not sure how people saw the fail that was Ben Simmons as your PG, and then want to see the remix with Amen Thompson a jumper this bad just screams instant liability in an important game or playoff series these are guys teams don’t even bother to guard and just have their defender roaming clogging up the paint and helping on the other players on the team who need spacing
oh dip, well first real run for 6 minutes against the Timberwolves with backups and it didn't go great. Bust? Trade him?
He has 6 years to work on his shot. SImmons was a three time all star before he collapsed, I don't see that as a fail.
Cam may be better some day, but he hasn't proven that yet. They both pretty much stunk last night. Amen is special on defense. He also has shown the capability of hitting the mid-range shot, although he didn't last night. Cam has shown to be a better 3 pt shooter. Jalen was much better than both last night. There really is no reason to pit any of them against one another. Amen is going to be the backup pg to FVV and Cam needs to be the backup SG to Jalen. Tate and Holiday are in the way in Ime's mind and last night did not do anything to further their cause, although Tate and Holiday sucked even worse than they did.
Rockets need to add me to their scouting staff to avoid these costly miscues, as I had this guy “read” from day one. If you recall, I made multiple posts pleading for them and predicting they would take Cam over Amen who I thought should have been a later round one pick due to no outside shooting (which is critical in the NBA).
30% was against Amen I believe........on CF. At least they talked me into him having bball IQ.....who knows.
With all due respect, Cam IS better today….not someday. He had a normal rookie bad game last night as he is still learning NBA basketball. His issues can be worked on and fixed. He has the ability at his young age to be a potential future star in the league. The same cannot be said for Amen. While Cam’s ceiling is off the charts, Amen’s ceiling is being a great distributing PG who can play great defense and can’t shoot outside shots. One optimistic poster compared Amen’s outside shooting to Jalen Suggs. Difference is Suggs could shoot a high percentage of outside shots at Gonzaga, where there is no prior history of this at OT with Thompson (against significantly lesser competition than Gonzaga). We are in significant trouble as a team if we go the KPJ route with this kid and determine to make him our PG of the future. He wil never shoot much better than his career best 20% threes at (little league) OT and it is lethal to have a 58% OT career free throw shooter in at PG at the ends of tight NBA basketball games. He can be a successful bench player in this league if he maximizes the skills he does posess, which unfortunately don’t include and likely never will include outside shooting.
His shooting looks bad, his handles are disappointing, and his processing the game has been inconsistent. But folks, he’s a rookie who hasn’t had much time on the court. At least he’s another high work ethic guy with a ton of ability. I was a Scoot guy but was also fine trading down for more assets. There were several guys I liked including Whitmore and Wallace. But I just believe Amen will develop all the requisite skills needed to become a difference-maker in this league, even if his shooting never gets beyond Westbrook-level. He’s going to be a better defender than Russ. Gotta give this kid time. Bari, Tari, Amen…you never have to worry about their work ethic. You keep these guys because their floor is high; these guys are not gonna fail. They may end up being limited in certain aspects of the game, but they are going to be really good players cause they love the game and will out work everyone.
Every game we need to play lockdown defense. It is supposed to be our identity. The whole team sucked at defense last night. We really miss Brooks and Tari. We are not a deep team until Amen and Cam get up to snuff. They had a bad game last night and I hope it doesn’t mean Tate and Holiday eat up their minutes, because they suck as well. A bench of Amen, Cam, Tari and a decent backup center can be very effective later in the season.
We just disagree. I think both are going to be good. I think Amen is going to be a superstar. Way too early to judge either one.
In fairness, Scoot Henderson looks like absolute dogshit and Jarace Walker is looking great in the G league but can barely get on the court in the NBA. There's a lot to like about Amen's defensive potential, but his complete inability to shoot a basketball at an NBA level is potentially a fatal flaw. He's either going to have to get A LOT better or he won't be in the league 5 years from now.
Let me remind you guys. A lot of people thought Jabari Smith was a bust last year. Thought his shooting and defense were falsely advertised. Thought he was another stiff tall guy who couldn't dribble. Udoka, unlike Silas, is slowly bringing his rookies along, not to mention Amen's early ankle injuries. Let's conclude, "His shooting mechanics will prevent him from ever being a star." Or "His loose handles won't make him an effective PG." Or "OTE can never develop winning players." The kid played only 220 minutes of NBA basketball, about 7 games of a regular rotation minutes. You guys have already seen enough to judge his future.
It's really hard to envision that an Amen Thompson/Jalen Green backcourt will be the foundation of a Houston Rockets dynasty based on what we've seen thus far. Regarding Amen, I don't see him ever becoming a starting PG. His strength is mainly defense and rebounding. Unless you're in transition he's a liability on offense.
Last year, a lot of people also couldn't envision an Alperen Sengun/Jabari Smith frontcourt could be the foundation of a Houston Rockets dynasty.
The difference of course is that we had seen things in the past that suggested it would be fine. We saw Smith's shooting in college, so we knew he could hit shots....he just didn't in his rookie season for one reason or the other. We saw glimpses of what Smith could do on defense, he just wasn't consistent. With Sengun, he was already the team's best player last season, we just wanted to see the game run through him more, for him to play better defense overall, and for him to develop a 3....well the 3 hasn't happened, but he's been a lot better on defense (aside from last night) and we've seen what happens when we run the game through him. With Green and Amen....we have one guy who is a massive liability on defense and highly inefficient on offense paired with a guy that simply can't shoot. Amen can make up for some of Jalen's deficiencies on defense, but they are just a terrible match on offense. Jalen doesn't really look like a starting caliber player and Amen doesn't look like an NBA player at all. There's always the possibility of improvement, the probability of it even, but right now it's hard to think those guys are the future till they show more.
