Not firm but the good thing about this day and age is that you can make momentary/stationary data of what the player is and can sort of predict..... You can precisely see with his brother Ausar that he can be an All round genius but with the Pistons having no shooters, the team is failing and they sent him to the bench no matter how good he is in all the other areas of game. No shooting from the wing/guard is really a detriment.
No busts nor franchise, it's really just wait and see. It goes to the skill set. Is this player a specialist (role player). Pistons is building around Cade, not Ausar, so then as a defensive wing can he adjust game to fit in a Pistons team that (at least now) also plays non spacing bigs. Same question will eventually be asked of the Rockets on Amen. Assuming there is defense and playmake (but without the shot). Can that fit work as a starter or a solid backup guard/wing. The brother match up tonight can be fun. If Monty keeps his starting lineup as their Raptors win. Ausar coming off the bench (12 min played). And if Ime does the same, there might be a cross matchup, where both brothers are on the court.
Some of it with Amen is going to be based on how Alpi develops. If Sengun becomes a reliable three point shooter it becomes much easier to have Amen as a starter, especially if, as I expect, he evolves into our starting point guard down the road. So you run Amen out there as a defensive/playmaking rim threat and every other player is presumably an outside shooter to maintain spacing. I would also, this season and perhaps going forward, really like to have a backup center who can knock down threes. I think that will help the entire bench unit a lot on offense, and down the road, would allow us to stagger Amen's and Alpi's minutes so they don't share the floor as often and can both utilize their rim pressure.
If they go small on a 2nd unit / stagger lineups. It's probably already possible. Jeff Green technically can serve as a small stretch 5, provided the opponent teams can't punish. 1. Amen 2. Jalen Green (staggered) / Cam / Bullock 3. Holiday / Bullock / Tari 4. Tate/Tari 5. Jeff Green Two non-shooters: Amen | Tate or Tari is acceptable. Very few NBA teams have all 4 or 5 who stretch (even in starting lineups); so have one to two non shooters is the norm. Not saying this is the one to use, since with injuries and close games sometimes no luxury. If I was advising Amen, it's less to hope others around you might fit 'your game', you should develop your game as much as possible where a NBA coach can use you in more situations. To be a starter primary handler: point guard (have to be able to score/shoot where it's not a terrible liability). If a player can't score, his passing / play make will be severely limited. Otherwise he'd have to take the path of his brother and be a defensive wing.
Honestly, 16 is way too many. We need him to basically be Ben Simmons and know his limitations. I think Simmons took a total of three 3 pointers in two years. Amen is extremely skilled, but severely limited as a shooter and we need to get value out of his other “real” skills like defense and passing.
Not a bad comparison from 3 point land. Livingston’s best year of the five in GS was 6 points a game. He shot over 50% from the floor and 82% free throws, so that still may be unrealistic for Amen (who has never shot over the 60% range in free throws). I do believe there is a spot in the rotation for Amen but it won’t be for late game heroics like Hardin, Gordon, McGrady, and others have historically given this team. Fortunately, we have Cam to groom into that role.
His elite athleticism will allow him to average more than 7-8 ppg obviously on layups and dunks alone.....get the drift.
Call me crazy, but that form on his jumper has made massive strides in a super short amount of time. I am hesitant to say that he will never be able to shoot.
Yes they do. Reality, which is something many on this board have struggled with, is that Brandon Miller is averaging 14.4 points per game and Scoot is averaging 12.2 points per game. The next pick was Amen who is averaging 4 points per game and has never even scored 10 points in a single game as a Rocket. 39% twos and 12% threes…Houston we have a problem!!!
I actually never envisioned him as a scorer.....in 32 minutes his ceiling was about 12-8-7 so I thought, but he might not even get there...... The Rockets are also not playing fast most of the time, so he would not even get those transition points.
……also, for all those complaining of sample size please note that Cam Whitmore who is two years younger and getting table scraps for playing time is averaging almost 7 points per game on 50% shooting. Ridiculous that we have to coddle and make excuses for the 4th pick in the draft.
Amen is basically Jalen Green with better passing and defense, but without any threat whatsoever of an outside or midrange shot. If you stripped Green of his three point and midrange shooting, he’d probably average about 8-9 points per game.
I do think he will have a better body and more in his head ....but will he get enough minutes. But yeah both have questionable handles right now that they have to get over with.
You guys calling Amen a bust already are real idiots. Here is a short list of the many great pg’s that were poor 3 pt shooters: Magic Johnson Rondo Dennis Johnson Jason Kidd until later in his careeer Gary Payton That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are plenty more and he could develop into a good shooter (nobody really knows).
Good point about Unc, although I do worry about being able to consistently rely on a 37yo to stay healthy, and he's a little small to really hold down center against some lineups.
