Very good pre-season and certainly looking like he will take that playmaking leap. I do hope he learns to control his anger out there and focus it. He's too good to miss games over fights or too many technicals/fragrants.
I'm still standing on Amen being the second best basketball player in the NBA. Hopefully you guys catch up.
IMO it already went away with Sengun's MVP play in Euro cup. We aint trading Sengun and Amen for Giannis lol
Jalen has small hands and low bball IQ, he lacked the "feel" great scorers supposed to have. Small hand means he is prone to losing the ball when he got bumped and his handles cant reach elite level cuz he cant palm the ball. Also not sure how much life outside bball is distracting Jalen. Pre draft he supposed to have the work ethic of Kobe but improvement every year had been minimal (although it was there). Amen oth is just driven to reach the apex of bball. You dont go from 65% in OTE to 70% in NBA 1st year to making 9/9 in preseason without a lot of work.
God darn it, this work ethic fairy tale still got legs? Amen has the work ethic of Jordan, Sengün has the work ethic of Prime Hakeem then.
Yeah, Jalen was a frustrating one - felt like he didn't get the big picture and he didn't really have people around him who did either. Jalen would come back each offseason with some newish move. The problem was - he didn't need to perfect a new behind the back double hesi step back move - he needed to learn to hit the most basic version of that shot with more accuracy, he needed to improve at reading and reacting appropriately to defenders, he needed to know where his teammates would be without even thinking about it. He had a pretty impressive bag of moves but since he is such a streaky shooter and since he is such a slow processor of opposing defenses - those moves weren't really effective because while he is going through the motions of some technically impressive one on one move - two or three defenders are crowding him making the move even more difficult, a teammate is wide open on the weak side whom he missed a pass to, AND he misses the shot she probably should have never taken in the first place. Its like he spent all his time practicing new moves and improving his handles and far less time learning how to read defenders or read the defense to know when to break out those moves and when to find open teammates.
If Jalen actually spent a lot time during offseasons working on his handles, he didn't have much to show for it. IMO, loose handles, poor shooting, terrible shot selection, abhorrence of contact and refusal to play within his limitations were his downfall with the Rockets. Flawed processing certainly had a lot to do with these.
Amen reminds me a bit of young Dream. This ain't the 80s NBA young man. Get that temper under control or teams will definitely use it against you. We don't want today's version of Kupchak taking you out of a game.
Gonna be some opening night for you then! Double bigs dueling it out with Shai and Amen going head to head. Can't freaking wait. It would be cool if Amen did to Shai on their ring ceremony night a little of what Hakeem did to David Robinson during his MVP trophy night. A boy can dream, and it would be cool.
Yeah he needs to keep a lid on getting too violent. He's only allowed to actually beat somebody up if it's Draymond and it's not the playoffs. Oh and Herro too, that's fair game now. **** it, Alvarado's an annoying little dick he can give him a sly one maybe if nobody's really watching. But nobody else, and not in the playoffs.
I often see people knock Amen's offensive game because he's getting "easy" baskets. Well, I'd rather see him get easy baskets than taking tough shots everytime. I think Amen in our offense, his offensive game is a lot akin to James Worthy. Transition player, can hit middies, can hit the occasional 3 but mainly relies on his athleticism and scoring at the rim. We want this kind of player because his cutting is perfect to pair with Sengun's passing. This is why I think we shouldn't change up his role too much. It's nice to give him a couple touches every game to let him create something but the offense without Fred should still go primary through Sengun.
Initiating the offense will be divided among Sengun and Amen. They are two different styles of attack. Durant and Reed will be the ones with a couple of touches as the initiator. I think the script will be flipped a bit than a normal guard, big comparison. I think Amen is going to outscore Sengun and Sengun is going to out assist Amen.
I'm a little bit concerned that part of the issue there is Ime is encouraging this type of attitude, and Amen, being highly coachable and highly competitive, is taking it to heart. I wonder if he'd still be popping off like this under a different coach. On the other hand, he might also not be quite as insane defensively without Ime pushing him so hard.
He makes baskets look easy that aren't. His other-wordly athleticism gives him opportunities most don't have. The easy dunk was there because he beat the backside defensive rotation to the hoop or because he moved so fast that his well timed cut completely turned around his guy leaving Amen these easy points that only his athleticism and timing could have got him. There was a missed bucket this preseason that illustrates that - Amen had two defenders trying to stop him on the break and one dove across his body at the ball about 7 ft from the hoop just as he was going into his gather - it was solid defensive timing. Amen spun 360 degrees to avoid it, went up in the air and the 2nd defender was ready at the rim with a strong contest - another great defensive play. Amen narrowly missed the bucket but somehow was able to rebound his own miss on the other side of the basket AFTER a spinning 360 layup where he absorbed contact at the rim. He then missed that bucket(and KD putback that miss) and I was like - okay, Amen has to make one of those shots next time.. ...but then when you put it all into context its like - Amen narrowly missed a layup with two great defensive plays made on him and yet he still managed to get his own rebound and have an opportunity at another shot while those other players were still trying to get their bearings after contesting Amen's first shot. It's kind of like Wemby's missed 3 tip back dunk - we have see players miss 3s and make tip in dunks all the time but we rarely if ever see a player do both in the same sequence. Amen's example above was a miss, but the unheard of opportunity is the point. That's what Amen has going for him - he's such an athletic blur that he has opportunities normal players(who are also elite athletes) just don't have.
