Is there precedent for a truly horrific shooter becoming adequate?

Agree with this. I would take a player with poor shooting but excellent feel / read any day over a player with good shooting but poor feel, any day. (Sorry Jabari)

Amen’s historically horrid shooting is not to be brushed aside but you cannot teach feel imo. Smart players figure it out.

Rockets have way too many low-feel players.

 

How you know Amen has excellent feel? His bro averaged 2 more ast than him in the regular season and also won Finals MVP over him in the playoffs. They are both playing in the OTE I'd like to see them play vs their peers first before I can say whether they have feel or not. Scalabrine has the feel of MJ vs non NBA talent but is a total scrub in the NBA.

 

I assume you meant 0.2 APG, not 2 APG, as 0.2 is the difference listed on the OTE site. Though I did notice their averages must have a bug (I forgot I found one with their shooting percentages, and now I see one with assists...maybe it is including preseason?). Amen actually had more assists/APG than Ausar during the season. The Tankathon numbers seem more accurate (and probably other sources).

Neither really matters to your larger point. And I would respond to that by saying Ausar *also* has high feel. I think it helps they also have videos where they break down their reads, so it is easier to see how they process the game.

Also...lots of experts seem to think they have a good feel for the game, so there's that too.

I will say that I wouldn't necessarily label Jabari as a low feel guy (though maybe not as high as Ausar/Amen). Maybe I have a different standard for low feel.

 

Hmm, feel, athleticism and work ethics are just about the three surest things about Amen Thompson.

I don’t know how you can draw inference on feel on pure assist numbers. It’s so much beyond that. Live dribble reads, reactions under traffic, etc etc. He makes the right reads 9 out of 10 times. And he makes wow passes so often. They are not only flashy passes, but more impressively, correct passes that got the offense out of predicaments and into the right flow. He utilizes his athleticism in the most advantageous way, creating gravity in a way similar to excellent shooting.

It so happens that the above three sure things are all translatable to higher level competitions (which he also did, against better, pro teams in Europe). I get that the competition level in the OTE raises questions in evaluation. But you cannot brush it away casually. Shaedon Sharp’s evaluation is purely based on high school films. Ignoring Bam Adebayo’s high school film was a tremendous mistake (so many teams missed on his playmaking capability). The same way we should put more weight into both Brandon Miller and Jarace Walker’s high school films. The same way we should not underestimate the Thompson twins’ OTE tapes.

 

Maybe not that relevant, but I started watching this video (and have other videos queued). This is the shooting coach for the Heat, and I guess they're doing alright in that area.

He mentioned only having to completely redo a player's shot 2 times, but each time worked out very well (whatever that means). The rest just required some tweaks. I kinda categorized Amen as a guy that needs a complete redo (and maybe he's already started redoing his shot), but on the flip side, maybe some tweaks would be sufficient (right now, his drop/motion with the ball seems the easier to adjust I guess?). Regardless, a legit shooting coach can hopefully figure out the best way to improve his shot (a complete redo vs some tweaks).

He says a lot of interesting things, though not sure what can be applied to NBA players specifically. I still have quite a bit left in that video to watch though.

 

If you love the jazz so much why don't you marry them !! LoL

https://youtube.com/shorts/kJ-9gHLIyJw?feature=share4


Just messing with you DG. Stay cool

 

This one dude I remember came into the league as a defensive nightmare but unskilled on the offensive end. He ended up developing into a dream.

name was Akeem or something like that

 

Does Amen have dream potential? Iddiot?

 

You cannot brush it away casually but you also can't use those vids to declare him the greatest passer ever, there has to be a medium in between right?
.
If you watched the OTE gameplay you will see nobody really defends Amen tightly either they are midgets and can't stay in front of him or they know he sucks at shooting. So either he has a lot of time so obv he will look like he has the feel. But we have to see him play vs his peers to know if he is the real deal or not.

I've been trying to get box score stats of OTE vs Euroleague teams if you have the link of that and not just snippets of how Amen and Ausar did I'd appreciate it.

 

You are describing Hakeem's first year at UoH.

Moses Malone fixed Hakeem before he got drafted into the NBA. At that time, Hakeem had an excellent offensive game from 10' and in.

 

https://basketball.realgm.com/player/Amen-Thompson/GameLogs/176051
I think this has most of the games (look near the bottom for the games you mentioned), and you can toggle to last year's games too. Didn't see the TBT box score though, so maybe some of the other special games are missing. I haven't cross-referenced it to see if there are any discrepancies with the box scores they do have, but I'm guessing it is accurate.

 

that was more power based offensive post moves. He developed a deadly arsenal culminating in the dream shake. He developed his shooting tool.

And it was tongue in cheek.

 

There are no guarantees at #4 in this draft - but what the Rockets need is high end talent. Right now there isn’t enough high end talent to compete at the highest level.

As for shooting, the Rockets don’t need to add shooting as much as they need Jabari Smith and Jalen Green and Alpren Sengun to shoot like they are supposed to. If they don’t start shooting better, it won’t matter who the Rockets add.

The Rockets need defense and a creator, and Amen Thompson provides both.

Trading the pick is s mistake, because the Rockets aren’t getting top talent for it.

Could Thompson bust? Sure, but he also has a really solid chance of being a star - which is what the Rockets need.

 

Yeah but I'm also trying to see how his teammates did. If Amen's teammates also had good games then those games weren't that competitive since besides Ausar they aren't in draft boards.

These are just exhibition games iirc, it's possible Euro teams wouldn't go hard cuz they aren't in a tournament. For example euro bigs will just let Amen drive to the paint and dunk the ball but if they were serious they would body him up and foul hard and send him crashing back to the floor.

 

There was a boxscore on Twitter at least for the mega game. All the euro teams didn't play their starters, and most not even players on their bench. They pulled farm team players to play OTE. OTE added a few 25-30 year old washouts for those games as to not lose too badly.

The whole narrative of OTE being competative against those third stringers is hugely overblown. In a real game, sub high school level OTE player is 3-4 tiers below the European B-league starters that they didn't play.

tl;dr the whole Amen did 'well' (he didn't) against pro team narrative is a huge sham. Evaluate Amen based on his OTE game tape. Don't read too much into those games.

 

People who settle for adequate don't become champions.

DD

 

I guess premature ejaculation is definitely a thing.

 

Funnily enough, this is exactly the argument for taking Amen: Don't settle for an "adequate", high-floor player or a trade for some "adequate" veteran roleplayer. Aim high. Swing for the fences.

 

I'd be a lot more willing to overlook the issues I see in Amen's game if he wasn't already college junior age.

 

There are two possibilities wrt the Thompson Twins shooting.

Either they have spent what would be their first two years of college not working on their shooting

or working on their shooting diligently every day (and this is as good as it gets).

Neither is a good look.