Every sport has certain types of athleticisms that are more conducive to being successful in said sports than others. As far as athleticism that allow a person to become successful at the highest level of basketball is concerned, Vince Carter clearly had more of it than Amen, especially relative to the peers of his generation. Put it another way. If 2nd year Vince Carter is on this current team, and Amen is playing in Toronto right now, is there a single person on Clutchfans who would vote for Amen as being more athletic?
I feel like VC is great/elite at dunking and that's it. AMen is great/elite at defense, blocks, steals, rebounds, driving and scoring at the basket
Vince carter is 10th on the all time 3 pointers made charts at over 37% for his career, he was much better than you'd think.
2nd year VC who put up 26/6/4 back in an era in which teams average 97ppg, on above average league efficiency and 40% 3pt shooting? And making All-Pro? And also he had 3.5 stocks per 100 possessions to Amen's 3.9? I get most fans today would only know VC from his dunk contest highlights, so I don't begrudge you for thinking he's a player in the vein of Zach Lavine. But again if you teleport VC after his 2nd year to this Rockets team instead of Amen, the hype for this team would be much, much higher.
See I'm not entirely sold. McGrady played in the street ball era where they were all heavily incentivized to be as dominant as possible in an isolated offense as I think the league was looking for the next Michael Jordan to market. Defense was important but nowhere close to the offensive output. I think McGrady had the length and athleticism to keep up with nearly any position player out there but his offensive talent was so great that the coaches didn't want him to expend that much energy on the defensive end in order to maximize his offensive output. Amen on the other hand came in with almost 0 offensive creation outside of fast break dunks and put backs which forced him, especially in an Udoka system, to prove his time on the defensive end if he was going to get any burn. If McGrady were forced to be a lockdown defender and utilize his athletic gifts there I think you would have seen some absolutely incredible results. Again, a ton of his energy was exerted in 1 on 3 isolation offense to generate points for his teams. Shaq even talks about this. He said "McGrady was a bad dude" and Kobe never had the defensive attention that McGrady had when he played with Shaq and won his Championships. He thought McGrady was better and was over worked.
Coincidentally Richard Jefferson was talking about Tmac's athleticism on his Youtube show with Perkins the other day and talking about how he'd always found it easy to out jump everybody for a rebound and then he came up against Tmac who was a whole head above him to get the ball with him having absolutely no chance. And how Tmac looked at him to basically say "yeah you're athletic, but I'm different." People act like Tmac wasn't more of a freak than Amen, he was, and that's one of the reasons he was such a superstar, freak athleticism.
I disagree. Vince Carter was never known to be a good defender. Amens athleticism will translate to being a better player. He was just so raw coming into league. Once he fine tunes some skills. I'll be shocked if he doesn't finish his career as a better player than Vince Carter. Like I said different types of athletes. We know what Vince is better at but amen is quicker and much more twitchy than Vince. Vince is probably the best dunker of all time but that doesn't mean he's gonna be a better player.
Put in Robert Horry in place of Ariza. Horry was a 3 most the time in Houston. Less switchability on d than Ariza, but 1 guy won 2 Rockets chips & 7 overall
Tracy outgrew Vince in his Orlando days and Vince only fought back due to longevity but looking back Tracy's short prime was better than Vince's prime. Tmac's prime was tethered to his athletic prime so it was around 21-24, very different from players like SGA, Luka and Jokic.
Yeah, more verticality for Vince, but Amen has him beat on other athletic categories. Vince never made an All-Defensive team for a reason. Amen already has him beat in that category, now just needs to make 8x All-Star teams and 2x All-NBA
Feel free to put Horry on your own list, you don't really get to dictate my own fandom I'm afraid. (I genuinely don't understand why y'all find it so difficult allowing people to have their own opinion. Y'all must be so boring always following your expected crowd response to literally everything.)
TMac is 10x the scoring threat of Amen. Amen's lateral quickness and quick twitch makes him unparalleled. So far, Amen's intensity and commitment to play defense is 10x over Tmac. They are both athletic freaks in their own way. I doubt Amen will finish his career with more than 18k points, averaging 20ppg. But I don't doubt that Amen will have way more steals, blocks, and more championships.
In the end my original statement was "neutral NBA fans who have watched both Vince and Amen live would consider Vince the more athletic player." And my statement to you was, which you didn't respond to, "if the Rockets have a young VC right now instead of Amen, Rockets fans would clearly all say VC is the more athletic player." Both statement feel pretty obvious. Because when I watch Amen I feel he may be the most athletic player in the NBA, but I am not as wowed as when I saw players like LeBron or Zion or Giannis at their peak. When I watched Vince in Toronto, I realized there were things that humans are capable of doing that I never knew even possible. And I am pretty certain most NBA fans my age or older would agree with this sentiment. If you don't believe me, you can ask some older NBA fans who did watch NBA in the 90s and 2000s how Vince stacked up with the rest of the NBA back then.
Worth noting that T-Mac didn't score over 16 per game until his 4th season. Amen is about to go into season #3. Granted, McGrady did enter the league at a younger age and played fewer minutes off the bat.
I genuinely have never seen Amen come close to the level of incredulity I got watching young/prime LeBron, and that's really not close at all tbh.
Barring some major injury I don't see how he won't. Most exciting thing about this upcoming season is Amens Thompson leap.
