Reset the timeline around Amen, Reed and Bari

Just seeing that Jalen is balling out tonight for the Suns. If the only one of our core rebuilding young uns to take a big leap is Jalen freaking Green the year after we trade him, I'm going to be down so bad. (*disclaimer I wanted to trade Jalen and I don't really think he's going to become "The Guy")

BUT....... It's starting to look like we went through all of those painful seasons and didn't come out of it with "The Guy". All the players who may have had that ceiling seem to have just stalled out or even regressed (Sengun has turned back into a pumpkin on defense, not sure why he's fallen off a cliff there after being solid last year).

Honestly, it's luck. We didn't draft badly per se, just drafted too late to get a Cade, a Wemby, or a Flagg. Lottery Gods just decided we needed to get smote.

 

The 2027 BKN pick is going to be a pretty juicy asset in the offseason and going to cause the Rockets to pick a path:

We can package the pick(s) + Amen or Sengun for Giannis or whatever star/superstar that might become available after the playoffs.

We can chalk the season up to a lot of bad luck and stick to the 2 year short term window of Durant's contract. We can resign Amen to a reasonable extension (also movable), keep Sengun, and hope the 2027 BKN pick can be top 4. Amen and Sengun can still be movable if we need to pivot.

 

How often is he actually carrying the offense or creating shots?

59% of his shots at the rim are assisted meaning he needs someone else to generate that shot for him, usually Sengun or KD.
Yep, he makes some great cuts but it's the passes by Alpi and KD that make those shots happen.

If he's not heading straight to the rim, he's really got nothing, no floater, no jumper, no step back. He lacks an offensive tool chest.


Why does he get lost so often by the defense? Because teams just don't defend him off ball at all. He's camped at the 3 point line and his defender is 20 feet away, one foot in the paint.

I know we all look at the box score and think, damn he had a great game .... but many just don't see the damage done by teams literally ignoring him in the half court. This is a big part of why Sengun and KD are doubled so much - often before they receive the ball.
You can't even ask him to run a pick and roll because both defenders will fall back into the paint and leave him standing at the top of the key.


I don't know why so many are married to either of these players. Alpi isn't going to turn into Jokic and Amen is miles away from SGA / Ant

I know, the solution is to get a stretch big and let Amen at 6'7" play in the paint with 7 footers ....

Amen is the last guy you want taking a shot outside of 3 feet .... and the only guy the defense wants to take that same shot. .360 outside of that 3 foot range. That's an easy win for the defense.

 

Amen I agree with. I need to see Reed as a full-time starter before I'm comfortable with him, but Jabari? There are no perfect stats, but my favorite publicly available is Advanced BPM. Bari is negative and it's not improving.

 

Context matters, you can't just say "59%" without giving a sense of what the norm is. Only 49% of all Amen's two-pointers (at and away from the rim) are assisted this season. Here are some numbers from some other guys during their 3rd seasons in the league:

Jimmy Butler: 59%
Kawhi Leonard: 52%
Jaylen Brown: 57%
Blake Griffin: 64%

In fact, Amen is generating points off of unassisted two-pointers almost as often as KD (46%) is this season!

I'm not going to even bother with the rest of your post, sorry. It's all subjective perceptions and they don't match mine, so I don't know what else to say. If you watch this guy play and think he's just KJ Martin, we're basically living in a different reality. He creates a lot of the offense for this team with his skills. And yes, that includes cutting. He is elite at cutting to the basket, which is a legitimate skill that you're just conveniently ignoring. There's a lot of court vision, timing, and raw talent involved in doing it well.

 

I wanna see Jalen do this against the Spurs or OKC in the first round...

Otherwise its the same Jalen, when he's hot he looks like Kobe Bryant, when he's not he looks like JR Smith.

He seems to always do enough to keep people interested but as he's going to be 25-26-27 eventually this is what he will be, a streaky scorer.

 

Resetting the Rockets’ timeline around Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr or Reed Sheppard is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard. None of the three are franchise players.

If Amen Thompson doesn’t come back with a reliable mid-range shot next season (year four for him), it’s time to seriously consider trading him in a deal for a superstar before you pay him the massive extension he will want. Right now, he’s a 6’7 Ben Simmons with better work ethic. That’s definitely a good player, but he’s not going to become a superstar-caliber player unless he learns how to shoot.

Jabari Smith Jr. is a nice 3 & D role player, but that’s not someone to build around. Reed Sheppard has flashed this year, but he has a long way to go before being considered a franchise cornerstone.

The Rockets are the third or fourth best team in the NBA playing in a conference with the other two or three best teams. They are doing this without having their starting point guard all season. You don’t blow this roster up but consider moving Sengun or Thompson to alleviate the spacing and shooting problem depending on how the playoffs go.

If the Rockets were in the Eastern Conference, they would be favored to make the NBA Finals.

 

Corrosion rags on Amen all the time. Nothing to see here. Yes, he needs a 3 pointer to approach his ceiling, but he is our second best player and getting more aggressive every game. Last 5 games 23,23,26,18,22 pts on incredible efficiency. Even hit 50% of this 3’s on very low attempts 3-6. Eventually this team will be built around Amen. Amen is also generating the same number of assists as our so-called pg last year at less than half of the usage and getting to the line more and more. All that while still playing elite defense and taking up the slack on the offensive boards since Adams went down. He has started for just about a full season now.

 

Amen can shoot the midrange.

 

He is not consistently making mid-range jump shots this season. He’s 48/133 (36%) between 10 and 19 feet this season.

https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1641708/shooting

It’s why the Spurs can deploy Wembanyama as a free safety and allow to him roam when playing the Rockets.

 

Yeah, we aren't going to agree on this one .... at least not yet. He'll have to change one of our minds and that's ok. We don't have to agree on everything .... and I won't call you a casual just because we disagree.

I do agree that he does a lot of things very well.... but the shooting in today's NBA matters, pretty much more than anything else.


I do have 2 questions:

1) what do you think the odds are he ever shoots 30% or better from 3?

2) do you think him shooting 30% actually changes how defenses play him in the half court?

 

We can start the reset by trading Sengun for Alex Sarr and Bilal Coulibaly! And hope that the 2027 Nets Pick lands at 1!

 

Reed Sheppard has the same stat lines in his 2nd year and he does not play that many minutes.

 

Rockets quickest fix, and perhaps most possible, is re-attaining Brooks.

I'm good with trading KD and/or Sengun if Rockets lose before Game 6, 2nd round. Sengun better ball.

 

Crazy how a couple years ago I said try to trade Sengun for the #1 for Alex Sarr and was treated like I was a idiot

 

I agree that we have no clear franchise player, but I think that if we get development from Amen, Reed, Jabari, and Sengun in the next two years, and make the right trade, we could be one of the rare teams that contends without a true franchise player.

And about the '27 Nets pick, you only trade it if it makes you a true title contender. Honesty, it's better for our future to just keep it.

 

don’t worry, ppl also told me Sengun is a better player than Giannis.

 

I actually think the odds are good he shoots 30% or better from three fairly soon (within the next couple seasons). I think his 3P shooting being this bad this season reads as kind of fluky given the improved FT shooting and given that he actually shot it better last season. Progress isn't always linear, sometimes with young players you'll see it bounce up and down before settling into a more stable pattern. Hell, we just saw an example last night of a guy who basically didn't shoot the three ball at all his first 7 seasons having become such a legitimate three point threat that he dropped 83 points while making 7 threes. Improvement happens, it's not as freak of an occurrence as you might think.

As far as where Amen's shooting will ultimately land, I don't know, I just think he will improve substantially. And I do think just having a decent midrange jumper would help a lot in halfcourt situations because he's so good at creating space and elevating over defenders. That in and of itself would change how teams defend against him.

I will say that I'm open to the idea that he's not ultimately a backcourt player, and could perhaps even function best as a power forward. I liked the idea of him being a point guard due to the mismatch potential and the ability to field an additional bigger defensive player, but it's true that it's easier to hide a below-average shooter at the 4, and most bigger players struggle to stay in front of Amen, so he has a mismatch advantage there too.

 

This is a very reasonable take. I think Amen’s path to superstardom is with the ball in his hands be it point guard or point forward like Giannis, but if he can’t develop a shot he can still be a star from the forward position, just not among the elite. His mid shot form is already very good and the percentages are getting better. Next year he needs to extend it out to 20 feet. His 3 pt form was better at the start of the year and then he lost confidence and his little hitch starting from his waist re-appeared. Getting a decent 3 point set shot is important, but I do think it will take several years.

Amen’s lack of a shot does affect our offense negatively, but it is not the overriding issue with this year’s iteration of iso ball. We have the solution in-house already. Amen should be initiating most times down the court, Reed should be starting and Ime should implement an offense that has Reed moving off the ball, with a heavy dose of backscreens. Sengun needs to become more content with a low post offense if the initial forays by Amen in to the lane don’t materialize.

Durant is definitely a conundrum, because he will not be content to be a spot up player and closer. I don’t foresee any of this taking place this year or next. We, as fans, are between a rock and a hard place. If the Rockets somehow get out of the first round, the Rockets will surely run it back and revert back to the slow down offense with FVV at the point and Reed back on the bench. If they stink, especially Sengun, the rest of the year, Tito will make Stone blow it up for fool’s gold in Giannis.

I used to be the consummate optimist. Ime has done what I thought was impossible and made me an old curmudgeon.