A mock draft is often a "where do you think this player will go based upon that team's situation/need". Sam's said that one of the reasons he projected Cam at #4 in his mock draft was because of Harden-to-Houston rumors, but he said, if he was Houston, he'd still take Amen. From this article : https://theathletic.com/4598473/2023/06/15/ba-mock-draft-wembanyama-henderson-hornets-miller/ The Fit: This is where the draft starts to get fun. Whitmore is in play at No. 4. Around the league, there seems to be a mix of those who believe Whitmore will go here, and those who believe it’s more likely to be Amen Thompson. The Rockets are having a number of players in for workouts this week beyond just that duo and have yet to make a final decision. Having said that, the potential of James Harden joining the fold makes me slide with Whitmore. I’ve been consistent in having Whitmore as a top six player, and I would be surprised to see him fall outside of that range on draft night. For the Rockets, he also fits well with Jabari Smith Jr. as a physical driver who would complement Smith’s perimeter-based shooting game well. Again though, this seems pretty up-in-the-air at this stage. Meanwhile, he had Cam and Amen ranked in the same tier in his Draft Guide (along with Brandon Miller), but had Cam at #3 and Amen at #5 (with Miller at #4). But I don't think the draft guide is associated with where they are picked, but rather who he thinks has higher upside. In a nutshell : He probably thought Cam Whitmore had slightly more upside than Amen based upon them being ranked in the same tier and only two spots apart. They were very close. The Draft Guide seems to be regardless of team needs. He already stated around the same time he would select Amen over Cam based upon Rockets' team need. Nothing he saw in the Summer League seemed to change his mind about the 2nd statement. He even stated he thinks Amen is working through some of his shooting issues from what he saw in Summer League and shooting was his biggest negative for Sam, I think. It all boils down to his mock draft being "needs-based" and his draft guide being "upside/talent-based", I think. In the former, he said he would take Amen over Whitmore, but thought with the thought of Harden showing up, the Rockets may take Whitmore. In the latter, he had them both ranked in the same tier and probably almost-identical with Whitmore two spots ahead. The one thing Sam saw that I always loved about Amen was that he does whatever he can to help the team. He doesn't need to be the scorer or focal-point of an offense to do it. Whether he needs to give added effort on passing, defense, transition, etc., he's got the ability and the desire to do it. No selfishness in his game - his mentality is to win. Maybe this was enough to knock him up a bit, too, in Sam's eyes.
Super minor nitpick (because I can't help but be pedantic), but Sam had Miller 4th and Amen 5th in his draft guide. But yes, I do recall him specifically saying something along the lines that those 3 essentially had the same overall grade. To your overall point, I don't think it is that weird for him to change his thinking of Amen over Cam (vs Cam over Amen in the draft guide, especially since it was before the medical/workout intel). As I mentioned in my post, I'm more perplexed by the rankings of all the prospects in general (especially if he still is *really* high on Cam).
Oops, my mistake. I'll edit it. I don't think this is that much of a change other than the extreme he goes when saying Amen is no doubt his top prospect, tbh. The thing I like about Amen is that he'll probably be best suited to make the others around him better than himself. lol.
Yeah, I don't even have a problem with anyone saying Amen is the top prospect (I kinda lean that way too), just trying to process the fact that Cam is the 6th best prospect on the team. Especially given that I know Sam *really* likes Cam. Don't want to twist his words, but I got the impression Sam thought the odds were good that Cam could be a 20-25 PPG scorer (on good efficiency?) with decent/good defensive potential. So yeah if he's the *worst* prospect of the 6, geez we have a good future.
Not sure about what he saw as Cam's scoring potential but did they say Cam was the #6 prospect during the podcast? I may have missed it. I actually listened to that whole podcast which was like 2 hours long, I think, so may have missed it because I was listening while working on stuff. I just saw this interview below from a week or so before the draft. If you've got time, just listen to the first 15 minutes. In it they talk about his ranking methodology and what it means (sort of) as well as discuss Cam vs. Amen for the Rockets at #4.
Around the 7:20 mark, he says he'd undeniably have Cam 5th on this ranking. Then he replied to a tweet asking where Tari would rank: From that, I assume Cam would be 6th as Tari wouldn't be last (kinda get the impression Tari wouldn't be 5th either, but just a hunch). Edit: Oh and I watch almost all the Vecenie stuff, and I vaguely recall him talking up his scoring opportunity potential, but can't remember when that was. I recall him essentially putting Cam above Miller (so 3 overall) fairly well before the lotto even. He's been on the train for a while.
Wow, I missed that when listening. I still don't have anything against it since players like Jalen and Jabari were top-3 picks, Alperen and Tari have shown they're plus-players (to some extent) when given minutes, and Amen arguably has the most potential out of all of them and could be the cog that helps unlock the others. Amen's usefulness to the Rockets if he hits makes him higher to me than any of the other players. The only reason I don't have any issue with Cam being ranked lower than the others is that, with the exception of Amen, we know what the others can do and they've done it for a year or two, and are still showing signs they can get somewhere near their hype which was, in all cases, outside of Sengun, higher than Cam's. And Cam hasn't had a chance to prove anything yet, really (Summer League doesn't really count much to me). This is why I think it's kind of a silly question to ask about 5 or 6 players who are each at different points on the development/draft timeline but are all really early in their NBA careers. Like, is Cam going to understand set plays or fall in line with a more team concept? Is Amen ever going to learn how to shoot? Will Jalen become more efficient? Will Jabari's jumper and defense be as good as it was expected to be? Nobody really knows, so how can you start ranking prospects other than based upon what they've already done? And if that's the case, I'm cool with ranking Cam last. Ask again next year. Like they said in the podcast, I think the Rockets are going to be making some decisions in the next couple of years about which of these dudes they're going to stick with.
I wish & hope that these guys and play styles mesh well together. Also that they can play together for at least the next 3-4 seasons if they do fit well together. I don't know but that may be extremely unrealistic but i see something there that could pretty amazing.
One thing that Sam Veciene has noted in regards to Amen and Whitmore is the fact that Whitmore is 1.5 years younger. And he's building in some expected development going forward with Whitmore rather than just how much they stack up with each other in scouting report.
