Ben Simmons kinda sucked in the playoffs. He played great defense but was basically an empty stat all star. Just think about it logically your opponent has 3 non shooters on the court you have the center, PF and PG being paint exclusive guys. So what do you do? Oh yeah you go box and 1 and counter their entire offensive game plan. So what if Simmons is an athlete? Can he drive in the paint when like 7 guys already in there? So what if he is an amazing passer? Opponents ignore him and dare him to shoot. Why you think Embiid Simmons never got past 2nd round? Reality is we have seen lots of big guards who cant shoot in the NBA. They arent all world athletes like Twins, but majority are still athletic. For example Lonzo Ball, Suggs, Giddey, Dalen Terry, Dyson Daniels, MKG, Justise Winslow etc From what I've seen their worth has been predicated on their shooting. Like Giddey is seen as a budding young prospect but oart of that is his improving 3 pt shot. If his shot stayed in the 20s people wouldnt be hyped for him despite his playmaking and defense. Thats why if you ask me between the 2 I go Ausar, cuz Ausar has a history of improving his shot he went from F to C- thats a lot better than Amen who went from F to F.
We actually have a pretty good situation to go with a non-shooting point guard, assuming Green develops into a better shooter, since Jabari will probably be able to light it up from 3 at a level rarely seen from a big man, and Sengun might be able to shoot it a little bit too in the future. We would either need KJ/Tari to develop into a better shooter, or find a 3-and-D wing to take starting minutes at the position. Then I think you can get away with a non-shooting point guard archetype just fine. Especially an oversized ultra-athletic guy like Amen who is a major threat as a cutter from the perimeter.
Sengun is amazing at hitting cutters with creative passes. We would see some crazy sh** with him passing to a cutting Amen
While Simmons has a lot of great tools and skills, he's mentally complacent and shows zero desire to improve his weaknesses. There were signs of this behavior at LSU and he still went #1. The Twins are quite the opposite. Does that guarantee tangible improvement? No. But its the most important step. I'm not gonna be dismissive and say shooting is not important, but you can gameplan around it. And I can totally see Ausar becoming the better player, but I'm gonna push back on Amen not showing any improvement. Statistically his percentages stayed about the same, but compare his mechanics now vs last year and you'll see its trending in the right direction. He's no longer passing up wide open looks all the time, and he's actually drawing contests from defenders.
High school 3 point line is 19' 9" WNBA, NCAA and FIBA 3-point line are 22' 1.75" NBA 3-point line is 23' 9"
lol, yeah. But to be fair, they both did show improvement at the end of the season. Amen shot 30% in the playoffs, still bad, but a noticeable improvement over his regular season stats. Ausar shot 38.5%. I think the jury is still out on Amen ever being a decent shooter, but Ausar I feel pretty confident will figure it out based on the improvements he showed.
I don't necessarily consider going from regular season to playoff stats necessarily being an improvement or decline, but maybe they'll improve. If you look at both of their stats, they have similar issues to Jalen Green where they completely fall apart from the 3 point line, except they're probably even worse. And by that I mean, you'll see 0-5, 0-6, 0-? numbers for them. Then they may get a 1-1, 2-3, etc. For example, even for Ausar, in the playoffs he started the playoffs 0-5, then 5-10, but then went back to 3-10, etc. They're just wildly inconsistent, and to me, that just means they're not that great from 3. What was also weird about Ausar was that, for a guy who couldn't hit 3's in the regular season, he was jacking them in their playoffs. He was shooting twice as many as in the regular season from what I recall. No idea what happened there. I still think it's both of their kryptonite for now, but maybe they'll get better.
I saw Jason Kidd who couldn't shoot for **** turn into a 40% 3 point shooter for the Mavs. Just gotta put the work in.
Ausar I'm confident has been putting work. Amen not so much. That's why personally I rank Ausar over Amen. I think lots of posters here forget they are 20 already, if Amen still has horrible shot by now I think he will have a hard time learning to shoot.
Got a chance to hear Rafael Stone in a special event for STH. He was asked about this year's upcoming draft class and was VERY high on the Thompson twins. Said that Amen especially would be a #1 pick in several drafts and was more athletic and bigger than Jalen. Gird your loins.
Curious as to why you're so confident that Ausar has been working while Amen hasn't? "But on this January morning, Amen and Ausar are competitors. Each week, all 30 OTE players vie to see who can make the most shots. The contest is tracked and calculated by the Noah Shooting System, which provides real-time feedback on the mechanics of every attempt. Amen is in second place this week with 3,396 makes. Ausar is first with 3,794—and counting. Now, Amen is really burning to shoot. He doesn’t want to be outdone by anyone, especially his brother. Yet after an Ausar miss, Amen snaps back into supportive brother mode: “Let’s go, Ausar! You got this, bro.”
I wasn't sure about people saying how athletic he was because we hear it every year, but if their OTE numbers are legit, they are freaks. Although they both had "mundane" verticals by today's standards. The rest of their numbers were more like "no way". The sad thing is, I doubt they'll do anything at the combine other than show up, so we may never know. Yeah, I'm not sure either one is all that much better than the other, and I've been wondering that for months. They both work their asses off and come off as fairly intelligent with their heads screwed on correctly. I do think Amen is the better overall player, but not by that much. And I don't think Ausar is necessarily a better shooter because I think both of them stink right now. If you look at their numbers from 3, you can see them have ok games and horrific games shooting from 3, and in a 15-game or so season, you'll see percentages like that swing all over the place. I wish I would've watched their games because when they were still in their teens, it was always said Ausar was the defender and Amen was the distributor/scorer in terms of talent. If you just looked at stats and only looked at their OTE stats, you'd think Ausar was the better talent, or at worst, they're basically even. Amen seems to be the slightly better athlete. I'd honestly be ok with either one of them. I'm more intrigued by these 2 and how they turn out than Wemby and Scoot. Well, to an extent.
If we aren't top 2 I can see the value in trading down to get both of them. They can play positionless. This would mean KMJ is bye bye, though.
They could go 3 and 4 or 5. Depending upon where Brandon Miller goes. There is no "trade down" to get both of them, you'd have to take one and trade up for the other.
