Shooting is shooting. Rim size is the same. Distance is the same. I'll concede the defense is better in GLeague, but neither guy has great mechanics and thrive using athleticism. This team needs a knock down shooter. Gradey Dick is best in class.
The appeal isn’t really based on his numbers though. Honestly his numbers aren’t even amazing. His appeal is his physical skill set, ability to get around players in small windows - that he is so quick that he is always playing down hill - his passing abilities - his size and ability to decelerate on a dime. Those type of skills usually end up translating at the NBA level. SGA, Rod Strickland and Westbrook have those traits…. A few end up like Keyon Dooling, and on occasion one bombs out like Brandon Jennings (who is the comp. If Amen flames out). Ideally Thompson would be a year younger (he turned 20 a few months ago), but that isn’t enough to keep me to take him because he is raw. Thompson is the type of talent that can lead a team very deep in the playoffs if he learns to shoot better. Also he is a perfect match with Jalen Green. He is long and tall which allows Greens to defend point guards. He is excellent in transition which fits Green - and he is a very good passer that will allow Green to get open looks. Is it a risk? Yeah it is, but it is realistic to believe he learns to shoot and the upside for the Rockets is really high.
Hmm I guess w le have a very different philosophy here. If the issue he has is jump shooting, that's correctable and I'm not worried about quality of league in that sense. But when you discuss physical traits and talents I think that's a actual red flag when players play in lesser leagues. At Amen's age every elite prospect in league history was playing at a higher level of competition. It's more difficult to draw out levels of physical ability when it's a 20 year old playing against a league full of high schoolers. Like his physical talents are the biggest question marks in my opinion because of the league he plays in. How would his physical traits look playing in a higher level of competition? He can't get through right spaces when it's a league full of 16-18 year olds. Can he do that against D1 athletes even? Do we even know that?
people had similar concerns regarding Shaedon Sharpe and his level of competition…there was talk that his athleticism was overrated and he couldn’t really create space, but he was going against high schoolers so he could still do what he wanted difference is Sharpe didn’t have a “broken jumper” and wasn’t drafted to be a team’s PG
Sharpe isn't impressing me that much. I saw video compilations of pretty much every scoring possession of his rookie year and quite frankly he seems like a off ball open space type player. Most of his buckets are in open space transition, cuts and catch and shoot attempts. He actually really doesn't create muc space off the dribble. He's an impressive straight line athlete and vertical jumper but his skillsets as a off the dribble player is very weak. Also Sharpe's game tape before the NBA had him play with players the same age as him. He didn't stick around til 20 playing in a high school aged league. He left high school at 18 and didn't play for a year. He wasn't like showing off his stuff against weaker competition at age 19 or 20 like Amen.
Amen’s physical talents would get him drafted high if we only ever saw him alone in the gym. (Basically true for Shaedon Sharpe). Have you watched much OTE? I mean full games? About half the games are against high high school level teams, those games are BS. The other half have been against two other teams that have legit 2024 draft class prospects, and legit size inside. Among the 3 “good” OTE teams the problem is that the games are terribly coached, there’s too much transition, and defenses are simplistic; it’s not that there aren’t legit athletes on the court. Purely athletically, those three OTE teams are better than a random mid major school that might have a 6’7 guy at center and no future professional bball players. And OTE played a tour of grown men pro teams in Europe earlier this season were athletically Amen still crushed and his passing stood out. Level of competition is not a reason to say Amen is not a #1 pick level basketball athlete and passer. Scouts don’t disagree on that. It’s really just about whether he can find a shot off the dribble, and how good you think he can be without one.
Amen's J is worse than any lottery Guard/Wing prospect I can remember in the past 20 years. And when I listed out perimeter players with questionable Js from the past decade-ish drafted in the lotto, only 3/22 ended up improving their Js to respectable levels. Yet people keep bringing up someone like Jaylen Brown, who's an exception to the rule. I think Amen ends up being guarded a lot like current Westbrook/Ben Simmons.
His defenders will sag off of him, no doubt. But he'll still be able to get by most guys, just like Westbrook has been. And it might be okay for our overall spacing if we run the offense through him as the primary ballhandler, which we absolutely should do if we pick him. Now, one thing that has been an issue for Russ (mostly on the court) and especially Simmons (both on and off the court) is the intangible factors. The willingness to set egos aside and make good decisions. I don't get the impression that's a problem with Amen Thompson, although you never know for sure until you see a guy in the NBA context for several years. As I've pointed out, there have been plenty of great guards through NBA history who were not an outside shooting threat and couldn't keep defenders honest in that regard, and they still got their points and assists anyway. That would be the vision in mind for Amen Thompson. You just tell him not to shoot threes in the NBA and keep working on them off the court, and then if the jump shot does come around later, he'll be unguardable, and if it doesn't, you still have a good, maybe even great, player.
Just a side note/addendum: In my opinion, the problem with Russell Westbrook, and the reason he was never as good as he could have been and a contributing factor to him never winning a championship, is pretty damned simple: He shot way too many three-pointers and long two-point shots all throughout his career. His teams should have clamped down on that early on and just said no, and he would have been a far more efficient player and had a much better career. Perhaps they did and he just ignored them. I don't know. But he had a bunch of seasons where he was shooting under 30% from the three-point line while taking around 5-6 of those shots per game, plus however many long two-pointers. With Amen Thompson, I would go so far as to say there need to be discussions with him in pre-draft interviews; "if we draft you, you're not going to take those shots until you prove you can nail them consistently in practice". The expectation should be that he is not even an outside shooter, for both him and his team.
Yeah, again, the problem with the MKG comparison is he was not a playmaker for others at all. The only offensive skill he had was driving to the bucket; he also was not as elite of an athlete as Amen. It's just not a great comparison overall--it's undervaluing the importance of passing and playmaking as a basketball skill. It's like saying a baseball prospect sucks because he doesn't hit home runs, even though he's amazing at getting on base.
A guy who cant shoot isnt a good fit for anyone. Defenders are gonna sag off him and play zone so doesnt matter if he is a good passer. Yeah Amen has really good athleticism, but if thats all he has then an acl tear or w/e and he becomes useless right? He'll lose his speed and then with 0 shot he has nothing. He spent 1 yr learning to shoot and hasnt really shown results unlike his twin bro. Yeah upside is real high but I dunno why you need to take that risk with the Rox given we already have Green and Jabari who are already high upside rookies. I'd rather have someone who we know will be good like Miller, Ausar, Walker etc Personally I dont think Amen will ever become a good shooter, I think he'll be Giannis level his entire life if at that. If we get no 3 I'd be ok trading down and getting 2 guys like Anthony Black and Taylor Hendricks.
Don’t forget about his ability to get a burst immediately after stopping on that dime so a defender has to close the gap twice on a player who is likely longer than you. I think he fits well with Sengun because if he’s in need of a bailout after driving, Sengun can be a big target, get his own pass off, or finish inside where Amen will need help. KPJ could easily fit if he’s a willing off ball player when they run together. Jabari fits with anyone, so does Tari Eason. I think a defensive coach like Vogel would like his length and twitch abilities on that end of the court too. Both Nick Nurse and Amen love using the dunker spot. Something for any of us to keep in mind!
I think with Shaedon, his problem was there wasn't a ton of any kind of video on him other than some runs here and there and maybe some high school games. This was especially true since he reclassified, then went to Kentucky and didn't play, didn't really do anything at the combine, etc. People didn't know what to expect other than he was an athletic freak of a high schooler who had potential. With Amen, it's a bit different since he just turned 20, has played against pros, has played in whatever the OTE can be classified as, etc. So you can discount the OTE as being "legit" competition, but still - you see him play regularly. You kind of know what some of his athletic measurements are, like his vertical, lane agility (if you believe OTE tests), and you know they're unreal, etc. You also saw him play against some borderline pros in Euro competition. Some of those teams were "ok", some were bad, OTE won a few games, got destroyed in a few, etc., but still you saw him play against some grown men in real competition. Amen is more of a question/gamble while to me, Shaedon was a myth/gamble coming out of high school.
Is his passing ability actually close to Giddey's? Because Giddey's playmaking improvement is actually insane. also Giddey's shot is not as broken anymore just after two seasons, he's actually making a lot of them
Surely you are intelligent enough to realize that EG's addition to those statistics was as an outlier when all the rest were significantly below league average to his "league average". The point was that this team sucks at shooting. Sorry that doesn't fit your narrative.
I'd recommend watching the whole thing (I queued it up for you on passing), but you can see several minutes of his passing. He whips the ball cross court one handed accurately. I don't think Giddey has that in his arsenal (Giddey obviously has more overall). Anyway, I think it's worth a watch. I think his passing is above average in the NBA. He can certainly make reads and act on them in ways that no one else on our team can. He's a very slightly better passer than Sengun by the looks of it and he doesn't make the same types of passes so it's not redundant. It could have a multiplier effect on ball movement if Sengun plays with Amen. Shooting wise... yeah, they'll give him space in the NBA but we have several players like Sengun and Green who can be weapons out that far and the ball doesn't have to start with this guy on the three point line. Surely a coach can handle putting the ball in someone else's hand when a play starts. It's the 3 seconds left, need to get a three up type shots that will be a nuisance and nearly impossible to avoid. Also, this guy is not Ben Simmons. His offense can stay on the court because of the ways he can score at the bucket, contort his body to get beyond his man, the Euro-step type moves even in a half-court setting, the impulse stop/hesitate/drive, his arms look like go-go gadget arms on drives, he's got nice touch around the rim and can shoot over players trying to block him. He has every tool you need to finish at the rim once he's there. His passing near the rim is unreal too. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't guarding him in the paint. He may not work out, but I wouldn't treat him with the same measuring stick as Simmons. That dude is a head case on top of not being able to shoot. Simmons should've figured out a way around his shooting by now. He's smart enough to change the way he plays, but then again maybe not. This Amen guy may be able to loosen up his form and let that jumper flow with the right type and amount of work. I wouldn't be ready to count him out yet. Teams will get to work him out privately and assess. Gotta trust the brass... difficult to do that around here at times, but trust the process! In the meantime, Amen... learn how to shoot a 15 footer. The three point line can wait.
I do like him . However he is a bit old . Well ,at least he’s not young for his class. Amen might be one of the best athletes I’ve ever seen tho . Most of these guys get on an nba program and within a year or two they are able to maintain that level of athletic superiority. I think he’s more athletic than green and a bit taller . however , he’s not without SIGNIFICANT risk. If he gets hurt and his athleticism takes a hit he could be a bust . Could he survive off passing and a floater game ? Does he have a floater game ? I’ve seen some highlights . I’d say he has a tighter handle than green did too . But it seems like he can’t make anything but a layup . big risk at 3 . Even though I do think he’s the 2nd or 3rd highest potential . But honestly after scoot everyone is risky . I do really like him tho . He’s probably my pick if we have to stay at 3 . Miller I’d drop down to at least 6 after his incident . Walker I think is at best 4th . And same with black . I think amens athletic upside is just too immense to pass up for those guys at 3 . He may be the highest bust potential in a few years . anyways that’s all for now
