Forget about that other guy and lets talk about Amen shooting 12.5% from 3 point range. That's terrible no matter how you slice it. Amen Thompson Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Draft Status and more | Basketball-Reference.com
He's not going to be a good three point shooter this season, but the sample size is far too small to tell anything from his current stats.
I agree completely! Was he that bad in college too? Not that it's the same distance, so I don't think that matters much. I do think we made some great draft picks with Jabari and Sengun, but I also think we made some draft busts with top picks the past few years.
I was more or less trying to change the direction of the discussion - Less Jalen and more Amen. I don't expect him to shoot well this season ..... but the current numbers are embarrassing. Been thinking about this whole draft process lately - Teams draft these kids based off of projections that don't really take into account "current skills" ..... but where their skills might be, often best case scenario in five years. Just look at Jalen as a prime example - the dude is an athlete that can run like a deer and jump out of the gym ..... but lacks basic basketball skills. And the projection we heard constantly was 3 level scorer / top level scorer despite his struggles actually putting the ball thru the hoop. It's hard to project skills into an athlete .... These same people keep comparing Amen to Rajon Rondo. Yet they forget that he shot ~32% from 3 for his career in an era where three point shooting wasn't nearly as important as it is today, he took a very limited amount of those shots AND he improved as his career went on eventually shooting better than 40% in 2020/21. The 48 attempts that Rondo took in his first two seasons wouldn't fly in the modern NBA. It would be the equivalent of Westbrook who went from being an allstar to all but unplayable & Amen is in that realm currently shooting 12.5% from 3 point land. Athleticism is one thing but skill is another more important one.
You don’t know what you have never experienced…but also - steroids screw with your eyes and he looks way more jacked than the average 19yr old. Not accusing him - just saying there are a lot of reasons “why”
Rondo is actually a great example of how players like this can evolve into decent shooters. He actually shot only 20% from three as a rookie. Was terrible in college and from the FT line too. That's not to say that Amen will definitely show similar improvement, but it's possible.
Thats exactly what I was getting at, he was a better shooter than given credit for .... people act like Rondo was a poor shooter all his career and that Amen being a poor shooter somehow projects to .... a career like Rondo's.
Both brothers suck right now. Ask Pistons fans, they hate the Ausar pick now with how bad he is offensively. Amen is considered the better twin on offense and he's not even close to being NBA caliber right now. He looks visibly nervous and shook.
No, he’s a project though. How much of a project is hard to tell because he hasn’t played enough due to injury/illness.
You can build skill up over time you can't teach athleticism. You know who is a good shooter in college? Gradey Dick. You know who can't shoot now? Gradey Dick. Remember when Jabari shot 30% last yr from 3 and people were mad cuz we got a 3 pt shooting big man who can't shoot? Meanwhile super skilled Keegan Murray tore it up. It even got DD excited for Murray lol. What happened this year? There Def has to be something said about picking polished and skilled players like Jaime JJ but for a team like ours who didn't yet have an all star caliber player during the draft Amen was the right move.
The Thompson delusioners are coping hard. Top 5 picks aren't supposed to be projects. When they become one, they are called busts.
He has incredible speed but him playing next to Holiday is really killing his flow. I genuinely saw him avoid giving the ball to Holiday because he know he’s gonna ball hog rest of the clock.
This draft doesn’t look that deep so far, only 4 outstanding players and that’s counting Chet who was 22 draft class so only three and that also pushing it compare to how competitive Rookies were in 21 and 22 classes were.
...you can call virtually every pick a bust in this draft aside from Wemby(and his shooting percentages are NOT great). For as bad as Amen has been, #3 pick Scoot is somehow shooting worse. Brandon Miller isn't playing so well either. It was a very top heavy draft.
I stay away from the GARM, but I guess I was big on Amen, so here's my overreaction from ~150 minutes of play. Yeah, he can't shoot. At least from 3. Not surprised, and if he ever did figure out how to get to say 30%, it *probably* wasn't going to be this year. Oddly enough, he seems to be over 50% on mid range and pull up jumpers (plus 2/3 on floaters if I read NBA.com stats correctly). This sample size is *tiny*, but if anything, I'm actually slightly more encouraged by his shooting than I might have expected. Of course, I had low expectations. It is just about everything else that is (well) below my expectations. I guess at times his defense and playmaking are good. But not enough. And yes, he is *much* worse than I expected as a ball handler (I expected a bit loose, but not this bad). As I think some have mentioned, he looks like he's playing scared too. Not a lot of confidence. Also not a great rim % (somewhat Jalen-esque). I can chalk much of that up to this being such a weird start to the season for him. At times, he does show flashes. But I don't even care about his shooting if he can't fix this other stuff. I'm optimistic, so I'm thinking he can, but until that stuff changes, I won't feel that great about his future development. Maybe he just needs glasses too.
I remember people screaming, Alpern was expendable, Jabari was a bust and so forth... let the kids body fill out and give him an offseason to work with trainers. He has wingspan, speed, courtivision, height, work ethic, and he sees the court really well. Def a High bb IQ player. He's not getting the playtime and burn the other kids got and is having to earn those minutes unlike our previous draft picks. I have confidence in the kid.
