Amen Thompson Heads to Locker Room With Eye Injury as Rockets Keep Rolling

Amen Thompson took a shot to the eye on Saturday night and had to take an abrupt trip to the locker room.

Eye injuries in the NBA are the ultimate wild card. A guy either comes back five minutes later blinking aggressively, or he disappears into the tunnel and emerges three days later wearing prescription rec-specs like a 1990s power forward.

"Status alert: Amen Thompson (eye) headed to locker room Saturday. - @UnderdogNBA"

This is a brutal momentum killer for a guy who has been an absolute menace on the floor. Thompson just logged 39 minutes against the Dallas Mavericks on Friday, stuffing the stat sheet with 15 points, six assists, and four steals.

The Houston Rockets are completely rolling right now. Houston is sitting at 5-1, second in the Western Conference, and boasting a top-five net rating. Losing their defensive Swiss Army knife is not exactly what you want when the vibes are this immaculate.

Live bettors probably felt their stomachs drop watching him head down the tunnel. Thompson is the exact type of player who swings live markets and wrecks prop parlays because he contributes in literally every single statistical category.

We already saw him miss a chunk of time with an ankle sprain a couple of seasons ago, but an eye issue is a completely different beast. You can tape up an ankle and hand a guy some ibuprofen, but you cannot exactly walk off a scratched cornea unless you want to spend the second half throwing bounce passes to the referee.

Houston has a heavy-weight schedule coming up, starting with the Boston Celtics on Monday and the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday. If Thompson is forced to sit, the Rockets are going to have to find someone else to do the dirty work against two of the best teams in the league.