Watching Amen play for about 40 games as a rookie with very little PG minutes you have concluded that his picking up his dribble is a lack of skill, instead of a rookie that had some confidence issues with the ball and needs to improve his ball-handling. That is just ridiculous. I do watch games. In fact, I haven’t missed a Rocket’s game for a decade if it was available on regular TV or NBA season ticket. I don’t really care if he is a Point Guard or Point Forward he is going to be one of the main facilitators on this team in the next 2 years. If he plays over 30 mins a game all season, he should be a first team defensive player. Offensively, Magic Johnson is going to be his comp who also had no outside shot and average handles when he came into the league. He is already a better defensive player than Magic.
I love your ridiculous optimism. We will have the greatest team of all-time! Also, don't forget that Jalen = Kobe, Tari = Kawhi and Cam = Melo.
I don’t know, I think a lot can be done to make him into a solid PG. I don’t need him to be doing difficult iso plays until his 3PT shot is working, I would just like them to get rid of some of the bad habits you mentioned earlier and install a few good ones. My hunch is that by sometime in year 3 he’ll be ready to run the point and have a minimally passable 3PT shot when left wide open. We don’t know for sure yet but if I had to blindly bet on who from the roster will work hardest this summer I’d definitely consider Amen. I have a lot of faith in his mental ability to bring about improvement in his game. I knew he was older and without a jump shot when we drafted him but I get the feeling he’s just incredibly obsessed with talking, playing and watching basketball. I’m 100% sure that by his 5th or 6th year at the latest he’ll be a PG. Do you think even given that much time his handle won’t be good enough to be a full time PG? Will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
Please don't write an episodic novel about it though, we've already had that jinx our prospect with the highest ceiling for 3 years
Players have re-defined roles & positions. But you still need a player to bring the ball up. That's really the question I'm asking. Is he good enough to bring the ball up court. Or will teams realise he has a weak handle & exploit it by adding pressure. Amen is more than capable of initiating an offence & play making imo. It's the bringing the ball up that I worry about. Maybe in the end Alperen will do it (like Jokic does) & it won't be an issue?
Or Jalen or Fred... Jalen has zero issues handling presses full court and many times takes advantage of them by punishing defenders for pressing him full court by blowing by them.
Whatever shortcomings Amen may have currently, there is no team in the NBA that wouldn’t play him significant minutes. He impacts the game in so many ways…
Well I don't expect Fred to be here long term But yes I think Jalen is better equipped to bring the ball up. Esp a press he can really exploit a team that over commitments with his speed.
Is that really an important, relevant skill? Teams often guard the PG full court and the other team simply passes the ball to one of the other players. Jalen can bring the ball up fine, and I wouldn't be that worried with any of the other guys doing so from time to time. And I am not worried with Amen bringing the ball up. He is fast and is a good passer. He can either drive by his defender or pass to another player that helps him out. And really, he will always share the court with someone like FVV, Jalen, Aaron or one of the rookies if we take Sheppard or Topic.
If there are any questions about Amen being a PG it is in the half-court offense. He is tremendous bringing the ball up the court, especially after he gets the defensive rebound. He is the no. 1 reason, we became a very fast transitional team the second half of the season. My main concern this upcoming season is that Ime defers to the veterans and doesn’t start Amen over Brooks and we go back to FVV dribbling the air out of the ball and passing to Jalen with 3 seconds left on the clock. Amen’s defense and rebounding are key to our transition game.
For Amen to be a full time PG, he does need to improve on his ball handling, not so much about bring the ball up court but about breaking down the defense. Amen is fast enough to get to the rim with a sliver of open lane. But we need a guy on the floor who can keep the dribble alive when the half court play is either developing or broken. Maybe Jalen can do it. But if Jalen busts out, he will no longer be with the team or at least with the starting lineup. But even more important than ball handling for Amen to be a PG is outside shooting. If the defense does not have to respect your outside shot, you are limited in playmaking space. This is why I have been harping on this draft. In light of the uncertainty of Jalen's future and Amen's ability to handle the PG role, we absolutely need to get a backcourt player who we know can shoot right out of the gate.
I think you are right in that we need Jalen insurance. Whether it be through the draft or trade, that should be our no.1 priority. If Jalen works out great, we will have an important backup SG (which we don’t have right now). I really believe the only reason Jalen is still on the team is because of his ability to break defenses down off the dribble. Without that skill, we wouldn’t be gambling on his shot coming around.
I've always thought Amen had good PG potential, although unfortunately I underestimated how difficult of an adjustment it would be to transition from OTE defenders to NBA defenders in terms of having a secure handle. I think Sam Vecenie pointed this out in his draft guide, though from what I recall, it sounded like something that should become less of an issue over time (with more reps). I think I'd agree with that. I think he got better with this at the end of the season (though partly because he went against worse defenders as teams had given up), and I'm optimistic he will improve on this over the summer. Hopefully he has a healthy stint in summer league, training camp, and preseason to continue his reps as a ballhandler. I'm fairly optimistic that things will be much improved by then. I also think he had some confidence issues due to the insecure handle. There were so many times he had a slow center on him, and he didn't seem confident enough to attack the mismatch. I got the impression Ime pushed him to be more aggressive (think there was a soundbite of this during some game where Amen was more aggressive than normal). So I think there's some mental stuff there in addition to pure skill deficits. As for the poor 3pt shooting, I unfortunately don't think that will be solved so quickly. I do think that will continue to be a problem (at least for most of his rookie contract), but even with that, I think he can be an effective PG. I don't think you necessarily have to be a good shooter to attack defenses, and fortunately Amen has other traits that should allow him to do that (especially if utilized smartly). The good thing is that even if this doesn't work out, Amen is so talented he can probably just make it work no matter what specific role he has on the court. Or at least that's the hope.
