In the fourth quarter of last Friday's Thunder-Rockets game, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander executed perhaps the NBA's single most-executed action and drove to the basket. One aspect of OKC's double-big lineup that makes defending the group particularly demanding is the unique threat that each of the two bigs presents as a screener; you can see on the following play how Isaiah Hartenstein's ghost screen forces Amen Thompson out to Gilgeous-Alexander's outside hip, and how he and Chet Holmgren arcing down to the block keeps either Alperen Sengun or Jabari Smith Jr. from helping. This action forces one player to defend Gilgeous-Alexander's drive from a disadvantageous position, which has been a death sentence for almost every single defender, all year.
Not Thompson. He stuck with the slithery Thunder guard, kept him from fully turning the corner or baiting a foul, and rejected his midrange jumper.
This single play shows a good deal of what has made Thompson perhaps the single most magnetic player in the NBA this season. You can see the predatory instincts that make him one of the most feared defenders in the league, a nous for seizing the initiative in an exchange and putting the offensive player on their heels. You can see his perfect balance, sproingy leaping ability, and quick feet—rare for any player, unprecedented for someone this tall. Most importantly, you can see his zeal for competing with and humbling the best players in the NBA.
It is scarcely comprehensible that someone this tall can move like that, and when I watch Thompson deftly scramble around thudding screens and casually zip through 15 feet of open space at warp speed, without ever tipping off to one side or the other, I have the sensation that I am paying attention to someone who is ruled by a different set of physical laws. I like watching him and his twin brother, Ausar, play defense more than basically anyone else in the league, because not only are they able to essentially teleport, they know how to read the game at an extremely high level. Modern basketball is a more complicated text than it's ever been, and they have a superb faculty for language.
For the better part of two months, every basketball conversation I've had with someone who roots for a Western Conference team has started with some version of Well, we can make a run, but we have to get Houston or Memphis. Conference standings have been a gnarled thicket since the trade deadline, and all the kicking and gnashing that every team besides the Thunder has had to engage in to stay alive has only knotted things up tighter. The fourth-place Nuggets and eighth-place Grizzlies are separated by a mere half-game, and those two teams are even with the Clippers, Warriors, and Wolves in the loss column. Meanwhile, the Rockets are about to lock up the two seed, having won 15 of their last 17 games. The argument against Houston as a playoff team is that their best offensive players, Sengun and Jalen Green, are young, untested, and relatively solvable. I do have to admit, I find this argument compelling, and the prospect of watching Dillon Brooks and Fred VanVleet shoot a collective 2-for-15 against imbricated defenses is an annoying one.
The argument for Houston is that their defense, and Thompson specifically, can stand up to any offense. Take their game against the Warriors on Sunday. "Amen wasn't smiling all day," Sengun said after the win. "He was locked in. Last two games he's locking the best players in the world." It's true. Days after holding Gilgeous-Alexander to one of his worst games of the season—22 points and two free-throw attempts—he played an even better game against the Warriors, who'd won five straight. Steph Curry, who'd scored 52, 37, and 36 in his most recent three games, had three points. His single made shot came at the end of the first half, on a scramble, with Thompson off the floor. Most shocking was the fact that Curry only took three shots in the whole first half. Thompson erased him.
Thompson's defense is the thing that truly makes him special, though his offensive game is an idiosyncratic marvel. No, he can't shoot at all, but he can do everything else. The only thing slow about him is his shot release, and he's shooting 27 percent from both long midrange and three-point range. Still, defenses can't just stand 10 feet away from him and treat him like Russell Westbrook because he has a smooth handle and can simply attack into that empty space on a drive. He's a great passer, making both high-level reads and simple, correct passes, and his passes have this pleasant pop on them, zipping straight out from his fully extended arms and appearing to move in straighter lines than anyone else's passes. Thompson also shows off his astounding basketball IQ on offense, as he knows his limits and plays within them, managing to keep the half-court offense humming by snagging tons of offensive rebounds and busting things open with his passing. You probably do not need me to tell you he is an apparitional terror in transition. Watch this reel and your faith in gravity will wobble.
He calls to mind the language of novelty, and part of what's so charming about him is that he's special, but not unique, though only because his twin brother is doing a slightly less load-bearing version of this for the Pistons. Amen has been better, mostly because he's been healthier and his team has more good players. Also, production is a less interesting measuring device in the case of the Thompson twins, as it's the way they play that distinguishes them, and each of the pair does the same game-breaking stuff.
I understand that Thompson is 22 and has not experienced playoff basketball, but I have a hard time accepting the idea that his inexperience is more relevant than his game-breaking skill and athleticism. Ask Steph Curry: whoever is "lucky enough" to get the Rockets in the first round is going to have to contend with a new type of basketball player.
