The Thompsons were ranked #30+ before committing to the OTE. Prospects of this rank almost never get drafted top of the draft without a dedicated media campaign. Marinating for two years in the OTE doesn't make one a better prospect. Yes, they are athletic despite not testing at the combine. But they didn't even dominate OTE. Neither were the best, most dominant player in their 'league'. Sure, they were good, but as we're the other 3, 4 stars in the league. On the topic of OTE, it is high school basketball with 16-17 year olds. Most of the kids in that league will never be ranked and will never play high major or above college basketball. Amen's shot is completely broken. If he cannot dominate high school with his godly athleticism, NBA PG vision, and supposed great instincts, this kid has BUST in capital letters tattooed on his forehead. Anyone but Amen. (I'm on board with considering Ausar at 4 considering his shot isn't as broken).
You can make the same argument and say that Scoot Henderson didn’t dominate in the G-League as much as who else but our own Daishen Nix.
Scoot played against men in their 20's and was one of the better players at age 17. No, he wasn't the best player in the g-league but his for age, he was quite good. If you think about how Scoot put up better stats at age 17 compared to Amen against 16 year olds at age 20, all of this becomes clear to you.
Hope all y'all are ready to eat some big, heaping plates of crow if we do end up getting this guy and he turns out to be a superstar. P.S. Just going to drop this link one more time. The Thompson twins didn't only play against OTE competition.
The Thompsons aren't it. Never were. spending a top pick on them is just an embarrassment and insult to the pick
I think the Thompsons are fine prospects. Not sure the Rockets are the right team to be messing around and trying to develop them though. With that said this org has already invested heavily in Green and Jabari. If they can't realistically move up for Scoot then let's just get real and bring in some talent that can immediately help Green develop. I feel like we've already wasted 2 seasons here.
I get the OTE sentiment around here, but ignoring the facts that 1) he’s done well against more mature competitions over the year, with similar level of production and even better efficiency 2) rim finishing capability that is out of this world and is transferable to NBA 3) outstanding vision and passing skills (arguably the best passer in the draft) - this alone will likely improve the shooting performance of the entire team 4) defensive toolkits (though help defense needs a lot of work) 5) Top 1% athleticism 6) strong feel / incredible processing speed of the game is dangerously shortsighted. The only concern I have of him at this stage is shooting. But man he’s got a 60% TS mainly out of his out-of-this-world rim conversion rate alone. Any improvement in shooting is EXTRA. Given that his twin brother is already showing significant shooting mechanics improvement, I have reason to be at least not too pessimistic. Trading up for Scoot at a reasonable price would be a dream but there is little that you can convince me that HOU is in a bad spot to draft Amen, for the long haul.
I didn't think CF could get any more toxic than Jalen vs Mobley or Jabari vs Banchero but here we are.
Bro Amen finished 51 percent at the rim against high school kids. Unless you are suggesting he will do better against NBA centers, lay off the pipe when you talk about his out of the world finishing ability
What makes someone a pure PG to you? Amen is way more in the KPJ, Francis, Marbury mold. I was under the impression that you had to specialize at assists to be a pure PG.
It had been a snowball, now the size of Antartica, soon to be size of infinite cold space of the universe of negativity here.
That’s half court. And he finished the season converting 60% on that end. And if including transition he’s converting 70+%. Aggressive comments like this absolutely make your arguments more convincing.
This draft class is an insult on its own. You can't even tell if projected 4th pick is better than the 14th pick. Might as well draft Gradey Dick at least you know he is a good 3pt shooter. Every single kid below 3 has major red flags.
the reality is teams can get unlucky in the years they desperately need a draft to be good. or you can just be the spurs at the right time. smh. and when you're not fortunate to be able to choose from the top of the crop well it makes it that much worse.
