Amen Thompson

So first off, credit to OTE, the league has made significant strides in quality from last season.  I had to stop watching Jean Montero film and go back to FIBA, because the OTE was unwatchable.  Just a bunch of fast breaks with literally zero defense.  This year, while there are still a lot of fast breaks and highlights, the games were more competitive.  That said, it’s really hard to contextualize two gifted college aged players going up against a bunch of high schoolers.

Offensively, Amen is very talented except for one glaring hole – his shooting.  Some things are very clear regardless of the competition.  Amen has extremely high functional athleticism.  He is an explosive leaper with a great vertical, strong hangtime, and very high fluidity and body control.  He has sequences where he palms the ball in one hand and can contort his body and arm position to get a good angle for a layup inside.  His body control and footwork also shine when he slithers through the lane and navigates traffic (though this aspect is a bit less impressive against the level of competition).  Similarly, Amen has good handles.  They can be a bit loose at times, but he has clearly worked hard on them and he not only has a full arsenal of moves, but can string them together.  Given Amen’s very quick first step, he seems to favor using a hesitation move (either immediately or as part of a string of moves such as transitioning from a crossover to a hesitation and then bursting to the hoop).  Amen is incredibly fast and once he gets a step on a defender, he can get to the basket in 2-3 long strides making recovery difficult.  This puts tremendous pressure on the defense and there were a number of plays where you could count 3-4 defenders packing the paint trying to stop him.  Amen is good at sensing this pressure and uses his talent as a passer pretty consistently make the right pass (even if he attempted to make it in a much more complicated or flashy way than required).  This also translated to the P&R, where Amen was able to make a number of nice reads, despite neither his big man nor he being good shooters.  Speaking of which, the real elephant in the room is Amen’s shot.  There is no sugar coating it, Amen might have the most broken mechanics I have seen from a top guard prospect in a long time.  It’s reminiscent of watching Ben Simmons or rookie Markelle Fultz shoot (right after he oddly changed his shot).  It’s hard to describe exactly what is wrong as it is inconsistent, but he is stiff and mechanical.  His arms and legs don’t always move in unison.  And he can lean back or shot put his jumper at times.  The opposing team didn’t even bother closing out on him at times and there were a number of air balls and just rough misses.

Defensively, a lot of components you want to see are there.  Amen appears to have good lateral speed.  He looks like he can change direction quickly from east to west and north to south, which helps with counter moves, challenging shots, and quick recoveries.  And he seems to have quick hands and reactions, which should lead to a lot of steals, he can directly turn into offense.  However, there are a couple of big caveats.  The first is of course the competition.  There were times when a player was able to shake Amen with a move and he recovered.  But is recovering on a high schooler really a good indicator he could have recovered on Brandon Miller or even Marcus Sasser?  He also didn’t really try or seem to care too much about defense.  He played upright in his stance and gambled on a lot.  So sure, watch the right highlight and it might look like he jumped a route and had great anticipation, but really, he jumped three routes and finally scored the perfect highlight.  This isn’t to say he isn’t quick or isn’t savvy.  You see it on offense.  He clearly knows the game.  But he may have felt he was toying with high schoolers and just didn’t take defense very seriously, which makes getting a read beyond basic physical abilities more difficult.