[2023 NBA Draft/1-4] Amen Thompson, G, Overtime Elite

Exactly. He can possibly be like a 6'7'' version of Westbrook in his 30's, except without the stat padding and forcing shots at 50 TS%.

 

My apologies. Who is that?

 

I agree with the concept. The thing that I think people confuse is that you can be a bad shooter and not let the floss thank you. A lot of these guys had a fatal flaw.. wWestbrook taking dumb shots and a lot of them. Simmons not being willing to shoot at all.

If Thompson is selective and plays to his strengths, these things won’t matter much. I actually thought the form on his soul three pointer and free throws looked much improved.

I mean, yeah, teams are going to sag and cheat off of him but if he is an efficient cutter and pushes the ball toward the rim when he receives a pass, he is going to eat up that space awful fast and this is going to cause a lot of chaos for the defense.

I mean, personally, I thought Henderson played OK the other night, but I thought Thompson outplayed him by quite a bit.

I don’t personally want a short point guard that is going to have the mid range game as a staple of his offense.

Amen at his floor gives us a lot of option Aliti. And that his ceiling well who knows?

 

Agreed, Jason Kidd was a good example of this but a not so good finisher and ended up being a pretty solid open look 3 point shooter. He was very unselfish too which I can see Amen but we will need to be selfish around the rim as he is likely a better finisher than most when he gets in the lane. Definitely reminds me of Penny Hardaway early on with his athleticism and ability to get others involved. Penny wanted to prove to everyone he was a PG early in his career by sharing the ball and not forcing too many bad shots. Seems like that comes a little easier for Amen just naturally which is something Penny was able to find a happy medium between scorer and distributor while not being the best 3 point shooter.

I also see some Shaun Livingston in Amen although Amen seems a more natural finisher/scorer. Livingston was not a good shooter but had a good all around game. There is no doubt in my mind he would have been a 15/10/7 guy eventually if he didn’t get badly injured in his 3rd season.

These are all pretty rare players who had some of the best all around skills in basketball in the 90’s and 2000’s. Not many other players to compare Amen too which also makes him a little hard to rate as a prospect.

 

Algorithm find

 

Being faster than D-Rose while also being 4 inches taller is some insanely gifted sh*t

 

I wonder what Jalen Green's number is.

 

It was 0 but he switched to 4 last season.

 

That’s funny

 

The issue is Jalen doesn't know how to slow down, change speeds, makes him easier to track/guard. That's in direct contrast to Amen who seems to know how to shift, start stop, while mixing in his explosiveness. Makes him seem even faster against unbalanced defenders.

 

Supposedly he was working on hesitation/change of pace moves during this offseason. Let's see if it pays off for him.

Jalen is actually only 11 months older than Amen, by the way!

 

This is so far from reality.

Green isn't a Harden level master at stop start and stop type game but the dude has incorporated many scoring possessions that involve hesis, euro step, hop step etc.

Amen will have negative highlights like Green if ramming into defenders on derives occasionally because that's what young guards do sometimes and you'll see someone make a comment that Amen can't change pace. You'll see some low lights of Green turning the ball over because he failed to control speed. Because players aren't perfect especially young players. Doesn't mean they aren't capable of hesi moves. It's just consistency and reps.

Example:
Scrub to 1:03,


Scrub to 1:29


Scrub to 1:30


Here are some sideline clips and you can see some of his quick change of pace in some of these shots
https://youtube.com/shorts/-YLtsn_OAyE?feature=share3

My laziness is stoping me here but trust me I can find a lot nore

I get it. You heard someone probably say that about Green and are just repeating it.

The mere existence of plays where Green runs into a crowd and loses the ball doesn't mean he doesn't have the ability to change pace. Amen in fact lost the ball due to driving in to the paint at one speed in his one summer league game. And if someone wanted they could use that clip as evidence that Amen doesn't have change of pace ability.


Here is a video of all of Amen's possessions in his summer league debut:



There are more than one possesion where he misses a lay up or gets stripped or blocked because he attacks the rim at one speed. That doesn't mean he is incapable of changing speed and being shifty. It means he's young and will be inconsistent and sometimes misjudge.

That's the nature of young players. They will show you why they are special in some plays and then look lost on another.

And this doesn't mean that Jalen Green doesn't need to improve on his slow down bag. He himself said he needs to work on it. But to say the kid doesn't use shiftiness or change of pace at all is so blatantly absurd if you watched Rocket games consistently throughout the year. But the kid isn't Shaedon Sharpe or someone like that that has no bag or in-between game and just straight line drives with no creativity.

 

There’s a lot of people that post on Green that I’m absolutely positive have never watched him play.

 

Seriously. People don't understand the difference between consistency and ability. Green has the ability to hesi, slow down, speed up wiggle etc. But sometimes he will read things wrong due to a lack of experience and just try to go full speed.

You'll see this with Amen also. One play he will show immense ability to hesi or have controlled stop and go movements and in another play will just go full steam ahead and run into a defender and lose the ball. Because young players are inconsistent.

People who don't watch Green severely underestimate the level of control he also has when he's traveling at a high speed:
Scrub to 1:39 here



You can see how controlled he is with his handle at such a high speed in some plays.

 

Nice pass by Sasser.

That athleticism reminds me of the "free throw line euro layup" Amen did in OTE. Monica McNutt showed it on Run The Tape a few weeks ago. It was inside the free throw line, but the effortlessness of it is probably the most amazing thing. The entire interview was actually pretty fun to listen to as they break down plays and what they were thinking and saw on each play.

 

Them twins are legit!