Draymond Green spent a segment of The Draymond Green Show on Wednesday defending Amen Thompson from the shooting critique that has followed the 23-year-old’s five-year, $208 million rookie-scale extension. His central point was simple: contracts reward what a player has delivered, not what a critic wishes he could add.

“I do think number one, you get paid for what you’ve done,” Green said on the podcast, as reported by Yahoo Sports.

“Amen Thompson has put together a body of work that says if you want to keep me, this is going to be the going rate.”

The catalyst was former NBA guard Joe Johnson, who publicly questioned whether Thompson’s jump shot is developed enough to justify the money. Green flipped that framing, pointing out that shooting is only one skill on a scale that also weighs defence, athleticism and end-to-end speed.

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“Jump shooting is a skill. Yes, you can work, but we’re not going to ask Steph Curry to go be Amen Thompson athletically,” Green said.

“He is elite at jumping. He’s an elite defender. Getting from point A to point B, he’s elite.”

What Thompson actually signed

The deal was reported on 3 September by ESPN’s Shams Charania and covers the 2027-28 season through 2031-32, with a 10% trade kicker attached. Houston confirmed the extension the same day, positioning Thompson as a long-term pillar next to 37-year-old Kevin Durant and Alperen Sengun.

The Rockets built the case on production, not projection. Thompson averaged 18.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and 5.3 assists in 2025-26, led the NBA in minutes per game at 37.4, and started all 79 games he played. He was named to the First Team All-Defense in 2024-25.

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“Amen represents everything we want our organization to be about,” Rockets general manager Rafael Stone said in the team’s announcement.

“He has elite two-way ability, a toughness and the will to outwork his peers, and he competes in every circumstance.”

The doubt Green was answering

Skeptics are not questioning Thompson’s ceiling so much as whether his skill set fits a roster built to win now. A Yahoo Sports analysis of the deal argued that Houston is short on ball-handling, passing and three-point shooting, and that Thompson does not address those gaps despite the size of his contract.

That is the exact box Green refused to let the debate stay in. His point on the podcast was that the Rockets are paying Thompson for a full profile, not a shot chart, and that a player who defends, rebounds and creates in transition at his level is not simply a shooter waiting to be built.

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Thompson’s new terms do not kick in until the 2027-28 season, meaning the 2026-27 campaign, which tips off in October, plays out on his existing rookie deal.

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