I mean he has ONE player he needs to give minutes. We get, Ime, you have a vision. But he's a lost asset if you don't let him have fun.
I did not realize Kennard was a career 43% 3pt shooter. He shoots better from 3 than half the league shoots overall. Of course he does nothing else, but man can he make threes!!
NO. Never a fan of this pick. Back then I wanted to trade down for Jared McCain or Matas Buzelis. Jonathan Feigen once said he would like to pick Clingan. Looks like both of us know ball.
For me it comes down to his handles. If he can develop great handles he’s gonna be very successful. If the handles don’t come around he’s a bench guy who is probably fighting for playing time on a good team. I think the IQ is good enough to get him in the right spots defensively and make the right reads offensively, but he simply has to become a better ball handler. It kills me to say that the ball handling is much worse than I expected when we drafted him. He better be sleeping, eating, etc with a basketball in his hands. To me that skill is a litmus test for Reed.
I wanted to do something else but could not watch watch results without opting in....... Pencil me in at I do not give a damn....but I am intrigued. I stay positively neutral.
FWIW, I think we will enter this year as a team with a significantly higher ceiling but also a lower floor especially in the regular season given Durant probably won't play more than 60 games. Jalen was clearly one of the least efficient guards in the league last year but one thing he did do well was in his availability and stamina which got the Rockets wins against those random Wednesday night shootouts against Washington or Charlotte on the 2nd night of a back to back when maybe Fred, Stevo, and Tari were sitting out. I think we probably lose a lot more of those games this year and given how tight those seedings were last year - that could be the difference between the 2nd seed and the 6th seed unfortunately. Not complaining about the Durant trade or the Whitmore trade but Houston would still benefit greatly from some kind of secondary shot maker in the mold of a Lou Williams for bench units or Durant's off nights...maybe a guy like Malik Monk although I don't think the cap math really works out....otherwise someone has to step up on the roster and give us that punch - likely either a Sengun or Amen Thompson which I think will happen to some extent but I'm skeptical of the idea of a secondary shot maker who isn't a threat from deep because its easy for teams to trade 2s for 3s unless those 2s also get a lot of and ones.
I'm basically operating under the assumption Amen is going to make a big leap this year on offense. I think his overall production on offense is going to look somewhat similar to a guy like Franz Wagner. (Probably fewer 3P attempts though.) If you don't think that's the case I can see thinking our floor is lower, but yeah, that's where I'm at.
I was a bit late to notice this, but I liked this breakdown and discussion by Alykhan (featuring Kelly Iko and Will/BiasedHouston): Some points about the screens, spacing, Reed's ability to playmake, his (in)ability to get separation, etc. I like Kelly mentioning that Reed might need more strength/conditioning in order to address some of the poor ballhandling/ball pressure issues, which seems reasonable to me. I've talked around this issue, but yes I do think his ballhandling needs work, though I have not been able to conclude whether his issues there are things likely to be addressed by time (i.e., better conditioning/more strength, more reps, more practice, etc), or if these are things to be concerned about long term. I lean towards the former, hence why I haven't really called it out as a big concern. I do think that is something that could limit his impact if he's not made progress on that. I suppose playing 15-20 MPG might help some (along with better screens, spacing, etc.), but yes this will be an area of needed improvement for him IMO.
