This goes without saying, especially since Amen is further away from his possible ceiling than all of these guys.
I'm not sure why 25 is the cutoff. Guys like Luka, Shai, Tatum, Brunson, and JJJ have a lot of great years left. You will also have young players like Flagg coming into the league as well. I could definitely see Thompson being a top 10 player at some point but he is going to have a lot more competition for that spot over the next decade than the guys in the league currently under 25.
When Amen is in his late 20s, a player's typical peak period, most of those guys will be in their mid-to-late 30s. Some of them will age well and may still be top 10ish players, some will not. I'm not saying I necessarily think Amen will be a top 10 player year in and year out, but I think he has a very good chance to become one at his peak.
None of those guys will be in their late 30s. Brunson is the oldest guy I listed and he will only be 35 when Amen is 29. Amen is only in his second year but he was an older rookie compared to the other guys I listed outside of Brunson.
Okay, sure. You don't think there's a good chance Amen will be better than a 35yo Jalen Brunson when he's 29?
Sure, but will he be better than a 25 year old Cooper Flagg? I think a better way to look at this is by asking who are the 8-12th best players in the league right now? I'd say it's a group of players like Wemby, Edwards, KD, and AD. Can prime Amen be as good as those players currently are?
Yes, I think he can be as good as Ant Edwards is right now as an overall player. (He will do it in different ways than Ant does, of course.)
interesting point. And if they do want to deal with us to get their pick back and start the rebuild this summer, why not improve the chance that it’s a higher pick?
I think Amen could be top 5 even. If he gets the usage. The Rockets are going to have a stacked team. SGA and his usage will probably drop soon as well unless some of their guys leave.
How many times do you see a guy, a perennial All Star... a good high volume shooter, change teams later in his career...going to a place where his responsibilities are cut down...where he gets better looks...and that percentage/efficiency goes up. Again, lots of crazy good looks...and benefitting from a post player like Sengun, and the others...spot up 3's galore. DB won't have the weight on him here that he had in PHX...different deal.
That's the big thing--looking at his usage it's basically half that of SGA, Cade, etc. Of course if you upped his usage to that 30 to 35%, #1 option, runs the offense all the time level, his volume stats wouldn't double because his scoring efficiency would drop a lot. But I still expect given his skill level around the rim and athleticism, he would be at or close to 50% shooting and his assists per 36 minutes would probably scale up by nearly double. Which would easily push him over the 20 points / 7 assists number. Combine that with his rebounding and defense and production-wise, you're looking at something very similar to prime Jimmy Butler, who is of course a 5x All-NBA player. I don't think it would be crazy at all to think of him as a future top 10 player, if he had the usage right now of some of the other young players in the league. He's been fortunate to come into a winning team in just his second year, which is rare for a top 5 draft pick, but unfortunate in that his career wasn't afforded the kind of high-usage springboard that some of these other guys (including Jalen) received.
And besides Dillon Brooks every single player who has joined the Rockets over the last 25 years has shot worse than their pre-Rockets days.
Preface, I don't want Booker. Any logical GM (other than the Suns) would not have traded the 2031 pick. They would have called Rafael up and did everything they could to give us Booker and Durant trying to sell us on winning the chip this year to get those picks back. Now Booker and Durant don't have the same value. The Suns have now exhausted every other avenue rather than dealing with us. They dumped a 1 to get rid of Nurkic. The picks got MORE valuable and the Suns and their assets LESS valuable. Any deal with Stone should be WORSE than it was a few weeks ago. The Suns have no leverage and life would have been a lot better with their own picks in 2025, 2027, 2029, 2031. Read the swap language on the 2026 and 2028 to see how stupid this franchise is. They literally have no control of their future AT ALL. ALL of their picks are gone and they have the worst of crappy picks from other teams for 2025, 2027, 2029. Unbelievable. I'm actually worried this may lead to a new Stepien rule after half of all of the picks in this draft are no longer controlled by the original team. Still mad at Rafael for not getting that PHI 2027 pick from the Nets. We could have been sitting on 3 lottery picks in 2027.
They wont do that it makes them look dumb. None of their young guys are trending to be superstars. Imagine if OKC owes our pick and we only have Bari and Tari as the young guys, the rest are James Harden, Capela, PJ tucker, Trevor Ariza, CP3 and Patbev. Are we really gonna tank so Tari and Jabari can get development?
Stone prob didnt know Nets were gonna trade Mikal for a bjillion picks otherwise he would have negotiated harder. He was the one asking for a trade from the Nets so that prob put him in a weaker position. Well played by the Nets GM.
I dont think Booker would help the Rox improve as this year he has not been better than both Jalen and Brooks combined. Have you seen the production of Jalen and Brooks this season? Brooks shooting 39% and guarding the best player, Jalen shooting 36% playing with non shooters Amen, Aaron Holiday and Reed Sheppard. If we do a straight swap of Booker for Jalen and Brooks right now guarantee Suns would be a much better team. This is a straight up "grass is greener on the other side scenario" once we get Booker we will see he isnt that good but it would be too late for regrets.
Chris Paul 2019. Booker will be 30 next year can we stop getting guys who will be good for only a short time and then get washed? lol. Booker has one of the best players in the world still playing at a high level in KD. His team isnt the best but it also isnt Charlotte level bad, they have good role players on that team as support including Kevin freaking Durant. Even while Beal is extremely overpaid he is far from a useless player. Fact that they cant even get into the play in shows you Booker is overrated. He is still a good player, but clearly not a super max guy. Also Booker isnt a perennial all star he wasnt an all star and wasnt an injury reserve. Unless he has a career revival his all star days are done esp with all the young stars coming out like Jay Dub and Amen. Finally what do you mean Booker's responsibilities will be cut down? If we get Booker he will be the main guy cuz 35% of the cap will go to him. Right now he has Kevin Durant, when he goes here he will have Sengun and Amen. Will his job be harder or easier? You tell me. Amen, Sengun, Jalen and co. are all really good and really young. When we look at a player we should look at his future instead of his past because what you want is a guy who will grow with them instead of hold them back in a couple of years. Booker went to the Finals in 2021 thats as long as Sengun and Jalen have been playing. His glory days are behind him.
Even if we eventually sign Jalen to 30% it is still better than 35% for a super max guy. And tbh I doubt a team will give Jalen a max deal with the way he has been playing so far. At best he is on par with his 33M contract and wont get that amount if he was a FA next season IMO. Sweet shooting sgs are one of the more common players in the L unless you are seen as a franchise superstar its hard to get overpaid.
