I still withhold all final judgements until i can see if there is ANY room for an even slightly below average jumper. I still think folks are underestimating this flaw. Its now at "well, yeah, he can't shoot, but he knows it, we know it, they know it and are finding ways around it". INDEED, he's SO GOOD at virtually every other aspect of the game (yes, handle needs a bit more work) that you want him out there as much as possible RIGHT NOW. But this is a team that is trying to get to .500 for the first time in 4 years, not win a ring yet. What happens in a playoff series? I've seen Aaron Gordon comps. I've seen Draymond comps. Those dudes arent great 3 point shooters, but they CAN shoot. AG has shot like 39% or better from 3 in 3 out of his 4 playoff years. Draymond infamously has had some solid 3pt% seasons and playoffs. Heck, he shot 41% on 4 3pta/game one playoff year they won the chip. That should tell you something - sure, they were a dynastic team. But that's kinda the level of team you need to be yourself OR beat, unless you get lucky in one of the random years. A GSW team that had Steph, KD, Klay and Iggy... then ALSO had their worst 3pt shooter hitting 41% for the pivotal stretch on decent volume. If the shot NEVER comes around, he's a forward to me.
I pretty firmly believe that you can have one non-shooter playing heavy rotation minutes in today's NBA, but only one. So if you've got a guy in your backcourt who can't shoot it, both your frontcourt guys need to. We already have one player like that (Jabari). In the short term, whether Amen can start depends more on Jalen & Alpi's development as shooters. In the long term of course you hope he becomes a passable shooter, though who knows if that will actually occur. And for the record I definitely consider Draymond a non-shooter. He is willing to take them, but he is not a guy you have to come out and guard, so his shooting has no effect on spacing. Aaron Gordon is borderline
This is my general thought as well... but i also like to point out how absurd it sounds to us old-heads to be like "if your big can't shoot, can't play him!!" all because your guard is one of the worst shooters you've ever seen. Like... guard, YOU learn how to shoot. Also, i think its noteworthy to point out, JG and Bari are still generally meh to bad shooters and at best INCONSISTENT af. Bari is on a solid run at the moment... but he's still just 36% on the year. That's fine. Not bad, does help create spacing for sure. But it's only just "ok" these days and seems better than it is cause he was 30% last year and a potential risk for being a "bust" as a shooter. Am I being extra critical? Yes. For a reason? Absolutely! Again, I'm talking about deep playoff runs. Playing other teams that have GREAT shooters at multiple positions and passable ones at most of the others. He has time to get better and more consistently good though... Jalen? Lol. I'm super happy he's turned it around of late, but you'd have to be insane to bet on his shooting at this point. As for the Draymond spacing... i agree, but its worth noting, if he's not enough of a threat to create spacing, he's historically been enough of a threat to hit the 3 cause he's wide open just enough to make it difficult on the defense to decide what to do.
Yeah, I am still a Jalen pessimist. His shooting has been bad on the season and he's never shown a pattern of improvement year over year. At best he's cracked the door back open with his hot play recently--but at some point in his career he needs to actually become a better shooter or I just don't think he can stay on the court. I hope that starts now, but not holding my breath. Jabari, I do think is already at least a guy you have to step out and guard. He's not where we hoped he'd be, but he is above league average for a power forward in both three point percentage and number of three point shot attempts. He's already a floor-spacer and I feel pretty confident he will become at least a 38% three point shooter in his prime.
Why worry? We have another year to see if Jalen is for real. Looks like Amen can at least be a forward.
I don't think Ben Simmons is a good comparison other than that they both have good vision, good defensive instinct, and can't shoot. Simmons is bigger and had more higher level experience before turning pro and therefore was a good playmaker from the beginning. Amen is very raw coming into the league. Amen is much better than Simmons in his mentality, which makes a world of difference. Amen is very motivated to learn while Simmons doesn't seem to care much. Unlike Simmons, he is not afraid of being fouled (having to shoot FT) going to the basket aggressively. Amen is also faster and more athletic. Simmons peaked at the beginning and went downhill since. Amen's progression is very obvious through the season.
Amen doesn't really have a comp. The speed, quickness, court awareness and decision making of a lead guard, the build and athleticism of a top flight wing, and a super high motor and tenacity that connects all his gifts and makes him this impactful already. If he gets his mid range and 3's even to below average, he will be a perennial All Star and a terror on the floor. I can't seem to think of any player that at 21 showed that he can impact the game positively at 1 through 4, both offensively and defensively. And in the end, he's so versatile that it doesn't really matter which position he plays, he will play winning ball.
I don't even really see the court vision, I mean...I don't want to be too negative here but he's been averaging like 2 assists per game since he's been a starter? And 2 assists per game on the whole season. Even if you wanna look at per 36 it's only 4 assists. He seems closer to a KJ Martin type for us than Ben Simmons, at least the way we have him playing. I know he shares the court with FVV quite a bit, but still, 2 assists is really underwhelming. He's excelling everywhere else and playing great, but so far this year I'm not really seeing him as a point guard.
Interesting. The eye test seems to show that he's a better passer than the assists number. It might have something to do with how he has been used. I went back to check. He had 5 or more assists in 6 games he played in. They all happened within 1.5 months (between Jan 1 and Feb 12). I can't verify this. But my hunch is that there was a point of time when he was told to do more off ball cutting rather than handling the ball from the perimeter. It cuts down his turnovers and increases his scoring.
Yeah its mostly role and the lack of shot and consistent dribble makes it hard for him to break the defense down in the half court and distribute. He has absolutely shown off high level vision and passing ability given the opportunities
Amen has demonstrated very good floor vision, particularly when playing the point. The problem is FVV and Aaron Holiday usually run point when they are in the game. Particularly recently as a starter, Udoka has Amen playing way off the ball, often standing in the corner or running the baseline. That will continue the rest of the season as the focus now is pushing for the #10 seed.
He might have good court vision but his handles are not good. In the league you need to keep your dribbles to make plays/passes
This has been discussed ad nauseam about Amen, just like his jumper. He's already made noticeable improvement in his handles during the season. These should be his two main off-season development projects.
It is a serious flaw and the reason he didn’t go #2 in the draft. There are no guarantees- but a lot of the other concerns have been erased based on his play. It is possible he doesn’t improve as a shooter, but it is far more likely that he does - and then the question is how much he improves. He really doesn’t even need to shoot 3’s well - he can do well shooting 12-18 footers. If he doesn’t improve as a shooter, then he will be a very high level role player and that is fine too. He is already an elite defender - like top 10 in the league. He is a solid rebounder and passer and an excellent finisher.
When he's finishing at the rim with a field goal percentage in the Rudy Gobert / Nic Claxton range since becoming a starter, it's hard to argue with the result. It is a kind of a weird thing -- he's thriving in a role that doesn't even utilize what was a top 3 attribute coming into the league. Watching his movement on both offense and defense is fun -- his feel for the game is special.
Amen's #1 but we have the top 2 chasers in the league? Off-ball movement guys want it to be tomorrow when its gameday vs Rockets. Also, I think we know who Amen is defensively in his rookie Season. The below shows as clean a comp to Matisse Thybulle & Alex Caruso as you can conceive. Great platform to ascend to perennial DPOY consideration in his early 20's.
He doesn't have the ball in his hands very much--his touches per game are at 37 and his average seconds per touch are at 3.7. For comparison, FVV touches the ball 80 times per game (the league leader is Jokic at 100) and has the ball 4.9 seconds per touch. That means Fred has the ball in his hands 392 seconds per game to Amen's 137. That's about 2.9 times as much ballhandling time to find assists with. Now, I'm not going to straight-up say "Amen would be averaging 6.4 assists if he had the ball as often as FVV", because it's not that simple. Even still, his usage has not been conducive to him having high assist numbers.
The Simmons comparison is there to show even if Amen doesn't develop a shot he can still be a 3x all star. Obviously with his mentality Amen is gonna leave Simmons in the dust in a couple of years.
THAT is not a coincidence - this is what I mean when I say you have to surround Alpi with very specific types of players that allow him to play more drop coverages. If you don't have a bunch of good chasers on your team, then Alpi is going to have to play at the point of attack more and he is a far less effective players defensively playing out there....or you just concede a bunch of open 3pts and guys like Dame go for 50 on you. I don't know what the data says but the eye test is Jalen is particularly bad at this(although MUCH better than last year)...but this is one of the reasons why its difficult keeping the two of them on the court at the same time because smart teams will find ways to expose Jalen AND Sengun's weaknesses at the same time with a simple pick and roll - especially in a playoff series. Thought experiment - remember how bad Alpi looked on defense when FVV was injured earlier in the year? This is why.
