Live: Turkey (Alperen Sengun) vs. Serbia (Nikola Jokic) at 12:00 today

I thought Sengun played well. I think he elevated his play with intent after looking pretty bad against Kristaps. Alpy held his own with the best player in the world (arguably) and IMO the game boiled down to a few 3 point shots that Serbia was able to make. I dont know enough about the Turkish national team to really chime in on best use of rotations and personnel, but Sengun appears to be the glue for that roster. Keep in mind that this is not Senguns final form either -- in a few years this guy is going to be a monster.

 

Great post. Another thing, while Jokic looks bigger, it's not like he dwarfs Sengun. To me, Alpi looks a little bigger (in a good way) than last year.

 

I tried to guess Alpi's height comparing to the other bigs he played with (Sanli, Osmani, Kabaca, Haltali, Yasar, Saybir) or against (Balcerowski, Porzingas, Bertans, Kostas Antet.., Shermadini, Shengalia, Milutinov, Jokic) and it seems that he is 2.09m tall now. I guess it is 6"10'1/4. He was 2.07 when playing Besiktas, grown 2cms (0.8 inch). If he grow another 2cms he will be a legit 6"11' guy.

His lower body is very strong and he is very agile (even Hakeem surprised for). He needs a stronger upper body without ballooning.

They put him #23 in the list of current NBA centers but I expect him to be in top 10 in two years time.

 

Sengun had almost an identical season at 19 as the 20 year old rookie Jokic. Jokic was 253lbs, Anfernee 243.
Jokic was also considered a defensive liability for his first few years. So many players on this team to get excited for but party poopers just have to push their narrative of rookies never being able to add to their skill.

 

I watched it in real time along with many here on rocketswatch(Thanks again, @Clutch !). I thought it was a fairly impressive game for him despite the lack of highlights. Jokic scored on him early on a few possessions but he also scored on just about everyone else. Serbia deliberately packed the paint and forced Turkey to try to beat them from outside and their guard play is pretty bad so it didn't go so well for them and Sengun really couldn't do much about it because every time he got the ball or set a screen there were 2+ guys crashing the paint to stop Sengun. Turkey couldn't even get him the ball in most cases...that being said they started to hit open shots in the 3rd and early 4th and made a comeback and Sengun contributed quite a bit on effort plays and making smart passes even if they didn't always net him the direct assist.

He put up 17pts / 13reb /2ast / 2blocks and was key in leading the 20 pt comeback despite the fact Serbia's main defensive focus was either preventing the ball from getting into Sengun's hands or crowding the paint once he got it on the block...he just ran out of gas at the end because the team needed him to make the comeback in the first place. Jokic on the other hand got plenty of rest and had much fresher legs to close out the game...and oh yeah, he's TWENTY YEARS OLD.

I would say if you judge a player's worth by the quality of quantity of their highlights, you probably are doing it wrong.

 

Everything looks like a nail to a hammer...

 

Haha.....I know it's an old saying but I quoted Clyde Drexler on that one - I forget who it was now, but there was some volume 3p shooter taking bad shot after bad shot and after a particularly ugly miss there was dead silence, Clyde finally broke the ice to say "Everything looks like a nail to a hammer" followed by more silence until Bill moved on with the broadcast and I thought it was honestly one of Clyde's best 'in game' observations of all time.

 

Who gets up before noon these days?

 

Yeah, like I said up front, they are my opinions from the highlights.
Sound like the fact that Sengun was being double teamed most of the night was one of the things missing from that video.

But thanks. I appreciate the insights into the game from someone who watched it.