Player deficiencies get fully exploited in 7 game playoff series. Amen is still young and has a great work attitude + ethic. He will get better. But will he be good enough to be a playoff leader?
I still don't understand how him and his brother made it this far with zero thought on working on their jumpshot. We got bigs entering the league that can hit open jumpers.
I wish people would quit saying lack of jumper. He has turned the corner on the middle jumper. If you mean 3 pointers say 3 pointers. I can’t believe anyone watched last night’s game and is ragging on Amen. The only legitimate complaint is that he isn’t selfish enough and passed out several times when he should have shot. Last year it was he’ll never learn how to shoot, because he can’t make free throws. So he gets good at FT shooting. People say he needs to hit floaters and shots in the lane and he is getting better and better at that. His 3 pointers are bad, but I maintain that is a confidence thing and will get corrected in time.
Im legitimately curious to see numbers there. Is it that he makes 1/3 jumpers per game now instead of 0/1? What Im seeing in the shooting section of basketball-reference is making me sad. I also dont blame Amen alone. Even if he's the best slasher in NBA history he's going to have nights where he can't contribute in paint packed with 3 long forwards. These other lottery pick max contract seeking guys like Smith and Eason also need to round out their offensive games too. It's kinda sad how many nights the lotto squad can't space the floor and everyone wants to make $40M/year. Rockets fans have known since 1994 that shooting wins championships.
This is true. The team shot miserably from 3 last night. Amen specifically will be an absolute superstar if he gets a 3 pt shooter, but he doesn’t have to have one right now to be key to our team.
I’ll have to re-watch last night games, but I’m pretty sure it was about 75% not including 3 pointers. It has been trending up for about 10 games. Fans on this site sure are impatient.
I mean, we're almost halfway through the season and he's 33% from midrange and sub 20% from 3. He's also just 39% in the paint excluding the restricted area aka floaters. Yeah that's going to throw a wrench in your offense. Want him to shoot more and I hope there's a turnaround coming soon. FT% and corner 3 are improved but those don't help him so much in his new role. He needs to get defenders closer to him.
Now do the last ten games. He is trending up in that regard after an abysmal start, due in my opinion, from drinking from a fire-hose in learning a new position. People preached all kinds of patience for Jalen and now Reed, but God forbid we have patience for our best shot at a superstar.
I'm OK with him taking them 3's and middies during regular season. Let it fly. Don't care. POs are different though. No 3s whatsoever. Unbound that hotkey in POs.
Him becoming an 80% free throw shooter is pretty impressive. And it’s a real improvement, like when he gets fouled and gets free throws, I feel pretty good about it (unlike for example Sengun where I’m basically expecting him to miss one). That gives me hope that they can eventually figure out the three pointer also. And when that happens he will become a top 10 player in the league.
Same reason as most players.... relying on athleticism. The FT improvement and midrange are very positive signs now and going forward. The 3PT will be frustrating on a 3PT shooting team in a 3PT league.
I do agree here that with our current roster he definitely has the highest ceiling and is our best shot at a superstar. This is why I don’t mind too much when he misses the 3s because I think for the team’s long term benefit, we need him to keep taking them. It took him until 3rd year to become a really good free throw shooter. If the next improvement is three pointers, then we will be looking good. This is also another reason why I’m ok with him playing point guard also, even though it may not be his long term starting position. It allows him to work on his playmaking this year and once he’s back at the wing spot he’ll be even more deadly having that in his toolbox. Overall, a slow start this year for Amen, but has been solid lately and I’m pleased with the free throw improvement and his more aggressive play lately. I think he’ll be a stud for the team for a long time.
I don't know about other people, but for me whether it's Jalen, Reed, Amen or Hakeem Olajuwon himself - when it's abysmal I both call it abysmal and have a patient outlook. I'm just saying what I would say to my own teammate and frankly I don't think Amen would disagree with me that it's worse than a slow start. If he's the competitor I believe he is, he's calling it unacceptable too and that doesn't mean he won't improve. We're in year 3 right now and after this 10-game stretch he's shooting less than 20% from 3. It's hard to justify that and he's my co-favorite player. If you're looking for hope, I advise you to focus on his 37% shooting from the corner or large increase in FT%. That's more important to me than the last ten games.
