We lost our defensive identity.

The KD trade ruined the chemistry. But I wonder why Jabari, Amen, Sengun, and Tari aren't stepping up to fill that role. They aren't young rookies new to the league anymore. We seem to have regressed to a team that needs KD offensive heroics to win games, and we know we can't rely on that in this stage of his career.

 

It’s a combination of not having dfs that was signed to replace DB, and Fred’s injury that left us with no pg, so Amen and kd need to handle the ball more so they lose their energy and concentration on defense.

 

Well yeah, everyone and their mother said they needed more offense/more shooting. So they went and got more offense. And Dillon’s “replacement” hasn’t played.

Fred was a terrorist, now he’s the savior.
Dillon was ehh, now he’s the heart & soul of the team
Fred & Dillon were “taking shots away from the younger guys”, now we can’t function without them.
Double bigs was talk of the league and “Wow, did they find something here?!”, now it should never be seen again
Couldn’t put the ball in the basket, wanted more offense, now want that defense back

 

Gang, they played two games in denver in two weeks. Have you guys ever been to the mountains? My family hails from the himalayas and it’s no physical joke. They are just lacking energy from a long road trip. They’re also very young. College age. Let them figure it out

 

Well, FVV's absence is such a giant hole. Amen isn't the same defensive terror given that he's now de facto starting point guard.
DFS. Don't get me started. Can't help on the defensive end if you never play.
Ime got what he wanted in KD but the team defers too much, and he can't do it alone.

Not to mention Adams and Capela.

 

Maybe we should give Phoenix their pick and bring back our heart & soul

 

Bingo. This is such a beautiful illustration of why most of what we say here should be ignored. We're the 50-40-90 club: 50% of our opinions, 40% of our descriptions, and 90% of our postgame reactions are wrong.

 

When you've got young guys they need to step up instead of trying to fix the problems with trades. Fix your problems before trading your problems. If this young core is worth a damn these are the proving grounds.

 

We also lost our athleticism. Too many slow players in the rotation.

Sengun/Adams/Capela
Durant
Jabari guarding wings
Sheppard

Amen is the only excellent athlete. Okogie and Tari are ok. We went big and got slow.

 

There were a few of us that realized that Jalen wasn’t our biggest problem, it was FVV and Ime. All the trade did was degrade our defense and substitute Durant for FVV as an inadequate floor general. Durant is a monster at shooting. He no longer does anything else that is even average and Ime in his infinite knowledge has turned over the offense to him, since he has no clue in how to coach it.

 

Face it.... Amen just isn't as good as you thought he'd be. Stop blaming FVV and Ime for Amen's lack of meaningful offensive progress and because Jalen Green wasn't effective enough.

 

Amen is the enigma, he does a lot of things very well especially on the defensive end, but trying to maximize him offensively within the team construct is tricky. There's a reason why we are running the two man game between Sengun/Durant, Sengun/Reed, and Reed/Durant without Amen.

We will need to find a balance.

 

I have acknowledged that Amen hasn’t progressed as fast as I thought he would. My hypothesis is that his failures at the rim are an anomaly and the last few games would indicate that he is at least starting to be more consistent with hitting those shots. I’m disappointed that his outside shooting has not improved.

He struggled at first in deferring too much and passing when he should have been scoring. I contend that most of his issues are with confidence and with a lack of an offense that spreads the floor for him to operate. He needs to step up and get better at finishing in the lane and Ime needs to step up and do a better job of generating an offense that’s based on spacing and movement. Jalen was able to get to the rim, but was not good at passing and couldn’t finish. Amen’s passing is fine. When he gets under control and confident he will finish much better than Jalen. None of that will matter if Ime doesn’t figure out an offensive scheme that provides better spacing.

 

They don't have that leadership.

KD does not have that as well.

 

Amen's finishing right at the rim (0-3ft) is pretty much exactly where it was last season, 75.3% versus 75.8%. Where his shooting has struggled is at basically every other distance. His percentages on floaters and little midrange jumpers are way down. His percentage on three pointers is way down. Only his longer midrange jump shots have improved (to 39.3% from 26.3%), but the shot volume is so low that's probably just a fluke.

I think he's been mildly disappointing on defense, but maybe that's to be expected given the increased usage on the other end. He's been about what you'd expect from a first time point guard as a playmaker. The regression on his jump shooting/midrange game is what's really hurting his season right now. If he was even shooting similar percentages to last season, he would be averaging a couple more points per game and would be a 20, 7, and 5 guy and everyone would be a lot happier with his season so far, even with the moderate decline of his defensive value.

 

Amen thompson sucks ass. Hes just a shorter ben simmons with worse defense. Tell me why im constantly seeing his man being doubled. What is even the point if you cant even expect him to hold someone 1 on 1? Is it really worth sabotaging the offense? If you have a shooter this bad im going to need some tony allen defense. His man should NEVER feel comfortable getting a shot off