I dont even know what this means cuz he already better than Yao was at 22. You realize Sengun this year would be the same age as when Yao entered the league? So he's miles ahead.
Are we really doing this stupid thing where you compare someone who entered the league at 19 vs. someone who ended at 22 and compare a 4yr vet to a rookie? I think I even saw someone talk about that with Jalen and Jordan, cause you know Jalen has scored bazillion more points in the NBA at an age when Jordan was still in college as a good comparison point for why Jalen will be future star. But even if we are to compare Sengun last year with Yao's rookie year despite its absurdity, Yao actually matched up quite well. Raw stats don't favor Yao because the NBA was slow back then and the Rockets were even slower by that time period's standard. Yao per-100 possessions scored 25 points on .570 TS% against league average TS% of .519. Sengun scored 22 points per 100 possessions against today's league average efficiency of .576 TS%. That is basically like saying one person shoots like Jalen Green and the other shoots like Kevin Durant.
comparing raw stats is not meaningful but comparing skill sets, or where they are in their development is okay. After all you don’t get extra 4 years of career because you came to the league 4 years later. Of course, the late comer will have steeper improvement curve at that point but coming to the league earlier has significant advantages particularly for upper tier international prospects. The best comparison would be 2 years from now Sengun vs same age Yao but we don’t have that info yet.
I was just trying to figure out what you meant by hoping he would be a Yao level player. Because by ever metric he already is better. Shooting% is only part of the game. He's a better defender rebounder than Yao ever was. Also a better passer/ play maker. Yao never came close to leading the rockets to second seed and he had Tmac. So I'm not understanding what you are saying. he's also probably close to playing the same numbers of games Yao played in his entire career already, so by all means he should surpass Yao.
You almost blew my mind with this, but I just checked and no, Yao has played twice as many games as Alpi.
In two and half seasons it could basically be the same which is crazy to think. That Yao is so widely regarded here and Sengun will surpass his games played before he even reaches his prime.. I don't even think there is a comparison. People have such a low bar for Sengun if they just want him to be Yao. I'm over here hoping he becomes Hakeem.
By every metric? That isn’t remotely accurate. Last season was Senguns peak in WS and WS/48. Yao had 6 seasons with the same or more WS and all 7 of his “full” seasons he had a higher WS/48 than Senguns current peak. Senguns peak PER is 22.0. Yao had 3 seasons with a higher PER. Senguns peak scoring efficiency for a season was 59.9 TS%. Yao had 3 seasons with a higher scoring efficiency than that. Career TS%? Yao : 59.6% Sengun : 57.0% If the reminder is needed. Yao had better efficiency in the less efficient era. There are likely plenty more metrics out there that Sengun has yet to surpass Yao in. How much stock you place in certain metrics is one thing but these are all metrics that to some degree are used in analysis of players today. Do I think Sengun has shown the skill set and tools to eventually overtake Yao in most/all these numbers? Absolutely, but as of today your bolded statement is premature.
Comparing to Yao isn't a low bar. Yao was very skilled for a big men. Injuries were the only things that prevented him from being one of the greatest of all time. Of course, if you are only comparing length of career, yeah that's a low bar.
I think there should just not be that kind of comparison between any of our stars and former stars. It's a completely different era, and centers were played very differently between those eras. People forget that Yao was top 2-3 centers in the league any time he was healthy, that's why he's considered so good despite the lower numbers, outside of Dwight and Shaq respectively no centers in that era were putting up the huge numbers, that wasn't the game. (It wasn't the 90's where there were all time greats on every other team.) Yao gets his props for doing what he did in his era, he was supremely skilled compared to his peers (and frankly if he played in the modern day he'd be just as ridiculous as Wemby and would likely have never had to bulk up or done as many damaging things to his body.) Sengun's one of our new stars and the best player from the rebuild so far, we also don't need to put him down to prop up Yao either. Let's just celebrate our great Rockets centers without having to constantly put down our other players, it gets really old all these idiotic player only fan narratives. I root for all the Rockets.
SeeAs I You aren't comparing apples to apples. Last year sengun was Yaos rookie age. So yes his last season was better than Yao as a rookie. In 3 season if his PER is not well over 25 I'll be shocked.
the main difficulty in comparing the two is they played in different eras. It is almost completely meaningless trying to do that.
Better than Yao? U guys need a drug program to enroll yourself into. Yao could post better, midrange not a question, free throws way better, better rim protector..
Every basketball podcast looks like its a few months away from getting raided by the FBI and all of its laptops confiscated.
Agree 100% And I find the comparisons tend to be more to try and prove one player is good at the expense of the other which I'm fully sick of at this point. Let's just enjoy and root for our team, we're contenders again!
I don't even understand how this is debatable. If you compare their numbers at their age 22 seasons it's not even close. Sengun was the main guy on a second seed team had to deal with Jalen. Yao got Tmac and was still worse...
