[The Ringer] Amen Thompson Has Become a Shape Shifting Nightmare

I ran out of ways to describe what it's like to watch Amen Thompson play basketball. The Jalen comparison earlier was perfect because I remember thinking about Jalen "man he's so fast, he'd be impossible to stay in front of." But Amen feels so much faster than Jalen, it's actually scary. Amen would absolutely shut Jalen down, and that's not me trying to hate on Jalen. I love Jalen, but I just don't see how he could get a shot off against Amen. He's too strong, too quick, and he teleports. Plus he has insane processing speed. He knows what you're going to do and he knows he can jump faster, so he doesn't fall for fakes. Why fall for any fakes when he can jump at twice your speed? His intelligence and speed are just unmatched.

Shawn Marion as a comp doesn't even really work from me because The Matrix had that verticality that Ausar has, but neither has the later speed of Amen. Closest comp I can think of for him is probably someone like Tyreek Hill who can get to top speed so fast, you basically have to hope to contain him instead of running with him.

 

He's a freak of nature, the comparables in terms of level of natural physical gifts are like, LeBron, MJ, Dwyane Wade, Blake Griffin, Ben Simmons, Zion Williamson, John Wall, etc. His style of play/skillset/exact physical traits aren't quite like any of those guys, it's more like if you took parts of their games and combined them. But that's how these things usually play out at this level, no two star players are alike. You're not going to find a carbon copy comp like you could with, say, a 3nD roleplayer.

 

For some of them you can sort of do it. Zion like a Shawn Kemp, Ant like a MJ, Fox like John Wall, etc. Not 1 to 1 like you said, but usually I can find someone at least comparable.

I simply cannot figure it out for Amen. Maybe some future player will get compared to him, idk lol. He's insane.

 

Jalen has athleticism but Amen has functional athleticism. I will say Jalen has improved this year at this.

The best comp I can come up with for Amen is what if Andrei Kirilenko had amazing vision, higher motor and was the best athlete in NBA history?

An even more hyperbolic one. What if Lebron James had his defensive and offensive sliders reversed?

 

There isn’t one. Combine Magic (vision), Simmons (athleticism), Jordan (determination), Rodman (maniacal defense and on the boards). Somehow fit Wade in there.

 

I don't think anything can be counted as hyperbolic as when talking about Amen Thompson at this point, not if we're talking athleticism. I can't tell you how many times I watched him do something this year that I had no explanation for. My girlfriend doesn't watch much basketball and I try to explain to her how ridiculous it is. Even without an understanding of basketball, she can recognize how differently he moves compared to normal humans. Then I remind myself none of those players out there are normal humans lmao.

 

I like this one. Or similarly: What if MJ had his jump shooting slider swapped with his passing slider?

 

Clip?

 

I loved this post, but who is Tyreek Hill? Is this a cross sport comparison?

 

Yeah my bad I left out the context! He is a wide receiver in the NFL. Lightning quick, crazy top end speed, just has that twitchy stuff that Amen can do but like 10 inches shorter. That's what makes NBA players otherworldly to me, the height they do this stuff at.

 

Imma call amen nightcrawler

 

So did Giannis. Fox was on a podcast recently and said similar things. He was asked "how do you know/why do you think he's so good" and Fox said "cause he's guarding me!" Lmao.

The league superstars know Amen. He'll be on a first name basis in the casual fan basketball world next season.

 

The only comparison for Amen is when a saiyan transforms into a new level for the first time against a really strong opponent and starts zapping around from place to place to make the villian look silly. That's Amen

 

Like the article says - in the aggregate he is a top 1% athlete since 2012 and rates 95% or better of all the standard athletic measures compared to NBA peers since then. There won't be another to compare because almost no one has that full package of agility, top line speed, acceleration, and jumping ability....but what is incredible is he has all these "AND" skills that are elite too. The real time processing is elite, the passing is elite, the defense is obviously elite because he can do it in a number of roles on the defense AND he has all those skills plus this pace game where he can be a blur and then slowly Euro step around players who are quickly trying to anticipate where he is. He's got great touch at the rim, I would say decent feel generally inside of 12ft of the rim....his ball handling has improved, his shooting has improved(but obviously still has a way to go)....he's just a real cheat code in the same way Lebron and Giannis were in their prime. You can do everything perfect and right, and he will still beat you(see the game winner against Boston earlier in the season).

I really do feel like we got in on the ground floor of watching something special and it's very nice because I don't think anyone expected THIS. I thought his athleticism would make him able to get to his spots at the very least and I knew he had creative scoring and excellent passing skills....but I didn't know he was going to be a demon on defense and I didn't have an appreciation for just how quickly he processes the game(although I could tell from interviews he was a smart guy).

 

I did not expect the offensive rebounding.
I did not expect that he would go from on-ball player to being one of the best cutters in the game.
I did not expect he could play in the dunker's spot.
I was worried his on-ball skills would have trouble without the shooting.
I expected great defense, but this has been better than I expected.
While not used much this year, he's a great roller.

 

I posted it in another thread about that game, but here's Steph commenting on Amen :



Here's Draymond :

 

I was wary of the glaring weakness he had coming into the draft (shooting), but I was excited about his size and athleticism compared to Scoot. You're on the money though, I never saw THIS coming. He's pure joy to watch. Anyone who has ever played a serious level of basketball knows this guy is someone you want on your team and never want to play against. I think the best thing from all these videos about him lately is the absolutely true statement that "You can't put a ceiling on Amen Thompson right now. There isn't one."

I think if he did have a reasonable ceiling, he'd just jump through it. I love that he's easy to root for him. He and Ausar are basketball junkies and I feel like if I could hang out with Amen, we'd just geek out over all time greats and basketball debates. I want all Rockets players to succeed, but especially Amen.

 

Before the game LeBron was telling his friends Amen would cover 18' on a defensive play. Then when the game started he upped it to 22.

 

@Os Trigonum do we have an Amen X-Factor thread?