Simmons was effective despite his attitude--now imagine if he had been a great kid who loved basketball like Amen. His problems had nothing to do with talent and everything to do with mindset and physical health.
There are some misconceptions in this thread. First, Amen Thompson finishes just fine at the rim, he is shooting 75% at the rim this season. This is exceptional for a guard. Second, Thompson does have a looser handle than what is ideal. However this is VERY likely to get better. Third, Ben Simmons' issue isn't as simple as "he cannot shoot". Simmons issue was that he has had a terrible work ethic going back to school in Australia. He wasn't even at shape at LSU and with the Sixers was known for his lack of effort and having almost no mental toughness. Still - even with a complete lack of an outside shot, Simmons was a major contributor and all star when he simply showed up to play. Also - Simmons in his entire 6 year career has taken a total of 36 3's.... and has made 5 of them. For comparison, Thompson has already taken 31 3's at the halfway point of his rookie season and has made 5 (as many as Simmons did in 6 years). So - while there are many similarities with Simmons, there are also a lot of differences in make-up and desire, and willingness to shoot.
FWIW, at least when I say it, I'm speaking strictly about his layups at the rim coming from half-court drives. I think the 75% just factors in all of his shots at the rim (which include a lot of dunks, tip ins, etc). Based on NBA.com shooting splits, he's around 51.2% on layups: https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1641708/shooting (look for the "layup" spit) That's better than it was, but just a bit above Jalen Green (48.2%). For further reference, it seems guys like Curry, Ja, ANT, Harden, Luka, etc are closer to high 50s/low 60s (well 73% for Luka) from what I can tell. I think he'll get there (it feels similar to the handle issue as something that will change with more reps), but half-court layup finishing was a potential concern about Amen (and Ausar) coming out of the draft. So just something to keep an eye on. Maybe there's a better metric than this to look at, but I do think this layup split is better than a raw 0-3ft split (or something similar). Anyway, I agree with pretty much everything else you said, especially the Ben Simmons stuff. Teams didn't guard Ben Simmons because he didn't even try to take a shot, let alone make a shot. Defenses probably will do the same with Amen, but at least if he takes them (and happens to make some part of the time), that can change things quite a bit. edit: Also thinking about it more, Amen will probably have a lower layup % than some others since he'll probably use dunks at times when others would use layups, but still I think he could improve a bit.
Yeah, the comparison to Simmons was about their talents, i.e. good court vision and defense, and bad at shooting. But the personality traits are miles apart. Simmons is mentally weak and doesn't care about basketball as much as he cares about celebrity status. Amen clearly cares about winning and wants to get better.
Thompsons jumper mechanically doesn't look that bad compared to the his OTE Draft Tape.. I think it's not fundamentally broken where he needs to abandon it completely. I'm just really excited about having a passer that can create looks and dish into shooters pockets, an underrated skill that Cp3 has mastered.
That is wild context... as timid as we may think Amen in shooting from the perimeter, Simmons is literally about 10x worse.
I'm so mad it all got wasted, fuuck that ref calling the foul, make your damn freethrows Sengun for fuuucks sakes
He has had knee surgery, shoulder surgery, back surgery, and $200M in guaranteed earnings by the time he was 24 years old. I don't really blame him for not being motivated, not everyone is built that way to want to compete. If any other 27 year old had a job where he had to get operated on 3 different parts of his body and spent most of his 20s in pain or recovering, and was told he would be given $200M no matter what, we would accept this attitude.
Amen with the first exactly 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 statline in NBA history. 5 points, 4 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 blocks, 1 offensive rebound.
What impressed me most wasn't the steal here, or even the made three--it was the awareness to make the split second decision to take one dribble to the three point line and launch, and the ice in his veins to not hurry the shot and keep his shooting mechanics under control. He instantly processed the situation--down 4, we need a 3--and made the right decision--and executed it calmly. His basketball IQ and intangibles are really something special.
Can't include the usual assists or total rebounds because that would kill everything, I guess. Didn't win the game, so that could be a "0". His +/- was a "-1", so there's that.
There really are times that I question if his BB IQ is higher than FVV. There are so many times that FVV will chuck up a bad shot or make a lazy pass that gets intercepted. Amen doesn't really do that. Almost always, the decision he makes is the right decision. All that's needed is time for his skill level to catch up
I don't know if it's been discussed, but did anybody see in the 4th quarter in the Charlotte game where Amen made a mistake by dribbling it off his foot and basically looked like he turned to Udoka and "said" "I'll just take myself out" and went to the bench. I want this to be true. LOL.
