"my affinity for giving end of bench players a shot" LOL... you are being disingenuous and severely underrepresenting your fanaticism for these "end of bench players". That is where the ridicule comes from.
Pacers never had the 3ball shooters that Rockets currently have. And I believe Sengun will eventually be better 3P% than Sabonis.
Compare Sengun's first year at 19 years old to Sabonis's second season at 21 years old(Sengun will crush Sabonis if you compare their first years directly): Per 36 (actual minutes played per game are sengun 20.7 vs sabonis 24.5) points 16.7 vs 17.7 offensive rebounds 3.3 vs 3.3 defensive rebounds 6.2 vs 8.1 assists 4.5 vs 3.0 steals 1.4 vs 0.8 blocks 1.6 vs 0.6 turnovers 3.5 vs 2.7 pf 5.2 vs 4.4 These are very comparable despite the fact that Sengun did not speak (a word of) English, his minutes were poorly divided. His weak points turnovers and fouls were much better post all start break. It looks like Sengun is two years ahead of Sabonis. Based on his progression, I think it is fair to expect that he will perform similar to Sabonis's 4th season (at 23 years old) where he had all star numbers. The comparison to Sabonis is showing that Sengun is more likely to be an all star than a role player.
Who cares. DD is entitled to be fanatic about as many Rocket players as anyone. I don’t mind people mocking him or me or anybody else as long it is all in good clean fun. I have grown to despise the name calling and the internet warriors that sh*t on everyone’s opinion that disagrees with theirs and the racist and political idiots that spew their ill-informed opinion. The only time I have ever had an issue with DD is the few times he has brought his personal political views into the sports forum. For the most part he has always been a gentleman and very forgiving of the a-holes that are always calling him out.
I lean towards agreeing with you. I've already posted that I think Alpi will eventually be a star in the NBA, with a good chance to be an All Star, given time. He soaks up good coaching. Give him the level of coaching a top player should expect to receive from an excellent organization and I think he will get there. Members here tend to lack patience with a player's development. The more expected from a draft pick, the less patience there tends to be. I can be guilty of that myself. I was thrilled that Stone managed to get Sengun in that draft, and very surprised that he fell as far as he did. We need to take full advantage of our good fortune.
He was a 2x allstar, but honestly isn't that because he put up good trad stats with a weak field of big men in the East to put on the team and the NBAs weird obsession with putting "F"s on teams despite being loaded at "G". I don't see the market for non switchable, non stretch bigs who can't defend inside as really great, which is why he's in Sacramento. If that's Senguns future I'd sell high.
When you are extremely vocal and it's regarding a terrible take you are going to get called out, doubly so if you double down in the face of logic / reality. Notice how I didn't say anything about whether or not he should or shouldn't, if he's entitled or not? Of course he can be as fanatical as he want. At the same time, people are free to mock the take as much as they want. Besides, I don't think anyone actually cares or lose any sleep over DD.
Sabonis is his floor. However it would be a huge mistake to try to develop him as a Sabonis type player. Sengun has far more potential, superior playmaking and potential to develop a 3, more close to jokic than Sabonis. 4 assists a game for sengun will be a piece of cake.
If Domantas could pass the ball or do eurostep/hesitation drives like Sengun, it would be the turning point in his net impact on the floor. Positive net impact = definition of a winning player. Sabonis' issue is he hasn't been able to affect wins directly. If he could open up a new line of production - like defense, 3pters or assists - then this problem goes away you would just start Sabonis next to a shotblocker and it's done. All this chatter about can he do this and can he do that. It's all about net impact. If the combination of all players who were on the floor was a net positive, you win. If all the players could be net positive on the court, that's a statistically 100% guaranteed win. It doesn't matter if we did it the way it was when your dad was watching basketball. It doesn't matter that you believe such and such should be the way of the world. The team's points will exceed the other's and it will be a win. It doesn't matter if there isn't one clear defensive anchor, and we're headed MORE in that direction and the NBA will perpetually head in that direction until rule changes are made to stop it. If you take away post play, Sabonis can't do anything. He sets a great pick and he's unselfish, plus the 2nd least important stat of all stats i.e. he's a good rebounder. If you take post play away from Sengun, he's still abusing slow C's on the perimeter, he's still making incredible playmaking choices, he's still got a bag of tricks on his drive when teams guard him too heavily at the 3pt line. The issues with Sengun are not MANY. They are dominoes and it's clear to see if you want to see them. He was just in horrible shape. What do you expect from a person whose stamina and strength is not sufficient for the NBA? Those who were here in the Yao era will know. Those who know basketball will know. If you're not physically ready for the game, your jumpshot suffers in the form of 3pters and FT's and you commit too many fouls. These are not 3 problems, these are 1 single problem. Then there is 1 area he needs development (3pters). You might say "well he shot 71% on his FT's so it's not that". Well, that's because you don't know what you're talking about. Sengun is an 80%+ shooter from the FT line, 71% is a down year from the line for him (FT's carry better than any stat across various leagues). He's certainly fouling too much, which is uncharacteristic of a high IQ player and excellent passing is inseparable from high IQ guys. Meanwhile on 3pters he certainly has always needed to work on it, but that he shot 25% in these circumstances is f*cking wonderful. That Silas let it slip Sengun's 3pters in practice indicate a higher calibre of shooter than his 25% is extremely exciting. You can watch any number of his highlight videos and see the form/mechanics on his 3pter improve dramatically as the season progresses. Excellent conditioning + repetition with his 3pt shot, that's all he needs and to me personally it seems inevitable he will do those two things. Those are easy fixes. He's not an elite athlete so defense will take time but he is going to look miles better than last season, and he didn't look bad defensively in comparison to the rest of the roster last season. I can't believe we've dragged the discussion down to whether he's going to be a replacement player or not. This dude is going to be an All Star because his game is exciting and within 2 years it's going to be hard for even DPOY types to keep him under control.
He is already a top 3 post-up option in the NBA, and now he has Jabari to lean on. It’s a wrap. 2-4-5 is a lock.
Well, just the fact that Sengun averaged 34 fouls per 36 minutes and had the conditioning of guy who contracted mesothelioma in 1964 until about February and KPJ was playing with the first unit, for the most part. Honestly I watched a depressing amount of Rockets basketball last year - at no point did I or anyone here or any of the paid commentators get up and say "OMG the league can't deal with this Alperen-Porter combo". I mean, i saw some bright spots! Mostly Green. But Sengun- KPJ...? Nah. SSS for the win there.
it so weird when people bring this up. Rockets were tanking, let Sengun foul all he wants and run his ass into conditioning.
It's not weird if you watched the games - watching Sengun play on the second half of a back to back against the Knicks and future HOF Mitchell Robinson when Sengun had played 30 whole minutes the previous night was basically a Hague convention level offense. His shitty conditioning wasn't going to fix itself jn real time, nor was his fouling. It's actually weirder for people to rewrite history that his conditioning wasn't problematic when by his own admission - he was incapable of playing more! It's even weirderer thst people think this is the biggest potential obstacle for Sengun and superstardom. The fact he had to sit down in Dec 21 after committing some fouls. Who cares? The bear case for Sengun is that he's undersized/not a rim protector, not quick enough to switch, and can't really shoot from outside; nothing that an imaginary extra 194 minutes of playing time his rookie year is going to fix
I watched every game. The game Sengun dominated against the grizz off the bench should be enough to love his potential. He had other games too when he was allowed to play. Sengun is the smartest player on the team. You thinking playing time is not going to help a 19 yr old is weird.
