Rockets star Amen Thompson in play for NBA’s top defensive honors

[ASFN Admin]

With 68 games played in the 2024-25 season, second-year Houston Rockets guard/forward Amen Thompson is now eligible for NBA awards. (The league mandates that at least 65 out of the 82 regular-season games be played, in order for players to be eligible.)

While Thompson missed time in early March with an ankle sprain, the 22-year-old has come back with a vengeance. With elite defense and positional versatility, the 6-foot-7 athletic marvel is averaging 14.0 points (55.5% FG), 8.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.4 steals, and 1.3 blocks in 32.3 minutes per game this season.

Thompson's performance, and particularly on defense, is drawing attention across the league for potential All-Defensive First Team honors. The Ringer's Danny Chau makes the case:

In the swan song of the regular season, Amen is staking his claim as the dark horse in the Defensive Player of the Year race—his shutdown master class from every angle against Warriors star Steph Curry is just one example. Shadows, ball denials, the kitchen sink.

Thompson’s combination of explosiveness and mobility creates its own veil of mysticism—he can completely warp the trajectory of shots without touching the ball or his opponent.

There are only six other players (with at least 2,000 minutes played during the season) who have ever recorded a steal and block rate comparable to Amen’s output this season while also fouling as little as he has per 100 possessions. That list? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Garnett, Ben Wallace, Andrei Kirilenko, Anthony Davis, and Victor Wembanyama. Therein lies the absurdity of Amen’s potential. He has the processing and flexibility of a guard, the frame and explosion of an archetypal swingman, and the statistical profile of a 6-foot-11 defensive alpha. And he conducts his game in a fashion and with an athletic vocabulary that only his identical twin, Ausar, could possibly understand.

I wrote about Amen Thompson and his preposterous athleticism. https://t.co/t0upFOckmB

— Danny Chau (@dannychau) April 9, 2025

Beyond praise from opponents (both Curry and Draymond Green after Houston’s win at Golden State), Thompson also got props this week from his normally stoic head coach, Ime Udoka.

“When you got a special guy like Amen doing what he does, that’s the result,” Udoka said after watching the Thompson-led Rockets hold Curry to 3 points on 1-of-10 shooting (10.0%). It was the lowest-scoring game of Curry’s Hall of Fame career when playing at least 30 minutes.

Shortly after the regular season ends, we'll find out if those types of performances will net Thompson — the No. 4 overall draft pick of the 2023 first round — All-Defensive First Team honors, or perhaps even Defensive Player of the Year. With Thompson in a featured role, the Rockets (52-28) have already won 11 more games than last season and have secured the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference standings, and Houston ranks fourth among the NBA's 30 teams in defensive rating.

More: Warriors veteran Draymond Green sees Amen Thompson as the key to the Rockets

This article originally appeared on Rockets Wire: Rockets star Amen Thompson in play for NBA’s top defensive honors

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