I think you're underestimating his potential. I think he will be a top 10 guy in the league if he continues to improve that jumper. He has nearly everything else.
He could be our Scottie Pippen which a great comparison. I'm not sold on him being our go to player in clutch moments.
If he becomes Pippen then IMO, he would be perfectly fine as our go-to guy, or at least one of the go-to guys along with Sengun and whoever else develops. I think you're underestimating Pippen's star power due to him always being second fiddle to Jordan. But the year Jordan left, the Bulls went to the 2nd round of the playoffs with him as the lone star. And I feel modern day facsimile of Pippen would be Jason Tatum, and the Celtics are always contenders with him as the top player.
Interesting post. It's very possible to win with a Pippen-level player, but I do think it makes things harder. You need a ton of depth and talent at every other level of your organization. Even then, you'll probably get one or maybe two rings out of it. These championship teams are generally outliers. You think about the 2004 Pistons, or the 2014 Spurs (they had former superstars but nobody currently at that level of play), the 2019 Raptors, and yes, perhaps the 2024 Pistons. (Tatum is right on the bubble, as Kawhi was in 2019.) It's much easier to have a Michael Jordan or LeBron James or Stephen Curry. But by definition, those guys are in the top 1% of players all time, and there's only a few of them in the league at any given time. Is having one of them really an attainable goal to aim for if you're a front office? Maybe your best realistic hope is to scrape your way to a title or two by other means? Just something to think about, I guess.
He’s definitely worked hard in getting that 15 ft jumper down. But we have seen him Hit more corner 3s and even some longer mid range 20 ft shots. Definitely a lot of progression. Interesting to see where he goes with him getting better every day
- Amen is a better creator now, and will take a quantum leap forward in that department. - As good a defender as Pippen was, Amen will be much better. - Amen is in another stratosphere as far as ball handling. - He's a quicker and more creative finisher. - Thompson hits the boards stronger than Pippen. - And I have almost no doubt he'll eventually shoot it at about the same clip. MJ had the ultimate gravity, and Pippen is big time overrated. All that said, Amen is going to be a superstar.
If his jump shot keeps improving, he absolutely has a chance to be out main guy. Sengun has a chance also obviously, but Amen has a chance to be a total complete player on both sides (like some have mentioned, he is already a top 3 perimeter defender in the entire league). Sengun will never be top defender type unfortunately so he will always have a little bit of a weakness there. Which we have been able to overcome with other awesome defenders and an overall defense first mentality of the team so far. Sengun tries hard most of the time, but he has been targeted at the end of some of the games and the coach has to pull him out sometimes for better defenders.
just curious, do you think we already have a batman right now? if not, who's the closest player we have to a batman right now?
Ime should just start him already or at least play him 36 minutes per game https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/team/11/lineups#tab-four_factors https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/t...612745&dir=D&slug=traditional&sort=PLUS_MINUS
I think you and I probably just have very different idea of what is considered successful for this franchise. This is a franchise that has won only 2 rings in 60 years of existence. The Rockets have made the finals only 4 times. The team's most successful runs, other than the singular Moses Malone-led finals team, was done by two players, Hakeem and Harden. The latter never made a finals. If the Rockets win one title and get close in another with Amen as its best player, he would retire as probably the 2nd best player in Rockets history. I think it's really hard to be hoping for higher ceiling than that from any player, unless you root for the Celtics or the Lakers.
I cannot complain but a mini part of me wishes Hakeem has as many chips as Lebron or Duncan.....one can wish. I agree that 2 titles in 60 years for a mid major market is considered a minor failure though especially with the Texan no tax clause........but you have to consider that Leslie Alexander did not exactly spend on that team. Having only Harden and Hakeem in 50 years is a negative testament to development as Harden was not even drafted by Houston, already scoring 16 ppg for OKC. Yao was already a force in Shanghai. The more concerning reason is the Finals appearances which are non existent in recent years.
Sengun is the closest to being a Batman. IMO, he probably won't become one in the future but he'll make a very good Robin. Rockets need to add a perimeter player that is (or will become) their Batman.
Agree with the first statement. Disagree completely on the second. Adding that guy you posit sounds good until you consider that we really don't know what Amen is or will be. His game is developing in a way that we just have to be patient and give him reps. It's almost like Wemby. The skillset is so unique that you just can't commit to a direction until his game has nearly completely evolved. Wemby is Durant, yes, but a defensive weakside juggernaut. Wemby at full is indefensible offensively but can be exposed defensively in the paint chest-to-back due to his slight upper body. Amen is a weird Pippen-esque/HoGrant on D, but with a different bag of tricks. He's almost an Artest-stretched lite guy like a Gumby. He really is capable of guarding 1-5. Defensively, he's ready to be THE MAN. The problem is offensively he hasn't YET found his place and I think it's the reason for the pause with the team. Noone knows if he will take the next step... whatever that is for his set. Imo, I see his best case scenario is what Ben Simmons should have been. Do it all, but great enough to bend defenses at his will and command the floor at his will. Enough to affect sets and able to create easy shots for the team. It really is an unusual and rare talent. As such, we just have to wait before jettisoning players.
I mean, let's say in 2 years Sengun has a 3PT shot where you can't leave him open. Something like 35% on 3-4 attempts. Minor or no improvements in everything else. A slightly optimistic outlook. With that shot added to his arsenal, if we're slightly optimistic he'd probably average 23 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists on 50/35/80 splits. His defense let's say will be as good as now but with the benefit of 2 more years of experience in the NBA doing his best to learn to protect the rim under Udoka. I estimate that Sengun is a good rim protector, nothing more, nothing less at this moment. He needs to do some drop coverage like many successful non-athletic C's in the NBA. He still makes a lot of young mistakes. Ignoring his position, he is tactically a big part of our defense. If we put Jeff Green there for example, we cannot be an overall excellent defense. What I can say 100% for sure is you can play the requisite defense to win a championship (a top 10 defensive rating) with Sengun starting as your starting C as long as you make 3 of the other 4 defenders compatible with his strengths/limitations. I'll take that any day of the week. There are even some Finals MVP's (Dirk) who are lesser defenders than Sengun so we're good I think. Let's say this slightly optimistic outcome unfolds. Like adding 2% for his FG%, 3% for his FT% and the significant improvement in his jumper which he's been working on for two offseasons already as a head start. Defense roughly the same but with 2 added years experience. Has there ever been a player in NBA history who did that on two sides of the ball and wasn't a Batman? I wish I had a tool that could dig that info up for me. I would bet there is no one in NBA history who has not been a max-worthy playoff performer when performing to that level on both sides of the ball cumulatively. People who have these offensive numbers are rarely as passable on defense except all time greats. I feel like you're closing the door way too early on a player who's game still has a few ways it can take major steps. Just the dimension of adding muscle for two more summers, that alone opens a lot of doors. Kid deserves some more time before passing judgement.
I'm not closing the door at all on Alpi, just giving my wild guess as to what he'll become. Hopefully I'm wrong and he does become good enough to be the best player on a championship team. We're gonna find out because I seriously doubt the Rockets trade him. I've said this before and I'll say it again: Alpi does NOT need to develop a good 3-point shot to become a "Batman". He absolutely MUST develop a deadly mid-range jumper that forces defenses to collapse on him further away from the basket. Problem is, the form on his jumper right now looks very shaky, almost broken. He cannot just be a 90% back-to-the-basket player on offense and become a "Batman".
I've been a huge Amen fan since his very short stint as a rookie in summer league, way before the the consensus here turned from basically calling him trash to what it is now. If the right deal comes along for an alpha perimeter scorer that fits this team, Rockets must close the sale. They can't risk waiting 2 more years to see how Amen's offense develops. For the record, I believe Amen definitely has the highest ceiling of any player on the team. His development is being hindered by (1) the focus on winning games and (2) keeping FVV happy while he's here. Amen needs more reps at the point; that is how he will learn to protect the ball better. When FVV is resting, Amen should be running point the vast majority of the time.
I mean, we disagree on the how but pretty much saying the same thing. Have you considered that there are Batman's who may have fatal flaws? There's some odd reason they never seem to be able to co-exist with other roughly equivalent players although they can do their own work and individually bring floor-raising work to the table. I don't want Alpi to become that. I want him to become easily compatible with other stars because it's basically impossible to win without 2 max-worthy - and inevitably egoistic - star players. At a minimum. We should prepare for that inevitability. It's too big a handicap in today's game for us to have to collapse a defense from the perimeter (indispensable in the playoffs) while facing disproportionately less space in the paint than most teams. It's a coincidence we got a great post scorer, but we have to sort of do our shot diet accounting a little better to compensate for that. It's been done a lot, Nuggets are a good example before Jokic's jumper became reliable. Ran a good offense. If when you're talking about the midrange jumper you mean something a bit higher than the FT line, then I can see that working too. Basically the spot from which you can run a Princeton or he can operate as a Draymond. In that scenario, we can have our perimeter players attack from the wings at an angle which would give them plenty of spacing too. Totally fine with that if he can nail it at a near 50% clip by the time he's 24-25. My own personal opinion is that's roughly just as difficult to develop the 3PTer (I think both will take 6-12 more months) so we might as well invest in the one that adds even more options in terms of offensive play styles. In the long run 6-18 months even is nothing. He's not in his prime yet. But in general yes, the idea is that the opponent's rim protector can't guard Sengun and the rim at the same time, which makes life easier for the wings. It also gives the Sengun/Green PnR a chance at working because they can't just sag off both anymore.
I don't ever buy the argument that anyone's development is hindered by trying to win games. The opposite is true. Nurturing a winning mentality is a huge part of development.
