Amen Thompson is the Rockets' REAL franchise player

Better than Kawhi, Amen is a way better shot-blocker

 

Amen is already a better defender than Kawhi prime. He easily could have been DPOY if he was starting all year. Kawhi was all defense 1st team 3 times so far in his career. I think Amen blows that away if healthy. 4 players hold the record at nine.

 

I've not done the deep dive, how close is Ausar to Amen on that end? I'm assuming a shade behind similar to his overall athleticism? I could definitely see him getting towards those numbers with a DPOY or 2 for sure. He's got modern medicine/training on his side and his young age for his first All-defense. I think the only thing outside of injury to compete will be that the other premier defenders will also have those same things on their side too, but at the wings who is his competition outside of Daniels?

 

Ausar is very close to Amen as a defender. He does some of the same weird, out-of-nowhere stuff. From what I've seen, he doesn't strip players of the ball as often. He is more physical than Amen.

I think Ausar is going to explode after a healthy offseason and really raise his profile.

 

Already ranked 7th best SG in the NBA (by a subjective ranking)

 

Weirdly, I think that probably reduces both of their chances more than it would reduce other players. Just because if the perception becomes 2 elite defenders of the same archetype then they're both going to be competing to be the best at that archetype, and then hope that the archetype is appealing to voters more than the Wemby block machine or other big men. There's definitely a bias for DPOY, Gobert absolutely should not have as many as he does.

 

I mean to be fair, he's not much ahead of Kawhi by most reasonable measures.

At age 22, Kawhi won Finals MVP and a ring... Granted, it was a very balanced and deep championship team with a lot of veteran star power and leadership, but nonetheless. Being the best player on a title team at 22 is a lofty accomplishment.

... And to put my Rockets fanboy hat back on, I don't think it's out of the question that Amen can do the same this coming season. It's a semi-realistic best-case scenario with Durant on board.

 

Amen should be top 2. He impacts the game more than anyone else on that list

 

I actually think that's fair. I could believably see any of Durant, Amen, Sengun, Tari or Bari (most outside shot I think) winning finals NBA if we won a chip. Durant's age makes it not a forgone conclusion so Amen and Alpi especially would be "next up" so to speak should we be so fortunate as fans next off season. You don't have to stretch the imagination for to play out any of those narratives in your head, I can even believably right the one for Bari though it'd be more of a stretch and would probably require him coming up against the right opponent to leverage his defense more than he typically does (remembering that time he played well against Giannis for example.)

 

I think they all would win the finals if we won a championship?
I'm not sure there is another way it can work?



[Yes, yes, I know what you meant!]

 

Haha dammit, I've been typing in between a report for work all evening and I totally missed that. Yeah I fully meant Finals MVP not Finals NBA lmao, what a dumbass. I do think it's a fair point though, the expectation would be KD but any of those guys could step up.