All of Amen Thompson’s makes and misses from 3 at OTE

I'll trust his wingspan being reported on various sites over your eyetest that's nothing to the level of "Trex arms"

 

He seems like he could really slow the pace down for the rest of the guys. Made the right reads. Simple stuff. He's kind of a boring but safe pick. I like his fit.
Too many have Nix nightmares, though, and them looking similar will draw the comps. Nix is a 1st round talent if you recall because we're supposed to believe everything we're told and not use our eyes.

 

Just corrected not t-rex but shorter relative to his height. I do trust my eyes. Go ahead and believe those who are trying to up his stock and get him and themselves paid. Those sites are just relaying what many agents have done for their players since forever. I should also say, this isn't some massive reason to pass, i just prefer the longer wingspan relative to height and see Miller fitting in at the 2 mostly which is occupied on our roster.

 

not really. a 7'0 wingspan is hardly anything to fuss about, which is why hes regarded as having good size and length and nowhere has it been regarded as some negative. he can fit anywhere from 2,3,4 of the modern era of positionless basketball. he doesn't have a set shooting guard position. it doesn't really matter

by all means trust your eyes. it's not exactly saying much

 

Do you see someone in this draft that you could put the developmental importance above Jalen, Jabari or Sengun? Jabari was one of the best shooting NCAA bigs in recent memory. Sure he didnt tear it up as a rookie adjusting to the longer 3 point line and tougher defenses, but his shot is pure Im really not too concerned with him. Jalen is a scorer. Once he can figure out leverage and continues to add muscle he will be one of the best scoring guards in the NBA. He shouldnt be relegated to an outside shooter, but his shot is fine he just needs to trim down the volume. Im riding the wave that Udoka will incorporate Sengun into more facilitating scenarios, but when @Nook says he doesnt see Udoka head over heels for the player it makes me wonder which direction the team is going to go. I was hoping the tank was done, but if these guys are going BPA in a 2-3 player draft then Im not too comfortable expecting we wind up with the best player for this team that can fit into the current vision. I dont see any star level player at 4 so personally I would want to address the worst aspect of this team last year - shooting.

 

My opinion is that it is incredibly rare to find a rookie that is good for helping develop young players. Even if the Rockets got a good young shooter he would probably be a negative for developing everyone else because he is a rookie. The way to help develop the current "big 3" is to bring in vets and good coaches and let them run a good system with people on and off the court that know what they are doing. No rookie is going to fit that bill imo.

When you have a high pick you take BPA and figure out the rest later. In the top 5 you are looking for stars and if you find one the fit can be worked on later. Wade and LeBron weren't a great fit but they won because their talent was too overwhelming. Draft for stars.

 

ooof he looks like he should go into masonry the way he's throwing up bricks.

 

The more I watch Amen the more uneasy I get about him.
And with Cam I'm actually starting to feel a little of the same way although he's much younger and theoretically has more room for growth with maturity.

This is my preference as of today but (imo) you're not getting Black at #11!
But if we (after trading #4 for #6 & #11) took Black at #6 there's a pretty good chance one of Cam, Walker, Hendricks or Dereck Lively II will be there at #11.
I'm okay with any of them there.
Or if we're worried we could always trade #20 to move up 2 spots from #11 to #9 just to be sure. Pretty sure they (jazz) would do that trade (you just KNOW utah and Ainge want them some Gradey Dick for that fanbase and they can get him at #11 - plus DA LOVES collecting assets).

I agree!
Great play making and Great BBIQ are MUCH harder to find than shooting and this team needs an infusion of SMARTS more than anything!

#4 by itself should be enough to get #6 and #11.
We could throw in a lesser youngster if necessary (KMJ, Tate, JC) but probably shouldn't need to.


At #20 I'd take the best long, athletic wing with major upside still left such as Coulibaly, Miller, Lewis, Cissoko or Jackson.

 

Im not expecting this team to play like an inexperienced team next season. For all intents and purposes Jalen and Alpie are now vets going into year 3. They know what it takes and hopefully your point on having a clear path via better coaching helps them get to an all star level. Im 99.9% BPA guy myself, but I see an opportunity to establish a dynasty if you can avoid too much overlap. I just dont see anything beyond Wembanyama that feels like a sure thing - the success of these other drafted guys will hinge on where they land. Our best chance to find good shooter(s) will be with our draft picks (commensurate to cost) the FA class is underwhelming this year.

 

I have a pretty similar line of thinking as this. Where I differ is that I think this is the perfect thing to swing on a guy like Amen. We already have 3 high upside players so it probably won't break us if we miss on Amen. We finally have what appears to be a great coach for development in Udoka. We just brought in what appears to be a good shooting coach in Sullivan. I think you bring in Amen and let Udoka talk to him. You let Sullivan go through some shooting drills with him for whatever time he needs to evaluate. Then you ask them and the rest of the staff what they think about making him into a star player. If they think it's possible you take him imo.

The team still has the Clippers picks, BK picks, a bunch of young players, and cap space to fill in the roster through trades and signings. This might be the last time they can swing for a star so I think they should go for it if the coaches and scouts think it's worth it.

 

Amen is a great athlete but his shooting scares the hell out me. He’s had some embarrassing misses.

 

Me too but we have a real coach now and apparently Sullivan is a great shooting coach. Ask them if they think it's fixable or worth trying.

 

Way too sensible to disagree with. Appreciate the perspective and different angle. Im looking forward to the pre draft process. Whoever gets drafted Im not expecting them to show up thinking they are the next big thing for the Rockets. Im hoping its a player able to adapt and fit in with other good players and advance the whole team (and someone that can shoot the ball! ).

 

Keep in mind he's playing trash tier competition. I'd rather have Garuba shoot.

 

Looks like he had 2 seconds to shoot when he took that shot. He may be pissed that the guy passed the ball to him out at 30 feet with no time left. You can even see the guy in the corner wanting the ball back for a shot from the looks of it... with 2 seconds left on the shot clock.

 

So we might be having a semantics debate. I like to look at the first few years vs just the rookie year (to avoid flukey shooting years, which is common with 3pt shooting). I also like to look at 3pr/3pa to see improvement in shooting, as that at least indicates increased confidence and certainly affects spacing.

For Giannis, he didn't really play much and only put up 1.5 3PA per game his rookie year. While he converted at a good rate, he then got much worse 3-5 years or so. Like from 15% to 25%ish percent. This seems like his "real" shooting numbers imo. When they got Ben Sullivan, he got his percentage up to to ~30% (generally) and increased his 3pt to 3.5-5 a game or so in those following years. He's no Steph Curry, but I think that's a decent improvement (3pr and 3p %).

Guys like Parker are a little all over the place (23% to 43% depending on the year), but I think the last 6 years in SAS, he shot 37% on almost 2 3PAs a game. To me...that seems like pretty good improvement?

Wade kinda sucked his whole career, but guess he finished at 33% his last season. Which yeah if Amen is the next Wade, I'm OK with that.

I think 31% starts to get you into the "not a liability" stage (0.93 PPS), especially if your 3pr is decent. But yeah Fultz still on the low end of where he needs to be. Still much better than 23-25%. Could also be a fluke year, as I alluded to earlier, and maybe he'll go back to 25%.

At least with these guys, I think they were generally able to get to ~30% for 3pt shooting (while starting off hitting ~25% one or multiple seasons early on). And that's basically the target I'm setting for Amen (I'd prefer 33%+, but 30% might be a decent minimum targer). If he hits on the other parts of his game (huge *if*), and he can get to 30% as a 3pt shooter (on 15-20% 3pr), then I think...that's really good? Am I wrong?

Of course, if he doesn't hit on those other areas, then it all falls apart. But at that point, I don't even care what his shooting numbers are (unless they're Curry-like, but yeah that's not happening).

Alright let's go over some numbers.

Booker had 10.9% AST% in college on 22.8 usage. His rookie year in the NBA he had 15.8% and 23.0. In the next 2 years, he had 16.4%/28.6 and 24.4%/31.7. From there, they go up and down, but generally around that mark.

Kawhi had 16%/27.6 in college (final year). His first few years were bad from an AST% standpoint (8.4% avg first 3 years), but his usage was also pretty low (16.5). His AST% tends to go up with his usage after that (he was hitting 20%+ when he got to 30+ usage).

Butler had 13.2% on 21.3 usage in college (his final year). A 5.7% rate his rookie year, but on 14.9 usage. Similar numbers the next couple years (although AST does tick up), and when he starts getting to 20+ usage, he starts getting to those 20%+ AST% numbers.

Cam has a 6.4% AST rate with a 25.6 usage in college. That's nearly half the rate of these other guys...and now that I'm looking, it is a good bit lower than his teammates (with similar usage). Glancing at these other players, they seemed to have some of the better (top 3 if not top 1) AST% rates on their college teams of high usage players. Overall, Cam is 11th on his team in AST% (and 13th is a guy with a 0), and it isn't particularly close. I also glanced at this HS numbers, and while I didn't get advanced metrics, it looked like he averaged ~2.1 APG (on what I assume was decent usage given his PPG). So I assume...not great in HS either.

I'm just throwing out numbers, and maybe you're right that it is impressive what these other guys did to increase their playmaking and "feel" for the game. I'd say they demonstrated (much?) more in college than Cam, but eh maybe that's debatable.

I'm just wondering how easy it is for like guys with ~6% AST rates on high (25+ usage) in college to have these 15-20% AST rates in the pros. The snippet I shared earlier from Spinella did not seem encouraging. That was maybe a skewed example, so I'm happy to look for other examples. At this point, out of these players, Booker seems like the best comparison? But even then, he seemed quite a bit better than Cam relatively speaking. Is there an example of a player with a lower AST % (on similar usage) that ended up figuring it out? What's the lowest AST% we can find? These are legit questions I have mind you.


I have higher standards for this simply because I *don't* know of any players to make that jump. Comparatively, going from 25% to 30% on 3s seems...more doable...than going from say 6% AST% to 20-30% AST%. It might help if we saw some tape that highlighted potential here, but if anything, that seems to confirm what these numbers tell us. He does indeed look like a bit of a black hole, and he's not the quickest decision maker. I'm not sure I'd say the same about some of these other guys, even if the stats were more comparable.

Ultimately, semantics or not, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I'd be as concerned about Cam's ability to develop as a decision maker as I would Amen's shooting ability. Both currently suck, and I'm not super optimistic either will work it out, but if they can make huge strides in these weak areas, they go from meh to potential all-star (MVP?) players. That's the point I'm trying to make.


Also on a completely random note...I'd say that scoring 20+ against JB Bickerstaff's nephew isn't much more impressive that scoring against Alex Sarr or Somto Cyril...but now I'm just rambling even more incoherently.

 

I think I saw this whole game and vaguely remember this play. That's exactly what happened if so. Still a super ugly shot though. I won't deny that.

I think it was his brother that gave him that "grenade" too, but I might be misremembering.

 

As you should!

 

Well we all know that what he does with traffic cones defending him in a gym full of empty seats , matters most on our more decorated CF GMs so... I'll just wait on their analysis

 

Amen shoots like Tristan Thompson