When people say he can't shoot it's implied it's his outside shooting...he can't shoot from outside and it just looks wrong when he shoots - i am not a professional shot form evaluator but it seems visibly wrong The other stuff is what people call scoring, finishing etc - he's very good at that. But in today's game shooting is way more important than when Magic was showtiming
Three things about Amen in the video I also observed watching him in game. 1. He gets off the floor faster than 99% of the people. Not just his first jump, but also the second and even third jump after he has landed. That's how he is so effective at the offensive board and blocking shots from the weak side. 2. His court vision and processing speed is so good that he is pegged as a PG even though he doesn't have a shot and doesn't have the fanciest handles. Like most elite playmakers, he can see things before they happen. And it is on both ends of the floor. Court vision is important for defense too. 3. His hang time lets him scan the floor and make the right pass AFTER he takes off in the air. So even if he looks like he gets stuck jumping into traffic with nowhere to do, he can still turn and make a great pass to an open teammate. A lot of times it catches the defense off guard. These are really special things that very few players can do.
His shots from outside start low around his waist and release around his head like a young kid heaving a long shot -- he also holds the ball too far out and uses his arms primarily instead of his whole body (like Reed). Definitely has some goofy mechanics that are going to be a challenge to repair.
I strongly suspect that Amen in his career never needed an outside shot since given his raw talent he can get dunks and layups, at will. I agree with @SamFisher and @KingCheetah that Amen’s shot looks wrong. I think that the Rockets shooting coach should be able to fix it. This might be the first time in Amen’s career that he has seriously worked on his shooting mechanics.
Still though, even if he didn't need a jump shot at lower levels, everyone has to shoot free throws. Everyone knows how to shoot free throws and practices shooting free throws, which it's why free throw shooting is such a powerful indicator for "do we think he can learn how to shoot one day?" If you go back and look at NBA players who have "learned how to shoot" after joining the NBA, the vast majority of them were already ~80% free throw shooters. This indicates that the player is good at shooting, they just never really put in the effort to add a (outside) jump shot to their game. Magic, as some people brought up as a comparison, was a fantastic free throw shooter - 81% his rookie year, 85% career, even into the 90s during his prime. Amen unfortunately shot 65% in OTE and 68% his rookie year. He just doesn't look like he's a shooter. Hopefully for us he defies the odds and becomes an outlier, but I'm not betting on it.
I think this is mostly accurate. I do remember reading reports that he was re-tooling his shot leading up to the draft, but I am not sure he ever worked on his mechanics before then. He said in one of the interviews something about never knowing there was anything wrong with them and that's just the way he had always shot the ball. It will be interesting to see if really paying attention to his shooting under professional NBA coaching for a few years will produce results, or if he is just one of those guys who has no shooting touch and struggles to ever lock in the correct muscle memory.
One other thing I wanted to mention is that I don't think Amen's true talent level as a shooter right now is actually 14% from three. He was a bad shooter in OTE, but still far, far better than that. I think we're looking at some sample size issues with him taking only 58 three pointers all season. Amen's FT shooting at 68.4% does not suggest a guy whose shooting touch is that hopelessly broken--compare to Dwight Howard, for instance, who was a career 56.7% free throw shooter and still managed to shoot 21% from three on 103 career attempts. I think it's likely that Amen's actual 3P shooting talent level is more around the 25% mark, or a little below that. So even if he made no changes to mechanics I would expect to see improvement on his 3P% next season. Obviously 25% would still be terrible, but I don't think he has quite as far to go as the surface numbers suggest from his rookie season.
^Buddy who started a...whole thread...to honor Raphael Stone for using the 3rd draft pick instead of forfeiting and drafting 4th.
He's done the "working on his shot" before. The shooting ability was always a concern, but his athleticism numbers were something I also questioned in the sense that "yeah, he's athletic as hell, but is he really as athletic as his OTE numbers show?" Those numbers, if measured as the NBA measured them, would put him in the top/elite/1% or something of NBA players. Apparently he's somewhere up there on athleticism, because he's proven that. Unfortunately, I'm not as hopeful about his shot so far, but I'm hoping some "professional help" will help him. I pray it will, anyway. Amen. As for working on his shot, he did the same thing last year during the summer, but it wasn't necessarily on his 3 point shot. Which is why I'm not much of a fan of video clips that only show makes and him being guarded by 40 year old dudes that are built like tree stumps. No offense to 40 year old dudes built like tree stumps. I was one, too. Hell, maybe I still am. Here's a clip of him working on his shot last summer :
Amen has a ways to go from even Mid-Range, 46% from 3-10 feet, 29% from 10-16, and 33% from 16-22 feet.
Amen will end up an elite player in this league and probably with the next 2-3 years. Not worried about his outside shot, he will make it a strength soon enough. He will end up the most talented of the entire young core by a wide margin. Absolute home run draft pick for the Rockets. Just wish the organization can find a way to get his brother on the team- I’d give up Jalen and Jabari to make that happen.
I was recommended this video by YouTube's algorerhythm ... lot of former Rocket legends in it ... including "the worst form" in the video according to the video creator. Amen may be bad, but he's not this bad :
We'll see if teams adapt, but he was destroying teams in the short roll and dunker spot the last 25 games or so (was good for about 40 games). In a different way, but like Giannis, he's tough to stop on the gather and two steps. Not sure how it will work with Sengun and Adams instead of small ball 5 Jabari. Though, his defense works well with a center. I think Sengun shooting well would really help as I think Sengun's got better odds of being a decent shooter than Amen. If Sheppard's IQ translates to NBA, it would be fun seeing the ball move through Sengun, Amen, and Sheppard's hands.
Wembanyama sure didn't look like the best defender in the NBA when Alpi went 30-0 against him in the second half of the last game they met.
