I've been saying that for a while. It's almost impossible to rebuild around Amen, and it's not even justified. If he was a top 5 player like Giannis, sure. But he's "just" a very good defender and a below par offensive player if you count his shooting (as you should). People are so shortsighted when it comes to the overall picture it's insane.
Sengün was freshly coming from Besiktas, a great young prospect but yeah I can see why teams did not want automatically go for an international prospect.......they just did not want a stash player if he did not initially pop.... Also he could not speak one word English......not even the best scout can tell you his trajectory when you cannot already speak English unlike prospects like Buzelis who attended domestic schools. I think teams were mostly scared of Alperen's size, I think he was listed at 6'8-6'9 without shoes initially.......what was he.....tweener non shooter. OKC was nowhere near the Top of the West when they made that decision, so there were no real repercussions......it was as you said, they went with other options.
Shortsighted like assuming he will never be able to shoot? Despite the FT % improvement, which historically is a fantastic predictor of shooting improvement? I agree, that is insane.
Buzelis was actually born and grew up in the US. But you are right about the language issue. I don't think anyone really assumed he was going to the NBA when he was 15 or 16 so nobody thought of sending him to an international school. He was a decent youth player but his MVP season basically came out of nowhere. Maybe that was also a reason why teams were skeptical of him. He wasn't a player who was on mock drafts for years and years. And then there were the questions about his athleticism and size. Remember that picture of him standing next to Whiteside. Workouts also were bad, he had a bad translator and so on. Looking back it actually makes sense that he was picked so late but in a redraft he is a lock for top 4.
Yes, it is. There's probably just a handful of players who ever became average 3pt shooters after shooting under 20% in their first 3 seasons. Meanwhile, there's hundreds who stayed just as bad as they were. The chances of Amen Thompson becoming a 36-37% 3pt shooter in decent enough volume in the next few years are slim to none. If you think otherwise, I don't know what to tell you. Insanity, remember?
I mean he is a very nice player but to say OKC did right or wrong....at that time OKC was about to tank anyways... it is inconsequential either way.
If it comes down to Alpi or Amen having to give up one of them, you keep Alpi and bring in a coach who actually knows how to use him. I say bring in a a coach who can use both of them together along with Reed. In other words, we have a coaching issue not a player issue.
Enough of this nonsense. Amen, Sengun, Bari, Eason, and Sheppard is a great young core. If the Pistons can win starting Duren and Ausar, we can make Sengun and Amen work.
Trade him for a 3-D center. Reed starts at PG. Now you won't have 2 trash defenders out on the court.
Only thing I'll point out is that Ausar is functionally their 6th man this season. Yes, he starts, but he only plays 26 minutes per game and doesn't share the court with Duren nearly as often as Amen and Sengun have to play together the way we're built right now. I think holding onto both of them this offseason is a perfectly valid choice, and the most likely outcome. We really need one or both of them to get significantly better at shooting the three ball, though, and probably within the next couple of seasons so we don't start wasting our "prime years" window.
I'm not sure I agree with this assessment at all. With respect to Detroit's five man lineups, far and away their most used lineup is Cunningham / Thompson / Duren / Robinson / Harris at 421 minutes. Their second most used? The same as before, just with Beef Stew instead of Harris at 98 minutes (so, three non-shooters instead of two). You are right that Duren and Thompson don't play together as much as Amen and Sengun (21 mpg v. 28), but you also have to factor in that Beef Stew and Holland also play a ton, and they are non-shooters. So, in general, Detroit is playing lineups with 2+ non-shooters a game for more minutes than the Rockets. Not to mention Cade is a pretty poor 3 point shooter as well (.33 on 6 attempts per game). I mean, would it be ideal if at least one of Sengun and Amen develops a semi-reliable 3 point shot? Sure. But I don't think it's make-or-break for either, or for them as a pair.
Yep, the Pistons have decidedly not figured out how to do halfcourt offense with a Thompson twin + another non-spacer. Detroit is in the bottom half of the league in halfcourt offense, Ausar often doesn’t close games for them, and he only played 22 mpg for them in the playoffs last season. They haven’t found a solution to good halfcourt offense with two total non-spacers for the same reason we haven’t - because the solution doesn’t exist, outside of maybe prime Steph Curry.
Let's see what happens to Detroit in the playoffs. Ausar is going to be exposed, that's for sure, just like GSW did to our terrible shooters.
Perhaps. But we’re not Detroit. From a shooting percentage standpoint, we’re almost a top 5 3 point shooting team, whereas Detroit is in the bottom ten. So yeah, their shooting may hurt them, but I think if it does, it’ll be because they are just a bad shooting team in general, not because they start two players who don’t shoot 3s.
I had floated Deni Avdija/Clingan for Sengun/Tari before. Portland then has their version of Amen Thompson paired with Sengun in Scoot Henderson. Paolo brings the same problems as Scoot, Amen, Castle, etc etc. Bunch of players that can't shoot. The most sense is probably Michael Porter Jr or Max Strus/Jarret Allen. But then you run into Evan Mobley/Sengun issues if you're Cleveland. Sengun is just an odd fit for most teams. Next year the starters in stone will be FVV/Jabari/Amen/Durant. Are we trading Sengun for a bench guy? For picks? It's just weird.
