Alpi was a beast even before the draft. He was MVP in a legitimate mens league at 17. We had an egghead coach who wanted to bench him for Bruno Fernando and a massive ballhog who only ever played for himself and had a dribble addiction running point. A real coach and a real PG came in and Alpi was able to show who he always was. Yes, he's gotten better too but this guy was always in him. Do you know why Coby White is making 11M a year on his rookie extension when his peers are already in the 40M range? Cause he was balls. He was a bust. He looked like Aaron Holiday when he was on his rookie contract. Now he's 19 5 5 almost out of nowhere. That should be the guy.
so the guy who failed badly only to improve to a point below his natural trajectory deserves the trophy? IMO he should hardly be in the convo. If Silas let him, or if udoka came in last year, Sengun could be mip last year. By your logic he never deserves the trophy because he had Silas as a coach.
Even if he didn’t win the award, no player made a bigger tangible/intangible jump for me this year. Am I biased? **** yes. But seeing Alpi anchor a very very stingy defense while learning a new offensive system was incredibly fun. I also think he was figuring something out with Jalen and the system—the last few games before his injury were just beautiful. I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing another jump next season. I can’t wait for this offseason to be over (only 6 months left..)
Alperen Sengun is the future of NBA, not only Rockets. While some idiot fans hype about athletic, but basketball fundamental ignorant and lazy players, He is the new face of European dominance in NBA.
Always felt All NBA was the most achievable award for him, especially vs all star. Maxey was crowned pre season as long as he kept pace or improved.
Exactly, the narrative was already in place. That being said, Maxey deserved it, it's not a travesty that he won it. I am glad Alpi was in the conversation though.
Sengun was actually near even odds with Maxey for a little bit in the middle of the season. He definitely could've won if he kept that same pace. The problem is he was quite a bit worse in the back half of the season, and then he got injured. But if he maintained the same level of play from his first ~35 games throughout the whole season I think he would've won it. Or at least it would've been very close.
I hope he changes things in Turkey and Turkey becomes more like Serbia in terms of basketball talent output.
The team was pretty bottom tier bad around February and end January........and FVV, DB and Jabari got injured. Amen was not playing that much. He taped large areas of his Lower back......and it seemed to bother him. I think the Game in Chicago was the one where he just flat out failed to score in the 1st half.....0 or 2 points.
I thought that MIP is based on regular season performance. "The NBA's Most Improved Player Award (MIP) is an annual National Basketball Association (NBA) award given to the player who has shown the most progress during the regular season compared to previous seasons." That's why they gave the award before first round even ended, right?
Just so y'all know where this is coming from. lol Actually - are you "Big-O" on Rocketswatch and Twitter?