Amen Thompson is the Rockets' REAL franchise player

His stats when he played at least 40 minutes this season (7 games): 20,1 points, 12,3 rebounds, 4,7 assists, 2,1 steals, 1,3 blocks in 40,9 minutes. That’s amazing

 

Alpi:

"Amen is one of the most athletic guys I have seen in my life."
"(He will not catch me in triple doubles though )"

 

Yeah, I know he had a high-impact triple-double at 21 years old, a freak athlete, a high IQ, and had a three-to-one assist-turnover ratio, with a clutch win against the top seed in the East.

But man, but what about his guard handles?

 

I'd take Amen over Miller and Henderson in a heart beat.

 

Amen is HIM. Rafel has some hard choices to make. If Dillon is smart, he will ask to come off the bench when Bari is healthy. He will be on the other side of Thirty at the end of his current contract. He needs to start showing both the team and the rest of the league that he will do whatever it takes to win.

 

I was just debating 1week ago with some posters here telling me he's Battier or Iggy 2.0.

He doesn't have the handles they said.

 

Amen Thompson was everywhere last night! Such a badass player.

 

Amen is the ultimate utility player but until teams are trying to deny Amen the ball in full court presses and half court opposing defensive sets like they do Jalen and Alpi, yes his handle will be considered a issue.

He still is scoring off the gravity of Sengun and Green.

Like can we give some credit to the rim pressure that Green and Alpi create that clears out defenders to get open offensive put backs for Amen?

I don't think I'm being a hater of Amen also if I simply believe this team doesn't have a "best player". They have players who are best at their roles.

This is a true team. Amen is absolutely the best player on this team on defense and being a connector on offense. He's a beast at the boards also. These the things he excells at.

But when it's crunch time notice how Amen in half court sets is trying to find Jalen or Sengun to pass the ball off to

 

Amen.

 

Amen is a team player...almost to a fault. I think it would do the Rockets offense a lot of good if they could roll the ball out to Amen on the left wing, drop Sengun in the post, and tell Amen in no uncertain terms, "Don't pass the ball. Go right, beat your man, and shoot in the middle of the paint."

When Amen is in practice, he should start on the left wing and figure out what quick "go-to" move he wants to make to go to his left. When he's confident about how he wants to dictate play going either direction, the Rockets should find more possessions where he can clear out and operate.

I'm ready to see Amen more as a primary option in the half-court. Bring on the playoffs.

 

Amen should be given serious consideration for DPOY. How often has a DPOY award been given to a player with a subpar record? I know Wemby is one of the contenders and I don't believe he deserves even if he helps elevate SA to be competitive.

 

Rockets are barely even mentioned for any awards. Not even an “honorable mention”.

(As of this writing) 2nd best in West, 4th in the league, no all-stars (Sengun may get one of last spots), no awards, makes sense.



https://sports.yahoo.com/2024-25-nb...leagues-most-pleasant-surprise-195215101.html

Devine: The Midseason Sixth Man of the Year is Amen Thompson, Houston Rockets. I understand and respect your intellectual arguments for Payton Pritchard. I also forget about them every time Amen checks in and immediately changes the temperature of a game, simultaneously cranking up the Rockets to 1 million kelvins and freezing an opposing offense in its tracks. For my money, Thompson rivals Victor Wembanyama as the most breathtaking player to watch in the NBA … and, since he’s been starting for most of the last month with Jabari Smith Jr. on the shelf and will likely continue to do so, he might not be eligible for this award come season’s end. Might as well give it to him now.

Rohrbach: Victor Wembanyama is the Defensive Player of the Year, and it is not even close. The gap is so far that we do not even need to debate who the other candidates should be. (Give me Dyson Daniels on the perimeter any day, though.) The NBA should not even name two other finalists at season's end. List Wembanyama, his wingspan and his pet dog, if he has one. (Please tell me Victor has a miniature French bulldog.)

O'Connor: Wemby is the DPOY in a landslide. If it’s not a consensus vote then something is seriously wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/60...awards-midseason-shai-gilgeous-alexander-mvp/

Coach of the (Half) Year: Kenny Atkinson, Cavaliers
Runners-up: J.B. Bickerstaff, Pistons; Taylor Jenkins, Grizzlies

Sixth Man of the (Half) Year: Payton Pritchard, Celtics
Runners-up: De’Andre Hunter, Hawks; Amen Thompson, Rockets

Thompson may end up starting too many games to qualify for this award; he’s started 13 times already, including 11 of the Rockets’ last 12 games, and I’m not sure Jabari Smith Jr. will be able to push him out once he returns from injury. For now, however, Thompson qualifies, and he’s been such a force of nature that it’s hard to ignore the impact. Even with near-zero shooting gravity, Thompson’s combination of ballhandling, finishing at the rim and defensive havoc make him a multi-layered threat across the court, and we may still just be scratching the surface of the second-year pro’s long-range potential.

Defensive Player of the (Half) Year: Victor Wembanyama, Spurs
Runners-up: Evan Mobley, Cavaliers; Jaren Jackson Jr. Grizzlies

https://www.nba.com/news/trending-topics-2024-25-midseason-award-picks

Shaun Powell has Udoka as COY

https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...idseason-awards-mvp-rookie-coach/77715012007/

(Nothing)

 

I don't want Wemby to win if the Spurs record doesn't improve. I hate the media and their BS hype machine. I know Wemby is a generational talent and I know he makes the Spurs better, but he doesn't have them on tract to be a playoff team, just a play in team. That's not deserving of DPOY and it is BS. Evan Mobley and Jaren Jackson are much more deserving and Amen needs to be an honorable mention as well.

 

Ime would deserve coach of the year, but we'll take a championship instead.

 

Podz making first team all rookie over Amen was such a joke.

 

The thing leading up to the draft was always, Miller is the high-floor guy, you know he's going to be an NBA starter but there was some debate about the upside. To me he's looking like he's trying to do too much on a bad team and doesn't appear equipped to handle the level of offensive load he's taking on. He'd probably be better as the third option on a good team where he gets more open looks and less defensive attention.

Scoot was supposed to also have a fairly high floor, along with a higher ceiling than Miller, and he has not lived up to either of those yet. But you do have to keep in mind how tough it is coming and playing point guard for a terrible team. He's clearly not as good as people expected, but I think he may still round out into a good starter. Dude looked like a real NBA rotation player when we saw them, bare minimum. Right now Miller has a leg up, but is older and more experienced--I think it could still go either way which of those two ends up having the better NBA career though.

Amen was always this guy where everyone could see the insane tools and potential and I think he got doubted a great deal primarily because of OTE and secondarily because of the lack of a jump shot. He neither took the expected path nor fit into the expected mold for a perimeter player in today's NBA and that scared a lot of people off. If he had been drafted ten years ago when it was all about finding the "next LeBron", he would have fared better in terms of his draft stock. If he had played in college instead of OTE and put up the same numbers there, he would have fared better.

We got lucky and took advantage of his fundamental weirdness as a draft prospect, basically.

 

Still crazy he’s doing all of this without a real offense package. If he ever gets that part going, watch out

 

I think both Sengun and Jalen get decent credit from our fans for the most part. And yea Amen is not the primary go to on offense at least not yet. But if we had a draft of all the rockets players currently, I’m betting that just about everyone is drafting Amen first.

 

I know I’m not alone in being disappointed when we drafted Thompson. I figured we already had an uber-athletic guard who couldn’t shoot, how was adding a WORSE shooter going to help?

Seems real dumb now (blame the weed), but… I didn’t know an Amen Thompson could exist until he showed me!