Thompson's dazzling dunks mask a critical scoring weakness, leaving him vulnerable to defensive schemes that dare him to shoot.
According to Basketball-Reference, Amen Thompson had the second most dunks in the NBA this season with 201. He finished just behind Evan Mobley, who had 207.
He reached that impressive landmark in entertaining fashion last week against the Timberwolves, as recapped on Roundtable. In his final regular season game of the year, Houston’s rising star threw down countless slams on his way to a career high 41 point night.
While all of the dunks are exciting, I did raise an eyebrow while looking at the other names on that list. I feel confident saying it’s not the greatest company to keep and highlights the improvements we all know need to come.
Much like Mobley, a vast majority of the other players with multiple dunks per game are all non-shooters. Not just that, but they’re all big men.
Former teammates OG Anunoby and Scottie Barnes are the only guys in the top 20 who aren't centers. OG had 126 dunks in 67 games, while Barnes had 114 through 80 outings.
Rounding out the top 25 on the list, the Thompson twin in Detroit and a 41-year old LeBron James are still the only wings or guards. They each have just under 100 dunks, and only two out of those four examples are above average three point shooters.
Beyond just the total number of dunks, 20.9-percent of his shots are dunk attempts. Evan Mobley is only slightly higher, with 25.3-percent of his FGA’s being dunk attempts.
While there are several guys who float around that 50-percent range, those are players who can virtually only dunk. Rudy Gobert and Mitchell Robinson for example.
Going back to OG Anunoby and Scottie Barnes, they only try a slam on 17.3 and 11.2-percent of their shot attempts. This is definitely the direction that Amen Thompson should aim to trend in. Scottie Barnes has become an All-Star, while OG is one of the best role players in the league.
We’ve seen how teams have decided to defend the Rocket’s star guard, as previously covered on Roundtable, and I would expect to see it in the postseason. Just dare him to shoot. Essentially just ignore him on the perimeter and call it a day.
While we’ve also seen Houston be able to combat that, it’s not often enough. Everyone and their grandma knows he has to improve on his outside game in order to help his team, and his career. All of his athleticism and defensive prowess becomes less meaningful if he gets the Ben Simmons treatment.
His improved free throw percentage and attempts per game gives me confidence that we’ll see continued progresses. From 68.4-percent to 77.9-percent, per Basketball-Reference. He just needs to have similar improvements from mid range, and finally beyond the arc.