we should be able to survive. with how cautious our org is, it's probably an injury that's not even a 2 week injury. you know the rockets love adding extra time just to be safe. that's great news
I'd obviously rather him play but he's been playing heavy minutes and this will provide him a good chance to rest up before the late season push and playoff run. Gives Cam some playing time too.
10 to 14 days is a huge sigh of relief. Seems this won't ruin the whole season, probably. He also might still be able to be eligible for all-defense if that timeline is accurate.
Sucks that he got injuried, but the added rest will do him good. He will be back just in time for the final stretch of the season and hopefully he's up to his usual speed and intensity by the time the playoffs start.
....if you ask me - it's a disservice to compare Amen to Russ because it misses the real value of Amen. It's not that he could feasibly average a triple double like prime Russ - that's valuable but that alone doesn't turn into playoff wins. It's not that Amen can generate offense just relying on athleticism alone similar to Russ(and Ja) - also valuable, but isn't necessarily a thing than translates into playoff wins. The point with Amen is he could be the best player on both the offensive AND defensive end in a lot of matchups and he is likely going to be a top 5 two way player in the league which makes him massively valuable. Russ was never a two way force in that way. MJ and Bron are really the only two players in recent memory who could do that AND would still be able to make plays no one else could because of overwhelming athleticism compared to their peers. Amen lacks a lot of the finer skills those players had - but the fact he even has a shot for these things is very encouraging while he is showing a ton of improvement in all areas of this game from month to month.
That, and also Amen pairs a Russ-like motor with a damn near LeBron-ian basketball IQ/feel for the game. Russ was inefficient throughout most of his career because he only had one speed, 110%, and he took a lot of bad shots because he didn't know how to dial it back. Age 25-30 that dude was taking 5.1 three pointers per game as a 31% shooter. Madness--that would be significantly over the NBA average for a guard even today, let alone in 2013-2019 when he was doing that sh*t. Amen would never jack up so many shots at those percentages. That said I think the other place this comparison falls apart a bit--Russ had a better handle than Amen's. He did turn the ball over a lot but he also had an easier time getting close to the hoop in the first place. His rim finishing though--career 60.3% to Amen's current 73.7% mark. So, there's some give and take. Amen will probably never put up the scoring numbers Russ did but he will be vastly more efficient and a vastly better defensive player, and perhaps he could end up actually having a greater impact on winning despite being less of a box score phenom.
I do think it's funny and somewhat ironic that much of Russ' rebounds came when Steven Adams would box out players to allow Russ the chance to dive in to secure the rebound. The fact the guy who helped Russ pad stats is on this roster playing with Amen is....something.
Russ' triple doubles were a joke. Not only did Adams and others back up to let him scoop up rebounds, they also knew to shoot the ball when he passed to them to pad his assist total. One time he flat out told Thabo Sefolosha to "Shoot the f...ing ball" when he passed up a shot after receiving a pass. Russ didn't want any hockey assists. When the entire team knows WB will ice them out unless they feed his stat line every game, what else can happen other than a triple double nearly every time? EDIT: To clarify, I'm not talking about mid/late 4th quarter when he's one assist or rebound away. This would start early in every game.
