It's good he has this attitude because he's SOOO much better in a SF or PF role as we saw last night.
Amen also won Most Athletic in a landslide. As an aside, the Rockets are all over those lists. Great to see after such a tough stretch.
Did anyone else do a double take last night after listening to these words from Will Hardy comparing Amen's rim pressure to Giannis? Keep in mind this is an opposing head coach who's thinking probably represents how other teams also feel about defending the Rockets. It's really gonna be fun watching the offense evolve as the season progresses.
Just out of curiosity what position would the majority on this board say that Giannis played last year?
Thatis what the majority of this board would say. Giannis and his coach said he played PG. Maybe the PG role is archaic and what is really happening is basketball players are all becoming unicorns. What is Jokic? What is Luka? What has Lebron been? You can’t pigeon hole Amen and be a knowledgeable basketball fan. He will initiate the offense the second most of anyone on this team after Sengun. He will average the second most assist s on this team after Sengun. Call him whatever you want. Call Sengun whatever you want. Just don’t call Reed our pg which is ludicrous.
Perhaps they would, but they'd be lying if they did. It's much more likely that they'd say Damian Lillard was their PG last season. Hell, if they really thought Giannis was their PG, a completely indefensible position, they probably wouldn't have named a different player their starting PG this season. I get that you want to keep the "Amen is a PG" thing going, but it's just very unlikely to be a thing because he's simply so much better in a more appropriate forward role. Pretending Giannis is a PG really doesn't help that position.
Specifically on offense, Giannis plays what I would call the alpha position. He is the primary ball handler who starts from the perimeter, finds a crease and explodes towards the rim with the primary goal of finishing or drawing a foul; secondarily to facilitate. Very similar to LeBron his first ~10 years but LeBron's mentality was more facilitatory than Giannis.
Yeah I've been saying I don't care what position you describe him as playing, I just want him to have the ball in his hands and the opportunity to create offense a lot. Maybe he will be more Dwyane Wade than Magic Johnson, who the hell knows at this point, but I do think he is a very special player who needs to be a huge focal point for our offense.
That pretty much describes the role Amen will play a lot this year with a little more tendency to facilitate. Kinda of what anyone other than BTG would call a scoring pg. In fact, right now Amen is deferring too much when he gets to the hoop (which is pretty much at will). But I will defer to alpha position and BTG can have his misnomer for Reed.
SGA is a natural scorer with a deep bag - that's not Amen's bag. He is far more like Giannis in that his size and athleticism give him opportunities other players don't have despite the lack of an advanced skills package. Giannis has taken those advantages and made himself a scoring threat and the team has maximized that by the roster they surround him with. Amen hopefully will find a similar path but I don't think this is a situation where Amen is ever going to be doing advanced hesi step back moves like SGA. I do think Amen can become a 25pt a game scorer but its going to be similar to guys like Wade and Giannis where there will be hot games here and there, but most of those points will come from the variety of ways a smart, active, athletic player can get buckets - maybe 4 points in fast breaks/off turnovers. another 2-4 points just hustling down loose balls outside of a structured offensive set, another 2-4 pts just making smart cuts, maybe 4-6 pts off free throws, and 6-8 pts just beating guys downhill, throw in a random few 3s - he's probably a 20-30pt scorer in his fully realized form and will occasionally have those "ON" games like Giannis....but that's a very different scorer from SGA.
Amen will be a faster (and smaller) Giannis. Giannis can bull his way to the basket. Amen weaves around defenders to the basket. (As one poster said, when he goes down hill, he treats defenders like traffic cones. I'd say he's like doing downhill slalom.) And Amen has a good chance to be a better shooter than Giannis.
Amen is already a much better offensive player than Giannis has ever been. Russ as well. Amen already has a plethora of euro steps, bank shots, floaters, side line 3. Neither Brodie nor Giannis have ever had that. They were purely drive to the basket no one can stop me pure power. Amen can do that but already seems to know there's a limit to playing like that. His struggle right now is figuring out when to do that and when not to. Jalen never figured this out. Amen will have to or else he'll end up always being a connector and not a manager.
Amen at 225lbs is nuts. You know that's all muscle he added during the offseason. A lot of guys are just going to have to get out of the way.
