The "franchise player" debate has been settled. It's Amen.

Last season Amen missed 5 games and the Rockets went 3-2 (.600). They finished the season at .634. So their winning percentage dropped approximately 5% without him.

 

I don’t know about this Amen… Doing a lot of things, putting numbers, bright kid, physically gifted……. BUT
D is overrated… Tre Jones (!!) lit him up last night… And then, the 3pt shooting….Turnovers…. I dunno.

 

We lost all 6 games without Sengun last season. That's how your .308 came. We were 4-3 without him this season. This season we have Durant. So losing Sengun has less impact on offense. But the sample size is just too small to make an argument either way.

I am not even using numbers to argue about Amen's impact. Not sure why you talk about big numbers on bad teams. And we aren't even a bad team.

At the end of the day, this franchise player debate is mostly subjective opinions. None of the players we have now is franchise level player. And none of us knows the future. We can only make "educated" guesses. Personally I believe Sengun and Amen have about the same likelihood of turning into a franchise player. I hope at least one of them does. There's a chance that neither will.

 

I think the whole franchise player discussion is silly. Teams need more than one star to be great. Of course, most of the discussions we have on here are silly or at least non-consequential. Lots of people just like to debate sports and especially players on the teams they support. In my opinion, we have two guys that are closer to being stars than others on the team (not including Durant), but who knows Reed, Jabari, or Tari could also get to some level of stardom. Some “franchise” players never get a title, does that mean they should forfeit the imaginary title? People that get pissy about the franchise discussions crack me up.

 

I realize that but thats fine

Amens maturity and all business just win attitude totogether with his upward trajectory will make it very difficult to bet against him

 

LOL.

 

Narratives...

Reed is supposed to be a great shooter, then misses 3 shots and is nailed to the bench. "He can't guard, so if he can shoot he's useless!"

Amen is supposed to be a great defender, then gets cooked by Tre Jones 3 times, but stays on the floor. "He can't shoot, but he's still our franchise player!"

Of course Reed isn't that bad and Amen isn't that great. Both of them deserve every opportunity, but only one of them is getting it. I think that says more about the coach than either player. If they were both on the Warriors the narratives would likely be different.

 

Actually you are making my point for me. There are very few players who are a defense unto themselves. Wemby is certainly that. Dream was in that category. But most everyone else relies on the team's scheme to one extent or another, and so it is with Amen. And that's fine. It's also okay that he can't score outside the paint or reliably play PG even though he was always billed as one. He is still a very useful player. But this thread posits that he's our franchise player, a max player, and some sort of indomitable force on defense, yet none of that is true. He's the third best player on a team fighting to stay out of the play-in.

 

His D is "overrated" because he's had to play point guard. It's been to the detriment of his D.

 

Again, the hype fest here is insane lol. Definitely not a max guy, mostly due to how horrible he looks on-ball. A bunch of Rockets losses can be attributed to our insistence on having him get on-ball reps this year. He’s been doing a lot better for a while and the main reason is they started getting him off-ball a lot quicker. His defense also regressed this year but I imagine this is due to the increased on-ball responsibilities, and the calculus on that rn is horrible tbh.

 

He is turning the page and coming into his own now...

Now if he can just develop a shot... and we might have a potential hall of famer on our hands LOL.

No seriously.

 

Of course for a true franchise player he has to be good at two way basketball. But offense is still more valuable than defense for example KaT still net you more value than PJ Tucker did for the Rockets.

 

You are the wrong one since due to NBA rules the best defense is always inferior to the best offense. You cant hand check, contact fouls, superstar calls, now the hand check rules, "space" rules etc All these rules are made to enhance the offense nerf the defense. It doesnt mean that defense is not important, but offense is more important than defense.

Secondly, finding good offense players is harder than good defenders. To be a good defender you only need to be long, athletic and be willing to be physical. Lots of people willing to do that for a couple million dollars. OTH shooting and scoring is a skill they need to learn. Thats a guy like Steph gets paid the super max and PJ Tucker who was an elite switchable big only got paid 9M.

Draymond only got paid cuz he played with Curry and Klay, he was a backpack. JJJ and Mobley have good scoring ability they are two way players. Gobert is overpaid thats why the Jazz dumped him.

Amen is doing more than PJ Tucker but he is doing it on the offensive side being able to score in transition, make the open pass and dunk the ball from ft line. Putting him on the SF role doesnt really make any sense as we already have KD in that role. He can do that perimeter protection you are talking about on the pg spot and its actually better for him cuz he also gets guarded by their pg.

 

Compare KAT to Gobert at least

 

What does his D have anything to do with being a point guard? He's not even the actual pg since the ones making plays are Sengun and KD. His role is mostly being the play finisher like what he has always done..