When information broke that Fred VanVleet tore his ACL throughout a summer time exercise, which can seemingly value him your entire 2025-26 season, two names instantly got here to thoughts for Rockets followers. The primary was Reed Sheppard, the 2024 No. 3 general choose who did not do a lot as a rookie however out of the blue finds himself in place to probably play a significant position on a attainable championship contender.
The second was Amen Thompson, who, not like Sheppard, has already declared himself one of many league’s most original weapons and quickest rising stars coming into his third season. Barring a commerce for a longtime level guard, each Sheppard and Thompson are going to get their likelihood to run the present.
What Sheppard does with this chance shall be attention-grabbing, however what Thompson does with it is going to be fascinating. It feels prefer it could possibly be the begin to a rewrite of one of the distinctive tales in NBA historical past: The Ben Simmons story.
With Simmons, given the best way his profession began and, for all intents and functions, ended, we’re at all times going to surprise what might’ve been. Thompson has a likelihood to reply that query now that the ball goes to be in his arms extra.
It is not that Thompson is not destined for stardom as an off-ball participant. He’s. It is simply that in that position, he looks like a youthful model of older Andre Iguodala. With management of an offense, he screams Simmons. The bodily comps are simple. Tremendously gifted athletes with elite positional dimension to dominate defensively, pilot quick breaks, and assault the paint as both finisher or facilitator.
| Ben Simmons | 17.8 | 9.3 | 8.1 | 56.3% |
| Amen Thompson | 15.7 | 9.1 | 4.3 | 55.7% |
The obvious similarity is the capturing handicap, however in Thompson’s case, he isn’t an unwilling shooter and there are already indicators that he is trending towards at the very least competency and maybe much more than that as a brief pull-up menace.
Nonetheless, if we assume that capturing — significantly from deep — is rarely going to be a power for Thompson, then he was seemingly at all times going to require a shift to a heavier playmaking position to pursue his optimum profession end result. The chance simply wasn’t anticipated to come back this quickly.
At 6-foot-7, Thompson is not as tall because the 6-10 Simmons, but when he needs to be defended by opposing level guards — versus wings — in what could possibly be gigantic lineups with him on the prime of the offense, the influence of his dimension stands to be related. He is a greater athlete than peak Simmons. He is a greater defender than peak Simmons. He is a extra ferocious finisher.
Proper now, it will be a stretch to say Thompson possesses peak Simmons’ playmaking chops, however that is the half we’re all ready to see in bigger samples. There’s already loads of proof that he can get there briefly order. In 15 video games with VanVleet sidelined from early February to early March final season, Thompson averaged almost six assists per recreation because the workforce’s main ball-handler.
Simmons and Thompson should not clones. From a pure athletic pressure standpoint, Thompson would possibly find yourself trying extra like a taller Russell Westbrook, which is terrifying in an entire totally different method. However simply when it comes to uniqueness, we had by no means seen a participant like Simmons — a man who might do what he might at his dimension. A man to whom the fashionable “you must be a shooter to dominate as a degree guard” rule did not apply. In a league the place so many level guards had been beginning to play roughly the identical method, Simmons was totally different.
So is Thompson. There’s no one within the league who performs like him apart from his twin brother, Ausar. And now, with the ball in his arms extra, he’ll have an opportunity to choose up the story that Simmons — simply because it was beginning to get good — abruptly stop writing.
If we’re fortunate, Thompson will give us at the very least an concept of the way it might’ve ended.
