As good as Amen is, the two things he needs to improve upon to move into the conversation for "top 10" might have the steepest curves for improvement of any skill .... shooting and ball handling. Those are the two most difficult skills to improve. That's not saying he isn't or won't be a great player ..... he is a special player right now and I do expect him to get even better over the next couple years - I just think that he has so far to go that it's almost unreasonable to expect.
I have one minor change to that plan ..... Trade Jalen to New Orleans for Trey Murphy iii ..... injury be damned.
I agree about ballhandling being difficult to improve at, but not about shooting. Jump shooting appears to be the easiest offensive skill to dramatically improve in the modern NBA, based on all of the many, many examples we have of players doing it. Shooting is probably harder to get better at than team defense, to be fair, since the latter has so much to do with effort and making it a priority. The other thing I want to say is--I don't think he actually has as far to go as you think. I think he's already really, really close. The reason it hasn't shown up in the points/assists per game yet is that his usage is only 17%. (The top players for usage are generally above 30%.) If you took the Amen we saw in the playoffs and let him be the team's primary ballhandler I think he would already be giving us 20+ points and 7+ assists per game, albeit on somewhat lower efficiency. (Fortunately, his efficiency is incredibly high, so he can stand to lose some points off his true shooting numbers.)
Trey is a player I would overpay for because I think he has all-star potential, maybe more as he is a two-way player.
I'm pretty sure that increasing his usage would result in somewhat higher counting stats .... but one thing you have to look at, in terms of scoring is the percentage of assisted baskets, about 56% of his buckets are assisted, add to that rebound putbacks and fast break buckets and you have the large majority of his shot diet accounted for. Where he's getting his numbers and been so effective offensively is off of timely movement and intelligent play off the ball, along with those offensive rebounds and fast break opportunities. When compared to guys we consider true #1's like SGA, Tatum, Ant, Young and others, he has a significantly higher percentage of assisted baskets and lower percentage in comparison to usage of assists produced. Getting to the point, he's not beating guys off the dribble and breaking down defenses at a high rate or creating opportunities for others. I don't know if putting him on the ball changes that - it was a disaster this past season when he and Jalen shared that task when FVV was sidelined. As the pick and roll ball handler - according to NBA.com - he was in the 46th percentile with .84 ppp and his EFG drops to 42.4% with his FG% at 42%. - those numbers are worse than Jalen Green and dramatically lower than his overall numbers. In isolation the numbers for the regular season are similar - 41st percentile, .85 ppp, EFG .483 with an identical FG%. I'm not sure those numbers point to a primary ball handler, especially when the numbers off the ball are fantastic. Maybe he has a huge leap in that aspect .... but that also takes him away from what he does pretty much better than anyone else. Does that make the team better? I think he and the team are better off pairing him with someone who excels in isolation & as the pick and roll ball handler and letting him do what he does best playing off the ball - no matter the position he is penciled in as. Someone who's been mentioned around here recently is Darius Garland - 86th percentile as the pnr ball handler and shot 40% from distance .... that would go a long way to fixing the offense. He might shake free from Cleveland with their $$$ issues.
I don't think shooting is one of the two most difficult skills to improve. Processing the game (encompassing a large set of skills within this umbrella) involves a more challenging group of skills to improve. I'm pretty sure Amen's ballhandling improves. I think his shooting has a ways to go which will make it difficult. Though, he's already improved from being an atrocious non-shooter to almost being considered a garden variety bad three-point shooter. It would not surprise me if he were a Jalen Green-level three-point shooter next season.
Garland would be an excellent fit with Amen, and a noticeable upgrade over FVV. That said, I think Amen's biggest problems with the ball in his hands are his shooting (three-point and midrange) and the other Rockets on the court. For now, I'd like Amen to be a secondary ballhandler instead of having to run the show. I thought this looked great in January when Green was off the court, as JSJ and Tari are better off-ball players.
I would like to target Keon Ellis in Sacremento. He is a very solid defender imo and a knock down 3pt shooter. Would be a solid bench option and challenge Green for his minutes. Like this even more if we move on or trade fred, as we lack guard depth. Would Cam Whitmore and 2nds be enough? He is an expiring and Sacremento are in a weird off-season. Someone in sac town keeps finding talented guards, and someone above him keeps trading them away.
Grizzlies either have to clean house dramatically to open up Space to extend JJJ or they need to trade him this off-season. Because they can’t extend him without utilizing cap space so it’s gonna be hard for them to even compete on the open market unless they can clear significant cap space JJJ to rockets (filler Clarke / konchar) Durant/ (Tari or cam) and one 1st from Hou to grizzlies Suns get FVV and no 10 pick and more filler Grizzlies were apparently trying to get Durant in the off-season too
I've heard that Giddey is asking for $30M from Chicago, but the Chicago side seems hesitant. Based on these rumors, I made that comment.
Chicago is just negotiating. They will pay all they need to keep giddy. He is their best player. No way we can play except by trade.
3 way trade: HOU Out: #10, 2027 Nets, FVV, #59, 2027 NOP or POR 2nd In: #19, Garland, #36 Why? Feels like a no-brainer. 2 firsts and 2 2nds to exchange FVV for (the slightly cheaper) Garland, while also bringing back a 1st and a 2nd. Eg, a first and a 2nd to upgrade to an all-star PG. BKN Out: #19, #25, #36, 2027 NYK 1rp, Cam Johnson In: #10, 2027 own pick control, FVV, 2027 NOP/POR 2nd Why? Also seems like a no-brainer. Burn 20M in cap space to buy back their 2027 pick and upgrade from 19 to 10. Sending out the NYK 2027 first rounder might be excessive, but they are loaded with picks that year, and regaining control of their own allows them to make more concrete future plans. Knicks pick in 27 probably isn't great at this stage. CLE Out: Garland In: Cam Johnson, #25, #59, 2027 NYK 1rp Why? Essentially this is only a deal they make if they believe they can re-sign Ty Jerome. This lowers their salaries by 20M (they need to slash), gives them a long wing shooter (who used to defend), and some salary controlled picks to build a future around Mitchell and Mobley. 2 firsts, a 2nd and a wing is a decent return for Garland. The Cavs struggled with their undersized back court defensively in the playoffs, and perhaps need to break up Mitchell and Garland anyway. They now have lots of lineup variations, and can still move Allen for more assets if they want to go that way. Also now have a clump of picks at the end of the 2025 2nd round to take flyers on some of the "high talent but needs time" candidates (eg Almanza/ Neoklas) - the Cavs are a great spot to give these guys a few years to develop, and if they become rotation playera, provide the Cavs more cheap bench.
Interesting analysis, thanks for taking the time to go into it. The main thing I want to point out is--we've only seen him playing the roles the team has asked him to play, and for a lot of the season, that's just been playing off the ball. But that's not his background as a young player--he largely played point guard before entering the NBA. He may be gifted as an off-ball player--he's really smart, so it's not surprising that he'd excel when placed in an easier role--but there may also be a lot more to unlock if he's given the reps to adjust. Basically, we have to make a separation here between what he did and what he's capable of doing if asked. To test this hypothesis, I wanted to go back and look at Amen's games this season where he did have higher usage. There weren't a whole lot of them. I put the cutoff, somewhat arbitrarily, at 20% usage rate and 30+ minutes played, and I went back through the game logs to see what happened when he received that level of usage. I also included his playoff games which met those criteria, which are all of them except games 1 and 2. So let's see what we've got. Here's the game log: Regular Season: 12/14 -- L -- 19 points, 1 assist -- 58.2% true shooting -- 22.2% unassisted FGM 01/05 -- W -- 23 points, 3 assists -- 55.4% true shooting -- 54.5% unassisted FGM 01/13 -- W -- 19 points, 4 assists -- 52.5% true shooting -- 50.0% unassisted FGM 01/22 -- W -- 16 points, 4 assists -- 50.4% true shooting -- 57.1% unassisted FGM 01/25 -- W -- 23 points, 10 assists -- 66.1% true shooting -- 75.0% unassisted FGM 01/27 -- W -- 33 points, 4 assists -- 73.3% true shooting -- 38.5% unassisted FGM 01/30 -- L -- 21 points, 4 assists -- 55.4% true shooting -- 71.4% unassisted FGM 02/03 -- L -- 25 points, 11 assists -- 62.3% true shooting -- 55.6% unassisted FGM 02/26 -- W -- 25 points, 5 assists -- 83.3% true shooting -- 75.0% unassisted FGM 03/06 -- W -- 21 points, 2 assists -- 71.1% true shooting -- 0% unassisted FGM 03/21 -- W -- 18 points, 5 assists -- 58.7% true shooting -- 87.5% unassisted FGM 03/31 -- L -- 20 points, 4 assists -- 63.5% true shooting -- 37.5% unassisted FGM Playoffs: Game 3 -- L -- 11 points, 4 assists -- 32.6% true shooting -- 80.% unassisted FGM Game 4 -- L -- 17 points, 2 assists -- 59.9% true shooting -- 71.4% unassisted FGM Game 5 -- W -- 25 points, 3 assists -- 78.3% true shooting -- 75.0% unassisted FGM Game 6 --W -- 14 points, 2 assists -- 44.8% true shooting -- 40.0% unassisted FGM Game 7 -- L -- 24 points, 3 assists -- 64.4% true shooting -- 66.7% unassisted FGM So, I'm not going to take the time to figure out what percentage of field goals were unassisted in these games overall and what the overall true shooting percentage was. However, it's easy enough to figure out that he averaged 20.8 points and 4.1 assists in these games, and you can see that in most of them, the majority of his field goals were unassisted and he shot reasonably efficiently. You can also see that the Rockets' win/loss record was 8-4 in the regular season and 2-3 in the playoffs in these "high-usage Amen" games. I also want to note that all of these games fell below 30% usage rate. So these are relatively high-usage games for Amen, but we still haven't really seen what he could do if he got to handle the ball as much as, say, Jalen Green does. Not sure what all to take away from this--could have just been hot shooting nights for him, it's a small sample size--but I do think it's worth giving him a lot more opportunities to have higher usage and see what's in there. He's our best chance, and maybe only one in-house, to have a superstar player--at least without blowing up the roster for some mega-trade for an aging star that would probably backfire.
