Amen Thompson is the Rockets' REAL franchise player

I just think a lot of what people see in him is genuine homerism if I'm being honest. Outside of the athleticism he genuinely does not have any real offensive ability to speak of. His passes are just the basic "drive and kick" every semi-athletic kid is taught at a young age, is he better than Jalen at it? Absolutely, but that's a pretty low bar to clear. Now, I don't remotely think Amen's a bust at all, because his defense is more than enough to justify starter playing time, I just think anybody projecting either him or Ausar becoming more than a 3rd/4th option on offense needs to take off the rose tinted goggles and realise that at his current rate of "development" he'd need years to even catch up to Jalen on offense, and Jalen IS a bust. Think about that. We're banking on somebody learning to shoot who would have to practise super hard for years to catch up to the guy who is a bust because of his level of offensive prowess/consistency? Seems short sighted.

 

Amen's FT is the one thing I am holding on to my hope that he will improve his shooting. Other than that, he's still the same player skill-wise like last season with more on ball responsibilities.

 

Yes, he really ****ing is. LeBron is genuinely one of the best passers in NBA history, go look at the tape, seriously if you don't know that you've barely paid attention the last 20 years. LeBron really does make passes at that rarefied level, your opinion is the outlier/anomaly, the consensus is he's one of the greats I'm afraid.

 

If LeBron is one of the greatest passers of all time for any position, not just for a forward, why has he only had a double digit assist season one time despite a career usage rate of 31.3 percent? Why does his AST:TO ratio barely clear 2:1?

 

I just don't think Amen has the shooting or scoring ability to average over 20-21 points a game. And that limits him as a superstar, even with his great defense. (And a team with KD and Sengun will limit how much offense Amen can have, too).

The NBA values offense much more than defense. Doncic doesn't defend. Does Brunson? Harden? You can be a superstar as a one-way great offensive player but not as a one-way great defensive player. Kawhi became great because he could score and shoot.

That's not to say that Amen isn't a great player and especially super valuable on this team. He is. But it's hard when your best or second best player isn't great at offense. Like someone else said above, Amen is a great cutter etc but I don't know how good is he is at creating his own shot.

 

I wouldn't call either Amen or Jalen a bust. Jalen may be by the pre-draft expectations. But I think he'll still have a decent NBA career. My definition of a bust is a lottery pick who can't crack any team's rotation.

I think you are too harsh on Amen. A guy who does not have any offensive ability wouldn't score 17 points a game on decent efficiency. There's a difference between ability and skill. He might not be very skilled. But his speed and body control are his abilities he uses to score, just like Shaq used his physical strength to score. And like I said, his passing ability might not be LeBron-like, but he is pretty good at finding his teammates at the last second of a play, again using his processing speed and body control.

As for his shooting, I am not optimistic. But I haven't given up hope yet. He is still very young and development trajectory is not always linear. His FT shooting is a surprising improvement.

 

How decent is that efficiency really when you take into account the shot profile? I've even seen pundits criticise it tbh, when 90% of your shots come at the rim your efficiency's supposed to look like a dunker spot big man, his would be average by those standards. Like I say, I think there's a LOT of homer glasses going on with Amen on the offensive end. No question at all he's an incredible top tier defender, I just think he's a defensive specialist starter who may be a 3rd option on offense as his absolute peak. He's shown very little to suggest otherwise (in fact 17ppg sounds about right for a 3rd option.)

 

Because he's also not a PG and has insane usage because he's one of the top 2 players of all time maybe? He's the #1 option, he's not supposed to spend all of his time setting people up, that's like saying Harden's a bad PG because of how many turnovers he's had, the "point" you think you made proves nothing. Go and actually WATCH THE TAPE. I can't take you "metrics only, don't watch basketball" guys seriously at all at this point. Why even bother pretending to be a fan if you're just counting stat sheets without ever watching anybody play?

 

Of course I've watched LeBron play, I've been watching ball, barring some lulls, his entire career. He's a very good passer, but guys like Jokic are far better than he is. Sometimes the stats match the eye test.

 

Amen is averaging over 18 points a game this year after a very slow start. In March, he averaged over 20. His made field goals is around 55% assisted. He is averaging a like number of assists as FVV last year with only slightly more turnovers. His inability to create his own offense and offense for others is being quite exaggerated. Averaging over 20 points on a team with Kevin Durant and Alpi eating up most possessions is quite a feat. Amen with a mid-level shot, becomes a 21-22 average scorer. Amen with a 3 pt shot becomes MVP level.

 

"Guys like Jokic" so literally the best passing big man in history? Yeah obviously, that's what Joker does! Are you on drugs or something? LeBron averages more shots than Kobe for his career, most of his turnovers don't come from passing. If you want to make bullshit statements that go against worldwide consensus you're gonna have to come with something stronger than "but muh turnovers, and Jokic is better." It's asinine. As you can't be bothered to do your own research type "Is LeBron considered a good passer" into any AI and let it do the work for you in aggregating the opinions. I 100% guarantee you it'll come back with something like "he's not just considered a good passer, but one of the greatest in NBA history."

 

Look, sometimes reputation doesn't match reality 1:1. Regardless, this is a pointless argument. I agree LeBron is really good at playmaking/passing and has been consistently for two plus decades. It's not worth arguing over the difference between "historically elite" and "very, very good".

In any case, the salient thing for this thread topic is that I think Amen is a very good passer. Not anywhere near an elite one, but in a similar context to LeBron's (if you consider Amen to be more of a forward than a guard, which is debatable), he's one of the best in the league today. He current ranks #6 in the NBA assists per game if you compare him to forwards.

 

and lets compare apples to apples

why compare 3rd year Amen's passing ability to Lebrons 20 year passing ability

was Lebron already an all time great passer on his 3rd year?

can we see a similar (for sure less) trajectory. well for me based in Amen's rising volume of assists and improving ATO proves he can be a very good passer. not like Lebron but closer to Lebron than Jalen Green.

 

Lebron was a better passer and ball handler in high school than Amen is now.

I get wanting the best for Amen but you invite criticism when things get this delusional.

 

Exactly as I said, complete and utter homerism/delusion. You genuinely just wrote that 1.LeBron isn't one of the greatest passers in NBA history (he is, objectively, subjectively any way you look at it) and 2.Amen is one of the best in the league currently (he isn't, not even remotely close.) Just because you repeat nonsense doesn't make it true I'm afraid, it just makes you look even more crazy/biased than you did in the first place. It's actually crazy.

 

I'm noting this, because I almost never see this eye to eye with Bobby, but he's dead on. Y'all come across so delusional with these takes you lose all credibility.

 

No KD would increase his number of shots. But I think KD is here for another 2 years minimum. I don't have any confidence in Amen's 3 point shot. He could work really hard and get to 30-32% from 3 perhaps.I haven't looked much as his mid range. It seems like he gets a lot of possessions from passes and not creating his own shot but I'd like to see the numbers on that.