other words, Thompson currently has some bad defensive habits, but if he comes to the Rockets, Udoka will provide more guidance to correct them, so I am not too worried. 7.We need more experienced ball handlers to improve It is obvious that by hiring Udoka and not having control over the draft picks,Rockets will not tank next year, and Stone may face a hard target. Even it's not about making the playoffs, team at least need to making huge progress, otherwise his position will be difficult to guarantee. Rockets have a lot of cap space in free agency and can bring in veteran ball handlers with experience who can help the rookies improve. This will enable the team to learn how to win games more quickly.
if the Rockets drafted Amen, he would be coming off the bench until further notice Rockets actually want to be better and win some games next year, and ain’t no way u can do that with Amen Thompson as your PG playing 30 mpg
Lower athleticism. Amen is like a top 1% athlete, Ausar is like top 5%. Twins, but not the same person. I actually do agree with this. I mean, there's always a chance Amen works hard in the offseason and surprises everyone in the preseason, but should he be the Rockets pick, I would probably not plan on him being the starting point guard right away. I'd make him 6th man off the bench at first and ease him into the league that way. Which, actually, is a real hole in the Rockets roster as currently constructed, so no problem there, except that means we have to endure more KPJ at point guard, unless we trade him away and acquire a veteran point guard or some such.
I'm sure teams have a better grasp of the full picture, but in general you don't feel great about primary handlers that can't shoot at all. And like, we're not talking about you're average can't shoot, we're talking about a guy that makes Russell Westbrook's form in UCLA looks pretty good in comparison, the only high picks in recent memory that's worse would be Ben Simmons and MKG. Actually, Ben Simmons hopefully with his head screwed on straight is a very very good comp to Amen. Is that a good player? yes, is that a very difficult player to work with / around with serious implications in playoffs? also yes.
He's slightly less athletic and not as good a ball-handler. Amen is considered a PG/playmaker while Ausar isn't considered a PG and isn't considered as good a playmaker. While both are known for playing good defense, Ausar is known more for it. If you ask me, other than the passing ability they aren't too far apart and probably will go within a couple of picks of each other.
We couldn't draft Banchero because he wasn't available and we didn't draft Mobley because our front office is incompetent. Pretty straight forward stuff. The good news is, this draft isn't clear-cut like the last two were, so we might get some decent discourse.
Shooters you can find but athletes with Amen's vision and passing don't come around. I'm hard pressed to think of one recently at that size. Rockets are honestly in a good spot at 4. Charlotte won't draft him because they need a shooter next to Lamelo. Portland might because he's just more talented than Miller but Miller would help Dame now. There are team boards with Amen at #2 because they don't trust small guards and size is king. Also Miller has off the court issues and I wouldn't be shocked if teams have Taylor Hendricks over him. I feel like we're gonna get blue balled and end up with Miller.
Thought exercise: Who was a better draft prospect, Amen or Jaylen Brown (selected 3rd in 2016)? Amen - Age: 20.3 - Slightly bigger - Better athlete - Better handle - Much better playmaker and passer - Similar defense - Shot 69% from FT line and 27% from the NBA 3pt line Jaylen - Age: 19.7 - Shot 65% from FT line and 29% from college 3pt line - ? What do you think?
Jaylen Brown shot those percentages, but his jumper didn’t look hopeless like Amen’s the same way De’Arron Fox shot 25% from 3 in college, but a jumper like his u could work with and see it becoming passable at some point in the NBA
Interesting comparison. Brown was a bit stronger, had more bulk at the time of his draft. Better at finishing through contact. Scouting reports at the time talked about a loose handle and a tendency to tunnelvision and drive into traffic instead of looking for the open man. His shot mechanics were also criticized, mentioning timing issues and a tendency to drift prior to release. I don't think he had as many mechanical issues as Amen did this season, though. Scouting reports also mentioned issues with defensive consistency, especially losing focus off the ball, but praised him for showing flashes of elite defense at the point of the attack--so, similar to Amen in that regard. Subjectively, watching clips of Brown as a rookie, I definitely think Amen is a step ahead of a rookie Brown on athleticism. Brown is closer to Amen's brother Ausar in that regard (and in that they're both more of wings). Pure speculation, but if you time warped a 20yo Brown as a prospect into this draft class, I think he would go somewhere around the same range as Cam Whitmore, who is probably a closer comparison to Brown. Amen would probably be viewed as the better prospect (although it may depend on the front office evaluating them).
