There’s a growing split in the Rockets’ numbers when Amen Thompson is on the floor, and it’s hard to ignore.
Per DataBallr, Houston is minus-1.0 with Thompson playing and a strong plus-34.7 when he sits. Some of that gap comes with noise attached - the Rockets are hitting 47.0% from three when he’s off the court and just 33.3% when he’s on - so there’s not some clean, one-to-one explanation. Still, the difference is real enough to raise eyebrows.
The eye test backs it up. The offense has looked smoother without Thompson, especially as the Alperen Sengun, surrounded by shooters and length, dream keeps coming to life. Thompson’s 22.2% shooting from deep has also made one thing clear: Chip Engelland, for all his talents, is not a God.
That’s a sharp drop from last season, when the Rockets were plus-6.7 with Thompson on the floor. The simplest read is that he may not be dragging the team down so much as the group around him is functioning better in his absence.
Even so, Thompson himself looks different. The confidence that used to show up in his game feels muted.
Too often, he attacks the rim only to run into a defender and look surprised to find a rim protector where the rim was supposed to be. And the midrange game? It has made exactly 0.0% progress.
The bigger concern is that Thompson hasn’t been the defensive force he was before. He’s at 1.2 steals per game, which is fine, but that’s a career low. He’s also blocking just 0.2 shots per game after swatting 1.3 a night as a sophomore.
He’s supposed to be a wrecking ball on defense, and this season he’s looked more like a soccer ball - not harmless, but nowhere near the same kind of game-wrecker.
That’s where the fix has to start. Thompson needs to get back to the things that make him unmistakably Thompson, especially on defense. With much of his offensive role coming off the ball, he should have room to shift more of his energy back to that end.
There may also be a role issue at play. Thompson could be dealing with some whiplash from conserving energy for an offensive workload that isn’t really there anymore.
There is still room for optimism. A recent look at Jabari Smith’s breakout in his fifth season put Thompson’s sophomore year in perspective, and even with the concerns, that year alone was better than any Smith Jr. season before this one.
Thompson probably will be fine. But if the offensive polish doesn’t come, the quickest path back to impact is obvious: turn defense into offense again, and let the playmaking on that end push his net rating back up.
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