30 points for Alpi / 5 steals and a couple of blocks/ Which reminds me, The Summit and Calvin Murphy made an appearance in Winning Time last episode.
Whilst I agree that Sengun doesn't have lots of competition, I think he'd still be up there if post play was a lot more prevalent, he really is special in the post. I'm no big analytics guy myself, but I am a firm believer that if everybody's zigging, you be the one who zags. The other side of there not being lots of post scorers is that the level of post defense in 2023 compared to 1993 is several tiers lower. Given the chance, Sengun could be an absolute nightmare for other teams, especially as he gets stronger. Any shot is an efficient one if it's going in at a high clip. Fully grown Sengun with more coaching from Dream with the ball in his hands in the post, which player's stopping him? There are a few, sure, but for many teams that's a mismatch they just can't stop. Either he's scoring with ease, or you double him and then his secondary super power of vision and great passing means the open man is always getting hit in rhythm for the bucket. The scoring does more for the passing than his passing does alone tbh.
Both attributes help the other. He is a great passer from the post. It will give teams fits whether to double him down low or leave someone open beyond the arc.
Yes, absolutely. Like, Joel for example is really, really good in the post, but would he be 30ppg-good in the 90s? I don’t think so. Then you have vaunted defensive players like Draymond who are really good for today’s offenses, since they can come out and bother the guards and still be able to recover and disrupt the lob. OK, fine. But can they defend a good post-up player? Can you imagine Draymond defending Dream? It would have been an absolute joke. Like, Joe Klein would look like a Hakeem-stopper in comparison…
Got chills watching some of those moves. Haven't seen a Rocket move like that in the post since Hakeem. You can tell who he's been getting lessons from. He also looks much better as an athlete. Like he's genuinely an above average NBA athlete now. Not like elite-elite, but top 50% athleticism from anybody 6'10" and up is still a pretty special combo of physical tools.
He just oozes talent. I saw the Dirk one-legged fadeaway jumper a couple of times in there. Also, he did an alley-oop dunk! Dare I say it? Spoiler LOB THREAT
More extensive highlights That Ukraine defense was no f***ing joke either, they were doing a great job protecting the paint and Sengun still got his 30.
