With Cam sitting out for the rest of SL, it'll be interesting to see what Reed can do when the defense will only focus on him
To get on Greene's summer league level he'll have to stop causing turnovers, stop rebounding, stop getting assists...and become an inefficient chucker...
It’s worth watching - but in the NBA, it’s unlikely defenses will ever only focus on him. He isn’t that type of player - he isn’t going to score 30 a night like the top scorers in the league…. He has the chance to be dangerous because of his whole game, passing, shooting, coming off movements, transition…
A quick reminder for everyone... Mark Price played 4 years of college ball and 22 year old rookie Mark Price put up this stat line 18.2 mpg 6.9 ppg 3.0 apg 1.7 rpg 40.8% FG% 32.9% 3p%
I'm surprised so many people doubted his ability to play PG. There are very few PG passing playmakers anymore. The vast majority are combo scoring guards or ball managers who simply initiate the offense. I get not expecting him to be Magic Johnson, but even at Kentucky he clearly demonstrated all the tools for basic PG ball managing and hitting an open man. We'll see if he can elevate beyond that, but playing the position competently never seemed like a question to me.
With Cam out I'd like to see him chuck. It's not in his personality to do it so he probably won't but I think let that sucker fly. He can make the good safe decisions during the season.
I gotta say I did not see every game at Kentucky. From what I saw, Sheppard was off ball a lot more than in Summer League. He was good on PnRs, but doubt defense was geared up for it as he didn't do it too much. It was very nice to see him look basically the same with more on ball volume.
Reed cant really play his game right now. He's being tasked with running the SL team as lead guard. He's having to create off the bounce and do things that were not asked of him at Kentucky. He's done a fine job if you ask me, but I would have liked to see a bunch of action with him off ball, C&S, multi pick plays to get him open. As we saw in the last game he can still contribute when his shot is a little off which was one of my bigger concerns. It will be fun to see him running around with the big club as he will have one job and one job only. Make shots.
We already have our Magic Johnson in Amen. If Sheppard plays well enough to make the rotation, we will have 5 guys that on any given play can be the initiators in the half-court: Amen, FVV, Sengun, Jalen, and Sheppard. This team has been built with flexibility in position in mind. They want 2 way guys that can play all over the floor and they are succeeding. Traditional positional basketball is passé. The Rockets are a building a team that will be very difficult to match up against. Jabari and Amen especially give us a unique ability to guard up and coming unicorns like Wemby and Chet. I’m not sure any team in the NBA matches up better with OKC than the Rockets. People that sh*t on Jabari need to play closer attention to what he brings on the defensive end. Watch closely when he guards Wemby, Chet, Lebron, and Durant. They often end up deferring to their teammates.
Id imagine in a half court set Amen would be more of a roller secondary playmaker to Jalen. Part of why positionless basketball exists is taller players expanding their guard skills. Guys like Luka or Lebron have small guard dribbling skills etc. Amen has the handles of a Trey Murphy type which is good for a wing. Positionless basketball didn't erase the concept that the lead playmaker is a guard level ball handler unless it's something entirely unique like running playmaking through a center like Jokic. The people with the most creative ON ball skills will be the ones doing most of the initiating. FVV, Sengun Jalen etc. Maybe Reed
I don’t really think you said anything in direct contrast to what I was saying. I am more positive about Amen’s ability to grow his ball handling skills and we saw significant growth in that aspect in less than 40 games. It’s amazing that people have written him off as a “pg” after such a small sample size. Hell, I haven’t written Jalen off as a “pg” after 3 years.
I just think mindset(Jalen's issues barring him from being a PG) is easier to resolve than like ball handling coordination. Jalen since he started playing basketball had a score first mindset. At the moment I have a easier time seeing Reed becoming the eventual PG than Amen. I think Amen will supplant himself as the long term starting SF of the team and will be an ultra utility star akin to a lot more physically gifted Draymond Green. That's what I see in Amen's future. He definitely can expand his game to a more traditional pg role. That isn't out of the question yet. I'll say this. If Amen can become that player who has the ball skills of an actual point guard he'd be a top 10 player easily because his combo of length, agility and now ball skills would be nearly unprecedented in league history. basically a 6'8" Ja Morant.
