Amen Thompson's rim pressure is just as inevitable as it is singular. Why is that so important?
The NBA Draft is a never ending puzzle. There are countless philosophies and strategies that teams and scouts alike may die on to evaluate prospects, but there are simply too many variables and potential extenuating factors from player-to-player to be sure on one until their career has already played out. This makes the draft the ultimate guessing game, no matter how many hours are spent on scouting and gaining insight through watching film, interviews, workouts, etc.
In the allure among all the unknown, the overarching goal of drafting – specifically at the top of the lottery – is to find the single most talented player available with the easiest pathways to stardom and beyond. Behind Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson, I believe Amen Thompson is that player at pick 3.
In an NBA where advantage creation and capitalization reigns supreme, Amen brings both at the highest of levels – engined by his generational athleticism. A term that’s often overused, this is one of the rare cases where the label truly applies to Thompson’s athletic genius. His combination of burst, speed, acceleration, change of speed, proprioception, vertical athleticism, and body control at 6’7 make up a spectacular athletic profile. The genius lies in his ability to capitalize on this profile, which brings together the single best top-rated prospect athlete since Lebron James in 2003. This is the makeup of a generational trait.
Using this athleticism with some unprecedented creativity and movement patterns, Amen consistently gets past his man and breaks down the first layer of the defense to pressure the rim. He never moves in straight paths, hopping around and moving like a literal hoverboard on a basketball court to get to his spots. His sudden stop-and-go movements almost don’t seem real, and he’s very quickly becoming a master at blending speed and shift. With this comes drives that will seamlessly translate to the NBA.
A master of finding positive finishing angles regardless of situation, Amen combines his vertical jump and mid-air body control to engineer some crazy acrobatic finishes.
Although it’s always a good exercise to question a prospect of his caliber’s touch (50.0% on layups in the halfcourt, 61.5% on all layups), I don’t find myself worried about it. Amen was constantly experimenting with different types of finishes in OTE, sometimes to a fault as he’d occasionally turn routine layups into misses. Some may see this potentially as a negative, but I think this kind of experimentation in the uncomfortable and unnatural is good for his development while he’s young and can afford it. It also means improvement in finishing numbers is rather low-hanging fruit for an athletic anomaly like him.
That’s backed by his end-of-season improvements. Thompson shot 51.1% (23/45) on HC rim attempts his first 15 games, a number that jumped to 73.1% (19/26) his last 10 games. I’m aware it still wasn’t against the best competition – he was playing the same HS-aged teams again and again – but with NBA spacing and the attention of an organization, I’m confident in Amen’s progression towards the league’s very best finishers at the next level.
This rim pressure he applies creates advantages and passing windows for him at volume. And at 6’7 who intuitively problem solves like a 6’3 point guard, he’s well-equipped to capitalize on them.
Processing plays at an instant with tremendous spatial awareness and court mapping, Amen’s knowledge of where all 4 teammates are on the court at any given moment leads to some spectacular passes. He not only capitalizes on passing windows with his size and athleticism, but creates openings via manipulation using those tools. Visual (eye) and body (pass fakes, gather points/leaping) manipulation combined, he fabricates entirely new windows and comfortably passes out of them.
Few in this draft class possess passing acumen the level of Amen Thompson and none possess the athleticism to leverage it like him. This makes him arguably the best playmaker in the draft, and the list of players who were both the best overall athlete and playmaker coming out of their class is short – Lebron James in 2003, Derrick Rose in 2008, John Wall in 2010, and Ben Simmons in 2016. All four of those players have been all-stars, and three of them have engined top ranked offenses at some point in their careers. Amen is obviously a very different player from this group, but the track record of feel-athleticism intersection at the level of his is elite.
Traditional drive-and-kick offense isn’t Amen’s only form of rim pressure either – he has upside in the post and as a screen and roller – which is what makes him unique and gives him multiple pathways to success.
Out of the post, he’s flashed promising footwork and poise while keeping his head up to find open teammates. At 6’7/214 lbs with a 7’0 wingspan, he has positional size and a frame to fill out over the next couple years to take advantage of mismatches. As he does, he’ll start to garner more attention each post touch, where he can be used as a post hub playmaker for sets and release valve when the offense stalls.
Developing into one of the better post-up guards/wings could be key for one of his pathways to stardom; Luka Doncic, Demar DeRozan, Jayson Tatum, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Paul George, Jalen Brunson, and Jrue Holiday are all atop the league’s best stars and rank top 50 in total post-up points this season.
Although it’d be harder for Amen to ever reach that level of post productivity without a reliable midrange jumper, I still think part-time post hub is a possible developmental path given his unique movement patterns, athleticism, passing, and feel.
And if the on-ball creation never comes to fruition, there are other ways to creatively utilize Thompson as a hyperathletic 6’7 connector. One of these ways is as a screener, where he can slip/roll to get ahead of steam downhill without the need for self-creation. When he gets the ball on the short roll, there’s essentially no stopping his straight-line drives without sending additional help which only opens passing windows and puts the defense into more rotations.
However you dice it, there is a certain inevitability with his rim pressure that’ll be sure to send opposing defenses into rotation. The ability to do so and pick them apart is invaluable in basketball, and so is Amen Thompson. As long as a team is willing to prioritize his development and think creatively, there are endless possibilities to how he can add value in the league. From connector to jumbo creator, he has so many different pathways to offensive success even barring any shot development. And all this is without yet mentioning his excellence in transition or impact as a defensive playmaker.
Going back to the rare combination of feel/passing and athleticism, he converted 53 dunks and had a 33.9% AST in his sophomore season with OTE — the style of play and competition obviously differs from college — but no one in Barttorvik’s database (that goes back to 2008) matches a 50 dunks-30% AST query. And if you think he was simply productive against lower competition, OTE did a great job getting their top prospects involved in 7 professional/International games last offseason against Liga, NBL, and TBT competition. There, Amen averaged 16.1 points, 3.7 assists, 2.1 steals, and 0.9 blocks on 55.4/20.0/74.4 splits with a 62.0% TS. For reference, he averaged 16.6 points, 6.8 assists, 2.2 steals, and 0.8 blocks on 53.6/26.7/69.6 with a 60.3% TS last season with the City Reapers.
Amen Thompson is singular. Trying to box him within the confines of “production against low competition” or finding comparisons of similar non-shooting lead guards and their successes makes redundant how unique he is. He’s truly one-of-one in terms of playstyle, pathways to success, end outcomes, and everything in between.
In a world where any given draft between 2010-2016 has an average of 9 starters produced in the top 45 picks and less than 4 all-stars picked in the lottery, Amen Thompson is a unique prospect any team should be salivating to get their hands on after Wembanyama. The multitude of paths to success he possesses along with the sheer singularity that is his game is something every team should be willing to swing on, because if you swing right, you might end up with a transcendent superstar that can single-handedly change the direction of a declining franchise and lead it to the promised land. And that’s what drafting is all about — especially at the top.