Alperen Sengun at #14 in the 24 Under 24 behind Cade, Scottie, Franz, Miller and Jalen Williams. Ahead of all other Rockets and Evan Mobley. Main issues for them were his rim finishing, defensive issues and floor spacing. Can he do it at the highest level basically.
What a joke. I wouldn't trade Sengun straight up for any of those five. Williams would be the closest.
Rim finishing? Really? He sits at 64.7% within 5 feet from the basket. He also has a 59.6 eFG% within 8 feet of the basket. He has nasty dunks. You can argue the other points but not his rim finishing.
Some people just assume that to be good at rim finishing, you have to have great size, great hop and great athleticism. Sengun just isn't that kind of player and they lazily conclude that he is not great at rim finishing.
So here are the 9 guys remaining, from what I can gather: Wemby Ant Haliburton Maxey Zion Paolo Brandon Miller Chet Jalen Williams
The only reasonable choices on that list would be Ant, Haliburton and Maxey. There arguments to be made for others such as Chet or Paolo but I definitively would not do Zion, Miller or Williams.
I think the way it works, for players like sengun there are very few examples and he still has to prove things(being a spacer, being an impactful player), before he can get into the club of high upside players. For most other players, there are tons of success stories of a similar type, they are assumed to be in that direction even though there are many who don't make it to the top either. For them the default is to be a success story, for Sengun the default is not viewed to be success. It is similar to what happened in the draft. Many weaker players were chosen over him, because they seemed to be more promising and safer bets. It is still the same mentality.
Jokic was held to the same standard till he was the champion. Sure, it was a different level but the thinking was the same. He was blamed not be cut for playoff basketball despite Denver constantly over performing with depleted rotations and mediocre sidekicks.
