Sengun is going to be a great fit for years to come. Best or not, does anyone really care? Can we all agree he is part of the core of the Rockets?
Sengun is a problem because he's two things: 1) Unselfish 2) Fearless When you watch Sabonis, he isn't the second one. Only the first. Amazing rebounder and passer. But he gets in his head and is afraid of "taking over". Sengun doesn't have that. He will poster you. He will embarrass you. He will sauce your defense with a no look off the bounce dime. He's got the moxie. Sabonis is the better rebounder but Sengun is better at everything else. The trio of Sengun/FVV/DB is nasty.
Jury is still out for me on whether he's a future superstar, but I think it's quickly becoming obvious even to outsiders that he is a future multiple-time all-star. Don't know if he's a "Franchise player" or if he will ultimately have the best career of anyone on the team but he sustains this level of play and he has earned his rookie max extension and that's all that really matters right now.
Since before the draft I always thought a better passing Pau Gasol. Not a Batman but a great Robin and facilitator. I might have undersold him.
Pau Gasol is soo underrated to me. Why do people consider him a Robin? Just cuz he got traded to the Lakers? He led Memphis to the 4th seed in the west with a team of nobodies. They were even a better team than Kobe's lakers.
I've said before that I don't love the term "best player" given positional and role variations. I am, however, comfortable with the term "franchise player," and Sengun is clearly that right now for the Rockets. Every other team knows he's the engine that runs our offense. We're no longer in the "figure it out" phase -- we're in the "finesse" phrase. That radically changes the dynamic for any team facing us.
Pau was a great player, borderline superstar in his own right, yeah. He was never quite an MVP contender though, capped out at All-NBA 2nd Team level... not like the Jokic comps people keep throwing around for Sengun which I've always thought were a little too aggressive. In any case, Sengun needs to get more confident/consistent with his jump shot if he wants to reach that "Pau with passing" ceiling. People forget that Pau shot a ton of middies and was really good at it. I think Sengun can do it though. He's shown enough signs, he just needs to keep progressing.
I feel like Sengun has some eyesight problem. When I was in high school and university teams back in the day, I used to use contact lenses. That does not focus in a milisecond while u shoot a 3. So your brain does not respond fast enough. Then I had laser surgery, got falcon eye vision. Then I was like twice the shooter. When Sengun shoots from a distance, I think he had the problem i had with lenses. and he wears eyeglasses off the court. He is still too young, but he might consider a laser corrective surgery when his myopsis stops getting worse.
Frank is the best Rockets discourse that I know of besides myself, and he is absolutely cooking the Sengun skeptics with hot grease: I wonder who he is speaking to right here : The idea of "archetypes" has got people just turning off their eyes and brains and have set basketball discourse back a generation. Yes, certain weaknesses in some players require creative team building to makeup for it. But talent trumps everything. The most valuable and precious commodity in basketball that everyone is trying to get their hands on is talent, not freaking "rim protection" that the Memphis Grizzlies just picked up off the side walk for a couple of nickels in Bismarck Biyombo.
Sabonis is an actual beta male. The way Looney put fear in his heart last year in the playoffs was something. At some point he stopped driving to the rim when they needed him to score but you can't break Sengun. He will target you in the next possession.
But what is he going to do after the lasik surgery. Wear glasses without lenses? Nobody in their right mind does that.
I really dont care who our best player is. Ime has me thinking in terms of the team concept more than individuals.
I wouldn't say he capped out at all nba second team. Realistically he could not get to first team considering he was up against Dirk, KG and TD every year. Who you could argue are the 3 greatest Pfs to ever play the game.
