Amen Thompson is the Rockets' REAL franchise player

Defensively that comparison makes sense, but offensively Marion and Amen are very different. Overall, Amen is most similar to prime Ben Simmons. Simmons was a natural PG so a bit different in role, but he was a good rebounder, passer, all-defensive 1st team defender, and an elite finisher around the rim. And unfortunately he and Amen are both terrible shooters. People may not like that comparison because Simmons' career turned out badly, but in early years he was quite good.

 

Amen is closer to Marion than Simmons when it comes to PG skills and handle though.

 

Closer to Giannis actually

Marion Career Avg 1.9 assists 1.5 TOs
Amen Career Avg 4 assists 2 TOs
Giannis Career Avg 5 assists 3 TOs

 

So....not like Marion at all then.

The Marion comps are silly as hell. Basically the "Reed is TJ McConnell" of Amen comps. Iggy is probably a *little* better if they were like "Iggy with jetpacks for legs".

For what its worth Simmons in his 3rd year had 3.5 turnovers to 8 assists (.4375 t.o. per assist) to Amens 2.4 to 5.3 assists (.452 t.o. per assist).

 

Of course, no one wants Amen to force things when there is no space, turn the ball over, or take a terrible shot.

What I'm seeing is 6–10 possessions when there is space, no defender, and an easy opportunity to get to the line or take a high-percentage shot. But Amen is such a team-oriented player that he passes up these chances (often waiting for teammates who are not playing with his level of energy). And once he hesitates, the Rockets' offense is in a scramble against a diminishing shot clock. After he passes out, they are down to some random, slow-action pick and roll with 8 seconds left to shoot (and he's standing at the 3-point line). It's another busted possession.

In my mind, if Amen has a live dribble at the FT extended with space, he should be the number one option. With one change-of-pace dribble, he can get to whatever shot he wants, overwhelming any defender under 6'4. If Amen changes speeds, taller guys will never know what happened. The breakthrough will come when he starts punishing passive defenders.

 

Cause he scores a lot on cuts and transition. When it comes to those he’s the guy.

 

This is my biggest complaint with Amen right now. He needs to just make up his mind to be a scorer. When he has the advantage take it. He will live at the free throw line. He is unselfish to a fault. The more he forces the action the more opportunities he will have to facilitate 3 pointers. Space is not created by roaming around the 3 point line, it is created by motion and downhill action to the hoop. One of the biggest issues our offense had last year is that we had only one guy that could drive to the hoop, Jalen. Unfortunately he couldn’t finish and sucked at passing. Amen is good at both. People complain that we don’t have creators. Amen and Reed can both create, Amen in isolation, and Reed with PnR. Those 2 actions should be the bedrock of our half-court plan, not Durant ISO’s.

 

He's probably most similar in the way he plays on offense to guys like Giannis or a young Blake Griffin, but he's smaller/less strong than those guys, and a bit quicker and more springy, maybe a bit more pass-first. He just needs to be as aggressive as those guys are/were like @Hemingway said. That's all it would take to get his scoring into the 20s and I think it would actually open up more opportunities for other guys on the perimeter, so the assist rate might not come down, it would just be a higher usage rate in general.

 

Durant is flat-out the best offensive player on the Rockets. The Rockets are not ready for Amen and Reed to carry the load of the offense. The Rockets' offense does look better when it is diversified (i.e., I'm not a fan when the defense can sit back and wait for the KD iso to start, then pressure).

 

He's basically mid range Reed to me. He gets so much space in the mid range because of the threat of his bounce but intead of shooting those SGA/Kawhi shots he passes it off instead of just shooting it. It's like when Reed passes off a three so Josh Okogie gets a 3. His shot looks good on release from that distance as well. He could be a mid-range merchant if he wanted to he just need to let it fly. I'm pretty bullish on the Amen-Jabari-Reed trifecta.

Again....Ben Simmons and Shawn Marion are stupid comps for what Amen is. He actually doesn't have a comp because no player like him has ever existed. Like trying to comp Wemby. Or Giannis or Hakeem or Shaq. There's some dudes that don't have comps because they're 1 of 1.

 

Yeah, he's a strange player. I've never been able to find a good 1:1 comp for him, at least in 21st century basketball. There were a lot of wings that played more like he does in the 70s, 80s, and 90s though, but hard to say whether those guys would have been more of 3P shooters in today's game.

 

Probably a closer comp would be a pass-first Dr. J or a young Dominique. To me, Amen is a ton more explosive than Marion. But Amen doesn't have that scorer's mentality. Someone told him to be a point guard for some reason. Bad advice. Take more of the scoring load. You can handle it.

 

Yeah, this is why I don't like the idea of Amen the PG. I think it is messing with his mindset. He tries to be the play maker when he should be dunking on people or drawing fouls at the rim. Maybe he'll find the balance someday. He needs to know that he has to get the defense's respect of his scoring ability before he can make plays for his teammates.

 

He also doesn't have the ballhandling, vision or passing of a PG so we should just stop trying to force him into the wrong shaped hole and instead develop him as a supreme rim threat who finishes plays (or kicks out to the open man when the D collapses, which should be the only "playmaking" he does - he'll get WAY more assists this way too.) Have him set the screen rather than be the ballhandler and let's see somebody try and stop that lob threat who didn't share womb with him. Almost everybody who can both jump with him and keep up pace with him is a score-first guard/wing who doesn't actually have a chance in stopping it. If Ja can jump over bigmen then Amen should do it with ease, not sure why he doesn't (maybe he learned how to not do it from Jalen, who also should've just ****ing done that?)

 

No doubt we need KD to be a scorer deluxe, but how do you diversify if it’s not with Amen and Reed on the ball? We already saw what our offense was with FVV and Sengun controlling the half-court last year. At some point, you need to throw Amen and Reed into the fire, this year is the best time to try since FVV and Ime will screw them both next year (Amen to the corner and Reed to the bench).

 

If Rick Adelman or Mike Malone had Amen, he would be an all star, averaging 24 a night.

 

hoping Wemby has season ending injuries every year.

 

When Amen wins MVP in the next couple of years, it won’t matter.