Amen Thompson is the Rockets' REAL franchise player

Nah. Hold on to Reed and maybe Jabari too.

Otherwise, sure.

 

I'm a little surprised it is that well-rated. I see Sheppard and Amen often play with Sengun, and the results of those lineups have not been good. I knew they played better together with Sengun off the court, but not well enough to offset it by that much.

 

This is a good point. He's already producing like the version of Ben Simmons that was a 3x All-Star--except he's much more aggressive, a much better FT shooter, and is at least trying to get better at 3P shooting. Simmons never even worked on it, he just refused to shoot entirely.

And for all the criticisms people have made of Simmons, the reason he didn't have a great career isn't that he couldn't shoot, it's that he was mentally weak and had massive and legitimate injury problems. So far Amen has exhibited neither issue (knock on wood).

 

Yeah, I feel the despair too and think about this. In the 12 games in March, where the Rockets have sputtered to a 6-6 record, Amen is putting up 21/9/5 on 60%/46%/80%.

The rest of the regular season and playoffs will determine what they do going forward with Amen and the other young players.

 

I just don’t think our developmental prospects have been good enough:

Bari only shooting league average and this is his best season. Not good enough

Tari has full blown attitude problems now, doesn’t want to be here, still poor basketball IQ, looks a little slow and hurt to me.

Sengun has been inefficient all season, regressed defensively, no progression on the shooting.

Reed is very undersized not to be a pure point guard. I believe he can get there but looks like he’s always gonna be vulnerable defensively.

I just don’t believe in these players enough to say, this is the group we are gonna go to war with and win a chip in the future.

These are not the guys. We should go find someone that can be the guy next to Amen. We should worry about role players after we have our franchise guy. Bari and Tari are role players. And there’s a lot of data at this point to show that Sengun and Amen are not a great fit. I hope we make some big changes this offseason. But I don’t t trust this front office to get things right.

 

Kind of where I'm at honestly

I can still see the vision with Sengun--it looks like the guy we saw his first 20 or so games of the season, a 23, 10 and 7 guy on 50/36/75 shooting. I just don't know how likely it is that he ever gets there at this point. His averages over the past three seasons look remarkably similar to what he's now giving us on this season. I've said multiple times I wouldn't force a trade, we have time to hold out and seek a good return, and maybe he'll surprise us. But the lack of sustained improvement is concerning at this point.

I can't really envision Reed being much more than a guy like Jamal Murray or Darius Garland. At this point I do think he is going to be a very good player, but I'm not sure I quite see the point guard skills to be an elite assist guy or the defensive potential to be a true two-way player. So then the only believable path to #1 option level play is to literally be one of the greatest shooters of all time. That doesn't seem likely either. If he's "only" a 40% on 8 attempts guy, obviously that's still an elite shooter, but it's not a GOAT shooter, and, given his other limitations (lack of rim pressure, for example) it's not a guy who can be the #1 for your team. So in that scenario, you're really counting on Amen developing a solid jump shot and being the "Batman", I think? Maybe that happens, maybe it doesn't.

Essentially no chance Jabari is ever more than a #3 option at this point. I still like him though for his ability to fit into basically any roster construction.

 

Amen is not the franchise player. A non-shooter cannot be a franchise player no matter how good his defense is.

 

wade, giannis, butler

and don't like Amen is a zero on offense

 

Wade was a shooter, just not from 3. Giannis is a big. This is like saying Shaq couldn't shoot. An efficient/dominant big doesn't need to shoot 3s.

Butler was also a midrange guy, he also never won a championship. I definitely see that as a high end comp for Amen. But, even with peak Butler you would want another star to be the primary go to guy if you really want to win it all.

 

Try building around a 6'7" Giannis and see where that gets you. Also, Butler and Wade are much better shooters than Amen. Butler is literally my favorite player i'd love for Amen to develop into a player like him, but i don't see it. These twins must not have worked on their shooting at all growing up.

 

Wade and Butler could definitely shoot the ball. Hell Giannis even has some resemblance of a mid range. Amen is one of the worst shooters I've seen.

 

Wade was a really bad jump shooter, even from the midrange. People have a perception of him that doesn't match the reality. He did his damage by attacking the rim. Butler, yes, but he's been wildly up and down and definitely had multiple seasons where his jump shot was similar to Amen's

 

Franchise role player, nothing wrong with that!

 

Excruciatingly difficult to say what Wade and TParker would be today when everyone is hitting 3 pointers.

 

I never said Amen will be the only star on the team. It's possible to surround AMen with top tier 3&d players

 

This franchise tag is actually a running gag around here.......no way it is taken seriously now.....

 

I'll lay my cards down and say I think Wade would still be a star player, even with the same crappy jump shooting (sub-40% from the midrange and sub-30% from three). He was a monster at getting to the rim and unlike Russell Westbrook, he was also an elite defensive player through his prime.

If we want to talk about "today's game", how about Jimmy Butler's three season stretch from 2019 through 2022 when he averaged 24% from three point range, 32% on two pointers from 16ft out, and 43% from 10-16ft? He made two all-star appearances during that stretch and two All-NBA appearances by the way.

Now, I will say that I don't think either Wade or Butler could be the #1 offensive option on a championship team in today's league. (Wade himself barely cleared that once playing next to an aging Shaq way back in 2006, and Butler never did, though he did make it to the Finals out of the East recently.) So I would say it's likely that Amen, unless his jump shot improves dramatically, cannot be the #1 option either. But in my view, he can certainly be a #2 option with just a little bit more all around improvement, and his defense and rebounding I think could even push his value into the "top 10 player" category. That's a player you can build around and you just hope to find a guy to play next to him who is a #1 offensive option.

 

Teams develop players differently when they can't shoot.....

Star player today is not as untouchable as it was in the past, no way Luka gets traded in the middle of a season lol......

 

That's a pretty narrow path to being an offensive number 2 option. Granted, I think the Rockets have lots of options for guys to make a big step forward, such that someone likely will. The question is will it be enough.