Couple of things. There's no one else at the backup PG spot. It would be shocking if he wasn't ready to step in as the backup PG day one. We're not talking about the starting role, we're talking about the backup job. When you take the best PG in a draft class #3 overall, you play them if you want to win. The last coach that played scrubs over Reed Sheppard hurt his team and was run out of town for it.
Heard that. I wonder how much more damage a slightly bigger and wiser Amen can do in the paint. Will help his defense too. This kid is messing around with having a historic defensive season.
This is what I expected before Summer League. I still think he probably is brought in slowly the first 5-20 games. I'm guessing odds are that Reed's position will be listed as PG and he'll have rotation minutes at the latest by game 20. I don't see this as negatively impacting Amen in the short term or the long term. I see the reverse. Reed is going to force opposing teams to choose to either try to muscle him and let Amen roam free, or try to corral Amen, but give Reed some space to shoot. I think Reed is going to be able to get Amen the ball in posiitons where Amen is stressing the defense with scoring, but also letting Amen use his PG skills to create for teammates. The only thing it will hurt is if people actually value his position being named PG or not.
I really believe Amen and Reed will fit very well. It doesn't matter what you call them. Reed's game is probably more suitable for initiating a half-court set offense. Amen's strength is creating havoc with his penetration.
Who has been preaching draft position doesn’t matter? As virtually every draftnik pointed out, the top end of this draft was one of the worst in many years. I hope you are right and he is the next coming, but I think it is very reasonable g i agree partially with this, just don’t think it will be very frequently this year. This is not a year that Ime is going to gamble valuable minutes on a rookie that had some obvious problems with good defenders in summer league. Also rookies very seldom come in the league lighting it up from three. Going into the nba is a massively difficult transition both physically and mentally and good coaches recognize these difficulties and bring rookies along more slowly than fans would like. Shep won’t get much play the first half of the season unless someone gets hurt or traded. I believe Amen will be very good at initiating the offense before the year is out. We could very well have an Amen/Sheppard backcourt in the future with both guys along with Sengun as initiators and that is assuming Jalen doesn’t work out. If he works out, Sheppard will be a backup combo guard for the rockets until someone gets moved. We also have Cam that needs his minutes at sg and sf. Reed is going to have a very tough time earning significant minutes this year. Very few teams utilize 10 man rotations. Going into the season the rockets will already be challenged to get FVV, Amen,Jalen,Jabari, Tari, Sengun, Cam, Adams, brooks enough minutes. The main initiators in the half court will be FVV, Jalen, and Sengun with Amen getting spot minutes as the initiator.
Draft position shouldn't matter when we're talking about bad players....but the point is that you don't draft a player that high if you don't even think they are a backup. To the people who thought that guys like Jalen Green and Scoot Henderson were "can't miss" prospects, they thought this class was bad...but I'd have taken Sheppard over who we took with our first pick in every recent draft. The ONLY guy that I'd have ANY hesitation about would be Amen, but in the end, I pick Sheppard over him because he doesn't have any fatal flaws he needs to overcome like Amen does.
I really like the guy, but he's not without flaws. Size and lateral quickness come to mind. I hope you're right and he's better than all of them and the Rockets have an easy decision to extend him by year 3, unlike with Jalen currently.
I just look at it as he's a guy with an elite skillset that doesn't have fatal flaws... sure he's a PG sized PG, but I don't see it as a flaw....I mean he's both larger and more athletic than the current Rockets starting PG and highest paid player Most of all though, I just see highly skilled high BBIQ guys as inherently less risky overall.
I hope he pulls a Giannis and gets taller and hulks out. (I'm sure he won't get anywhere near 7 feet but he does have that crazy-long wingspan to work with.) That's basically his only path to superstardom if he doesn't develop a jump shot. Hell, maybe he can do both.
I think you can say that about several of our players. Does anybody here seriously think any of our young players have their fully grown man bodies yet? I don't. Amen, Jalen, Cam - these three fully developed are all scary to think about athletically. Jabari, Tari, Alpi - These guys might not be athletic freaks, but I'd hazard that they're also not at their athletic peak/prime yet either. Sengun might be the one who surprises people most in terms of body development when all's said and done, training in Europe just isn't as focused on building elite athlete bodies, and we see it time after time where a European player suddenly transforms into a significantly more athletic player after a few years under the US training regimes. I don't think Alpi's a Jokic/Luka type where they don't really develop much on that front, have you seen how flexible that kid is?
Jokic definitely did everything he could, dropping a ton of weight and getting stronger. He was slower in his 3rd year. Sabonis another good example. His body fat % went from good to elite and he's looked quicker since. Don't know if you saw the interview with our Development coach Hodges, but he said they focused a lot on food and fitness when he was with Alpi. He was very happy with Alpi's effort. I think we're going to see a bulked up Alpi with a lower body fat %. So much room to grow still for Alpi.
I'm not very optimistic Amen will take a leap in shooting this season, but I do expect some improvement (hopefully + 70% FT).
I’m not even remotely optimistic. I think he will always be a poor shooter. However, I think he will still end up being a superstar. His impact on the court is obvious and he just does so much winning. Forget stats, these idiots that run around puking numbers they don’t understand ruin the joy of just watching ball. go ROX
Amen was a 68.4% FT shooter last year.... By comparison Ben Simmons, who is Amen's closest comparison by some of his biggest detractors....is a career 59% shooter and his best year he shot 62%. Prime Rondo was around a 62% FT shooter.
I can't understand how people can get away with such blatant swill being passed off as new content. "The media said Amen looks great this offseason" and then spending the next 5+ minutes recapping Amen's season doesn't really live up the title does it? "Amen Thompson INSANE Transformation"
I know exactly what Amen shot last season..... I made the comment just expressing my opinion about Amen shooting next season and not to get ones hopes up in that aspect.
