Amen Thompson is the Rockets' REAL franchise player

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5938533/2024/11/22/nba-sophomore-class-amen-thompson-gradey-dick/

Amen Thompson, Rockets

The fourth pick in 2023, Thompson is the one player on this list who actually made the All-Rookie team a year ago, but he was second-teamer in a blah class (non-Wemby division); he also played the bulk of his 1,388 minutes in forgettable March and April games for a lottery team. (Thompson played more minutes in the meaningless final week of the season than he did between opening day and Christmas.)

As a result, fans are getting their first extended taste of Thompson’s impact and the jarring athleticism he brings to the table. Some of his transition defense chase-down clips are mind-blowing; it looks like his tape was spliced in at 1.5x speed.

Watch how quickly he gets out of the blocks in the left corner — from a complete standstill — chases down Damian Lillard, then reels in Bobby Portis after a hit-ahead pass. Thompson turns what looks like a transition jailbreak for Milwaukee into a non-event and eventually a turnover. This is not normal, but he has one of these every game:

Meanwhile, Thompson is figuring out how to make an offensive impact despite a jump shot that we will charitably describe as a work in progress. A rare positionless chameleon — what is he, a power guard? A point center? — Thompson’s athleticism and ball skills mean he can play point guard on one trip and have gravity as a rim-runner on the next; he’s shooting 77 percent at the rim, according to Basketball-Reference.com, and 60.8 percent on 2s overall. He also draws fouls and is making enough of the freebies (72.6 percent) for Houston to profit.

In particular, his grab-and-go game leverages a 19.2 percent defensive rebound rate into instant transition offense. It took 5.6 seconds from him collecting the ball at one end for it to go through the net at the other, and seemingly half of that was waiting for him to come down after he skied for the rebound:

Defensively, meanwhile, the impact Thompson and Tari Eason have had as a combo meal off the bench has been breathtaking. When the two play together, the Rockets have a 101.3 defensive rating, hold opponents to 41.6 percent shooting and enjoy a plus-13 net rating.

Consider this your weekly admonition that you simply must watch the Rockets — the most exciting team nobody is talking about. Thompson’s emergence is a massive reason.

 

I respect and like Amen's potential.
But this team's future and direction will be decided by Alperen Sengun.
With his defensive.leap, he is right now walking in the superstar class, top 15-20 player in NBA.

 

Sengun thread is that way amigo

 

I was surprised to see Amen's stats not improving much from last year. I think it may be a product of him going back to a backup role and not filling in for Sengun like last year. But looking at him, it does feel like he's taken a big step up. His big issue now is to be able to improve his shooting volume. Normally I wouldn't say this for a guy who still can't really shoot, but the Rockets as a whole this year has been unable to shoot outside of Tari. So may as well have Amen try to score more.

 

Don't sleep on Amen. He has Kawhi potential.

 

I dont sleep on Amen, he is one of my favourite player..like his style a lot.
But as you said, it is still "potential", not product yet.
We have already a superstar caliber player Sengun, he already broke almost every record in our clubs history and this team goes where Sengun takes it- just we have seen in Pacers game-
Amen has so many flaws in his game, his basketball iq is still low and has tunnel vision.
If he learns to play with Sengun and adapt to Senguns basketball intelligence, Sengun, Tari and Amen will become lethal weapons and no team will have answer for them.

 

His raw numbers aren't up a ton, but his other metrics are up significantly. He's made major improvements in his 3 pt %, FT%, and TS%. Really, all his adjusted shooting numbers are up across the board. His defensive rating dropped from 109 last season to 102 this season. He's really growing into his "jackknife" role.

 

I was speaking of volume

 

His 3 pt % is up. He's taking middies now. He is much more on ball than he was last year where he was essentially a center. His turnovers are up probably for the same reason. He's like Reed and Sengun. They don't take shots they shouldn't....almost to a fault (Sengun not so much anymore, he actually takes bad shots he shouldnt at times). But once those 3 get comfortable....this team will be crazy.

 

Sengunatics get uncomfortable when other players are praised and Alpi isn't the centerpiece of any Rockets discussion.

Hence the comment "I like so and so, but Alpi is better". For them it isn't about the Rockets, it's all about Alpi.

 

Thinly?

He called Amen a low IQ player. I mean that might even be a racial bias. Amen is a brilliant basketball player.

 

Amen is not low IQ.

Quickest, bounciest guy on the roster, incredible defensive potential, smart.

Good chemistry with the rest of the core, especially with our franchise player Alpi (who is only half a year older than Amen) and with our other defensive disruptor Tari.

Nothing not to like.

 

"he already broke almost every record in our clubs history"

"Amen has so many flaws in his game, his basketball iq is still low and has tunnel vision."

One of these is factually incorrect and the other is probably the most senseless thing I've ever read on this board and there are some extremely senseless people here.

 

Sengun is our current best player with the most likely chance to become a superstar (not quite there yet, but definite top 15-20 player ceiling).

Amen Thompson is the next most likely player to become a superstar, except his ceiling is even higher than Sengun's (top 10). If the eye test wasn't enough for you, his advanced stats corroborate that possibility. 4.3 win shares and a 0.149 WS/48 are just things that aren't commonly seen from a rookie of the long guard/combo wing archetype, and he's followed that up this year with a 0.180 WS/48 as a sophomore so far. This will put him well into the 0.200's and beyond for the plateau phase of his career, and we're only barely getting a glimpse of what that might look like. The outside shot is still unlikely to fall, but with a 57.6->62.4 TS% and more importantly a 68.4->72.6 FT% he's definitely projectable to develop a shot as his career moves along. Look at how he comports himself on and off the court, and you'll quickly realize he has the intangibles another high performing young guard in Ben Simmons never had.

To me the base case--if nothing else develops and he remains as this switchable jack-of-all-trades defensive specialist with off the charts athleticism--is Shawn Marion. You're talking about a 4x all star, 125 career win share player who started off equally with a bang: 4.1->11.7 win shares his first two seasons, 0.158->0.196 WS/48, but then tailed off and never really fulfilled that potential, reaching 0.190+ WS/48 only 3 more times in his career. What a fantastic, underrated player for the bar for Amen to be set at!

If, however, Amen improves his outside shot and becomes a three level dangerous scorer with court vision to boot--or if he never really becomes an outside threat but develops a midrange game with multiple ways to get his own shot off the dribble without necessarily having to rely on his athleticism--then I don't know if there's a good comp for the kind of player he is right now. It just might not exist. A more defensive Julius Erving? A taller longer Russell Westbrook? I'll settle on "Ben Simmons if he had a heart".

 

how much it bothers u that sengun is mentioned a lot in the forum.

 

I’m personally super pumped about Amen, plays basketball the right way. If he develops a respectable shot, he’s going to be a star.

 

I love amen. Because I'm a fan of aman. So u still don't like sengun fans (except me)​

 

I think the dude who constantly says "Jalen is the best player on the team" might actually have more argument for that than "Amen has low bbiq and tunnel vision".

Like saying Sengun has no post game and is a terrible passer.