Is there precedent for a truly horrific shooter becoming adequate?

Breh, you need to say for every star that is a mediocre shooter, he has to be surrounded by shooters and defenders. That is extra.

We treat Amen as a sure fire star now and that is IMO not right.

What if he is just a super role player, a role player is supposed to shoot a good number to be worthy supporting a legit superstar.

It is good to know early what type of player he is though, so you can figure out a hierarchy.

 

Mediocre/below-average 3P shooter surrounded by 3-and-D guys is almost the normal model these days. Look at this year's playoff bracket--best player on many teams was below league average from the 3P line:

LeBron
Fox
Embiid
Butler
Antetokounmpo
Randle
Morant

Generally these guys are over 30% as 3P shooter, but again, I don't think anyone is saying Amen is going to become a star if the shot doesn't get better at all.

 

Nah - there are plenty of guys that don't have "it" but become adequate shooters.

 

Adequate, yes. My point is there is no amount of practice that is going to make Ben Simmons into Steph Curry. There are innate abilities for shooting that some have and some don't.

 

Not enough of them.......

we (Rockets) have a few that haven't improved enough in two years for me to want to take a chance on Amen, Scoot or Ausar.

I'm looking at you Tate, Kenyon, Sengun, and Josh Christopher

 

Can't turn Curry into anyone else either. No man is an island, not even the 3 point shooting goat. Professional basketball is played with teams of 5 and the best have roles that enhance each other's strengths. More than anything, more important than who we pick at 4 is how these guys learn to start complimenting their roles with each other.

 

everyone’s bringing up guys who were garbage from 3, but I wish Amen’s issue was that he was just a poor 3 point shooter

right now he is garbage from 3, from midrange, AND from the line as a guard

I saw someone like Tyrese Maxey mentioned in this thread…he shot 83% from the free throw line in college, and his jumper looked smooth as a rookie, he wasn’t gonna stay a poor jump shooter for long

 

For all of Amen/Ausar time on the basketball court so far, they have succeeded using their elite athleticism against inferior talent. Their elite athleticism should work some in the NBA, but on the offensive end they will be limited until they learn how to shot the rock.

If you look at the Rockets last year, they either had the lead or could sniff it in the fourth period in the majority of their losses. The Rockets as a team need to learn how to finish games. What they decidedly do not need is non-shooters on the floor in the 4th and having to play 4 against 5.

The Thompson Twins may vary well be 2 years away from being 2 years away, when they enter the league. Whoever drafts them may also only get a taste of what they can do during their rookie contract.

From Ime Udoka's perspective, he will want to win as soon as possible and likely prefer a more NBA ready player.

It will be interesting to see what kind of interest the rest of the league has in drafting Amen/Ausar with the 1.4 pick and what offers get made.

 

FT% in last year before being drafted:

Amen Thompson: 69% (including OTE playoffs)
De'Aaron Fox: 73%
Josh Giddey: 69%
DeMar DeRozan: 64%
Bruce Brown: 63%
Marcus Smart: 72%
Jaylen Brown: 65%
Goran Dragic: 65%
Dejounte Murray: 66%
LaMelo Ball: 72%

The idea that Amen is unusually, inordinately bad among non-shooting draft prospects is simply not true. There have been lots of guys who sucked at the 3P line and FT line who turned it around and became adequate or better at both.

As for floaters and such, it's gonna be hard to find stats on that for college/international basketball, but I doubt many guys who were bad at FTs were amazing at shooting floaters. It's not exactly a high-percentage shot that is a staple of most players' games in any case.

 

3 point shooting has become so important in the NBA, how does a draft prospect rate highly when they can't shoot? At the guard spot too! I thought it was always "he can shoot in college but will it translate to the NBA?" Not "oh no worries, he'll pick it up along the way."

 

Amen is far from a good FT shooter but people would have you believing he can't make them at all which is far from the truth.

 

it happens all the time…Remember “Ben Simmons is a jump shot away from being Lebron?”

we’ll keep hearing about Jason Kidd and Kawhi, or someone like Fox will be brought up even tho Fox’s free throw shooting wasn’t as poor and he at least had a floater game…plus, at no point did Fox’s shot ever look as broken as what Amen tosses up

not to mention Amen Thompson would be entering his Junior year if he was in college and is shooting as poor as he is unlike guys like Fox and Brown who were one and done’s

 

Magic dramatically improved along the way.

That said, he's the exception, not the rule.

 

Yep! Sengun, Tate, and KJ are left wide ass open on their 3s and still shot poorly. I’d feel more optimistic if they had more contested 3 point attempts. Idk why we would wanna add another poor shooter smh

 

I think we have a bunch of trolls posing as Sengun fans that
always want The Rockets to be the worst 3-pt shooting team; which
in turn clogs the paint so no facilitators have room to drive.

Continued laughing stock of the NBA world. Adding Scoot, Amen, Ausar doesn't help...
It only compounds the situation.

 

I'm not sure adequate is enough for the role Amen is projected to occupy. You want your star PG to be able to hit long jumpers off the dribble so he's difficult to guard on drives. It forces 3 players to get involved in PnR defense or at least 2 plus 1 playing off his man in space.

It's not enough for him to be an ok corner 3 pt shooter when he's wide open because that assumes someone else is making the plays for him. He should be initiating the offense. So, he has to be able to make difficult pull up jumpers.

I actually think a reliable pull up midrange jumper, floater, and layup package will be way more important than becoming a 6'7 Al Horford.

 

Minor quibble, but I believe Amen would be entering his sophomore year if he was in college.

Everything else you said (and what others have said) is generally valid IMO. I think it's reasonable to think Amen will get better as a shooter, but how much better is up for debate. It's also not clear what will be adequate for his game to be maximized. And he might just end up at slightly taller Elfrid Payton. Certainly more likely than PG Kawhi.

As I alluded to earlier, I think shooting is one of the easier skills to develop, but there are limits of course.

 

His ability to find lanes to the basket and explode into space is a gravity all on its own that's going to pull guys over just to help stop him. I agree though he needs to hit that top of the key pull-up 3Per when his man plays too far back. Those corner shots should not be his main focus. If you're playing him off the ball as a perimeter spacing wing why are you even picking him, you know? Just go with his brother.

Unless you've given him a couple of years of on-ball reps and he's just not cutting it and you decide to turn him into more of a Matisse Thybulle defensive specialist guy. But you don't start out there for sure.

 

Plus shooting from is completely broken.

Amen stans have to try really hard to find that player who was garbage against bad competition, had a broken jumper and became good one day.

One case becomes proof in their minds presumably.

 

this is the biggest thing for me

shooting percentages are one thing, but the eye test doesn’t inspire much confidence either

someone like Fox wasn’t that good of a shooter entering the league but



much easier to picture a jumper like his becoming decent one day…that’s not a jump shot that looks completely broken and busted

there’s guys who shot it poorly early on but became decent with some tweaks and adjustments, and then there’s guys who look like their jump shot needs a complete overhaul…someone like Fox needed his kitchen remodeled, Amen needs a whole new house