Speaking functionally not taking account what's in between the ears, both may have Top 10 naturally talented bodies of the last 20 years. Simmons may be #3 or #4. Wemby and Zion are probably both over Lebron and Simmons. Amen is up there though. Amen is more athletic but Ben is taller. Ben was ultimately a fraud though. Like Zion. He'll try to swindle another team into giving him another contract with a year or two of good play and then the back issues will begin again or whatever. There's a lot of talented guys in the league who are fraudulent these days. I don't think Amen is one of these. He is competitive in a way Ben never was.
Simmons didn't just have better handles he had incredible handles for a 7 ft. Yesterday Amen lost the grip of the ball couple of times, turned the ball over because it's honestly not even close to being at acceptable levels for a pg. If you can't build around Ben you can't build around Amen is how i see this situation. He's a playmaking wing i think. If he can ever shoot as good as Tate he will be an elite player tho.
Something I've been thinking about is whether Amen should maybe play SG next season. I know, I know, "a shooting guard who can't shoot" and all that. It's not ideal, but it might be our best option if Jalen can't turn things around. I'm not a fan of Amen playing the 3, because it throws away his size advantage, and also because we already have two defensive small forwards (Dillon and Tari). At least he still has a size advantage against most SGs. I would agree that his handles are not good enough to be a starting point guard right now, but I'm sure they'll get better, just a question of how much and if it's enough. They should certainly be good enough to play shooting guard though. Shooting guard is the path of least resistance for him to start next season since it's by far our weakest position due to Jalen's disappointing play. And, there is actually a model for guys like Amen at SG: Dwyane Wade, Jimmy Butler (who mainly played SG the first half of his career), DeMar DeRozan. Maybe moreso than at point guard, where most player comps who couldn't shoot the three ball retired before the pace-and-space era.
With Sengun possibly out for an extended period of time, I want to see how Amen can play-make for his teammates. Coming into the draft and seeing him in one summer league game, I was hyped by his passing abilities. However, I have not seen much of that in the regular season minutes, most likely due to the ball going through Sengun.
Cmon you and everyone else here knows Simmons is not a 7 footer. Let's not make up fairy tales to try and win an argument
More than just a favorite; Simmons won the ROY award. In my mind, the biggest gap between Amen and Simmons is that one of them seems to love the game, while the other appears to use every possible excuse to stay off the court.
Taking the homer glasses off Simmons was more talented than Amen as a pure point guard. Simmons handling, vision and passing are quite a bit above Amen. On defense Amen is a lot more active and is probably already better in a lot of ways. Amens a bit stiff with the ball in his hands, he's not really a fluid ball handler
If we're being real here...Simmons was way better at just about everything. I don't care how many minutes or what responsibilities you give Amen, he's not averaging 8 assists his rookie year. I think people forget how good Ben Simmons actually was. Obviously he petered out in embarrassing fashion but Ben Simmons was a legit all star. I think Amen will definitely have the better career, but Ben Simmons was really really good in his first 3 years.
Right. Simmons was so good, you could see a team building around him even though he had no outside shot. When he became reticent to shoot at all, it became more problematic. When he began getting all these esoteric injuries that allowed him to dodge the pressure altogether, he became pretty much useless.
As rookies, they were the roughly the same age, but Simmons had been drafted and held out for the full year before due to a foot injury. Exact same as Chet. He was able to travel and train as an NBA player for a year before playing. Rookie Simmons was much more polished skill-wise than Amen — better handle, more assertiveness, more sense of what to do with the ball in his hands. Some of that comes from being a redshirt rookie, but also some of it would just be true anyway. Simmons was an incredibly skilled offensive young player other than shooting. Defensively Amen as a rookie is better on a per minute basis than Ben Simmons ever was. We’ll see if Amen is the same at 30+ minutes per night. The league is also different now than 6 years ago. It’s a higher bar to survive as a Ben Simmons type non shooter; in part because of the way teams learned from defending Ben Simmons. Any comparisons have to consider that.
Thought 211 was 7 ft tall but just checked it's only 6'11 therefore his handles are not impressive at all you happy now?
Depends on who's wearing shoes or not since Simmons was measured at 6'10" in shoes at the combine. Amen was measured at 6'5.75" without shoes, so he's probably about 6'7" in shoes. FYI : Amen just turned 21.
Prime Ben Simmons is underrated because of how his career went after the Hawks series. He had similar strengths to Amen but with better ballhandling, he could really be used as a lead guard while being capable of defending 1-5. I'd be very happy if Amen reached that level. And considering he's already taken more threes than Simmons has, I don't think he's embarrassed about trying to improve his jumper. Who knows what his ultimate ceiling could be? But there's no question that he's got "it". The kid just knows how to play basketball.
That's my point, Simmons was so good he was the overwhelming favorite to win Roy and did win ROY. I'm just curious how far away Amen is from the "good" Ben Simmons because if he is pretty close he should be made a focal point of this team. Amen has his head on straight and loves Bbal so he will prob have a better career than Simmons but looking at it from a talent/building block perspective if we see the same ceiling for Amen as Simmons then he shouldn't be limited to the occasional backup mins.
