I'm not sure I agree with the the premise of your assertion, but regardless, I'll make a controversial point - I'm not sure we shouldn't have signed Sengun to the max. His player option is absolutely going to crush us in 2029.
no one with an offensive game as weak as Amen’s deserves a max, I’m sorry his offense is 4th option caliber atp…Idc how good your defense and athleticism is, that’s not a max player
The following are the players averaging Amen's line or better this season. Which are "fourth options?"
I think he does euro steps well offensively. Isn't that enough? Elite defensive impact plus euro steps. Or he needs a jumpshot to be eligible?
Amen Thompson has over half his twos assisted, can’t hit a three to save his life, and has scored over 20 points just 23 times so far in his career that list doesn’t mean anything to me
True, but Sengun was easily worth the rookie extension max when he signed the contract. I'd say Amen is comparable to how good Sengun was when Sengun signed. Granted, Sengun has improved a lot since signing the extension, and there is no guarantee that Amen will have the same improvement. I do think Amen is easily with the skill level of most of the guys that get rookie max extensions.
This is apples to oranges. Sengun's expectancy was different at the time he signed the contract. He signed it before LAST season (after his third year). You can't compare Sengun now to Amen now. You would compare Amen's market value after his third season (after this year) to Sengun's after his. If you can't see that Amen's is nontrivially higher, then I don't know what to tell you. Sengun's value has appreciated considerably in the last 1.25 seasons, and Amen's still .75 seasons away from finishing his third. Furthermore, Sengun's number is depressed by the fact that he got a final-year player option. Amen is getting a max from Houston or we will lose him. It's not even a close question unless he totally implodes for the balance of the season.
Not sure what you're trying to convey here. 2025-26 regular season stats PTS 17.2 52nd REB 7.3 35th AST 5.3 28th FG% 47.4 72nd Amen clearly isn't a first or second option on the current Rockets team. He would benefit greatly from more looks at the basket where his physicality is through the roof. But he needs to shoot 1,000 times a day in the offseason to get his shot to max level contract.
Not sure why you posted this given I literally used those stats in forming that chart. Right now, Amen is obvious the Rocket’s third offensive option next to Sengun and KD. He’s also our best defender. The overall profile creates and max rookie contract guy, easily.
1. It isn't true that Amen is better than those players were at the time of their extensions, especially Barnes. That's homerism. 2. Mobley and Wagner would not have signed rookie max extensions if they played for the Rockets. 3. The NBA contract landscape has shifted quickly in the last year and half, across the league; the Rockets were ahead of the curve. The days of no negotiation max contracts for non All-NBA / All-star / championship players are over. Even some clear all-star level guys in their prime with ALL the leverage like Jaren Jackson and Markkanen aren't getting their full 7-9 year max. Jalen Williams won OKC a ring and was All-NBA and a consensus top 15 player in the league and didn't even get the full rookie max escalators lol. 4. THE scarce asset in the NBA is high level offensive creation from a player who can defend their position. If a FO don't believe a player can be a good offensive #1 or #2 for a playoff-level halfcourt offense, they're not getting a max from a competent FO in 2026. Simple as that. I say this as an Amen guy since OTE days.
The main question is this: is it really worth committing to Amen long term if he still doesn’t have a jumper? To me, no matter how elite his defense is, any guard or wing who can’t shoot is a liability. Giannis is the exception to that rule, but Amen is nowhere near that level right now, and there’s no guarantee he’ll ever get close. I have a feeling that if we give Amen a max contract, there’s a good chance he becomes impossible to trade and we lose our cap flexibility. We also have to consider the possibility that Reed, who is a pure shooter, could end up better than Amen. By giving Amen the max, we might end up losing Reed for nothing.
nowhere near enough I’m not giving a max to somebody who scoring just 25 points would be considered a great offensive game…scoring isn’t everything, but there has to be a certain threshold on offense when we’re talking about being a max guy for me
The year Scottie Barnes signed his max, he only played 60 games and his numbers were only a little better than Amen's current numbers (20/8/6 v. Amen's 17/7/5), and Barnes wasn't anywhere near Amen has a defender. What is happening in this thread, actually, is the opposite of "homerism." Rocket fans watch Amen so closely that they tend to overstate his flaws.
If Amen can make 1or 2 threes per game he'll average 20ppg. He just gotta keep working on his jumpshot. Giannis didn't start making his 3s until a couple years ago...patience my friend. With the increase of salary cap in the coming years, Amen get $30-35M per year will look like a bargain
This is BS. If Reed ends up better than Amen, the Rockets will give him the max, too if Amen gets a max. The rookie extension max is well below the veteran max, such that having 2 rookie extension maxes plus Sengun will not be cost-prohibitive.
Amen's a MAX Player. Not sure if he needs to move back to his normal spot (which will happen soon enough) for some of y'all to realize this.
Respectfully, my guess is that it is you that doesn't watch much of other teams my friend. Scottie Barnes year 3 was a literal All-Star, averaging 20/8/6/1/1.5 on 48/34/78, with real 3 point volume as a co-#1 option offensively. The idea that Scottie Barnes' defense is something to sneer at is laughable. Barnes is a very talented defender; there is a large difference in how players can defend when they have a 25% usage rate vs. a 17% usage rate as a role player sitting in the dunker spot mostly (take a look at Amen's defense this year vs. last year, as an example). Tbh, past a certain point there's not much point to discussion if you can't discern a player in Amen that's excelling as a superhero role player but struggling to be more than that. It should not be some forbidden thing to acknowledge the obvious that Amen as a main offensive guy in the halfcourt at the NBA level has not worked and is not showing signs of working. If you watch Rockets and Raptors games and think, "this version of Amen is better than year three Scottie Barnes as a primary", Idk what to say.
