Prediction: Sengun’s defense is going to improve magically

All of these things are true. I think people in general underrate his defensive potential. His flexibility, speed, and explosion are all underrated aspects of his game. He is capable of making much quicker rotations than someone like Jokic. I am a bit concerned that perhaps he shouldn’t be in “drop”, but should be rotating around like a madman.

1. He will lower his fouls and show his hands better with experience. Being a young big is the toughest thing to be in the NBA. Sengun has made admirable improvements already.
   
2. Refs knowing who he is and how he plays will help.
3. A competent system on defense will likely be the biggest change. We’ll hide him with the Tari’s and Jabari’s in a legitimate system, and then he will start making linebacker plays like he is Ray Lewis with a basketball. He has those magical Larry Bird hands/timing.
   
4. Check the sig. He has the attitude to do it.

 

Assist%, assist ratio, assist to turnover ratio. None of these are stand out numbers for Sengun that someone would conclude he has otherworldly bball IQ.

Again, allegedly the dumbass of the team, Jalen Green, barely has a worse assist to turnover ratio than the savant.

 

Yeah, they don't stand out for the full season, but they do stand out in the extremely small sample we have where he's allowed to run the offense. The problem with looking at these numbers is they can only be high if your team lets you run the offense. It doesn't matter how good of a passer you are if you don't get the opportunity to playmake, your assist percentage will always be low. Similarly your ast/tov is going to be low if you get the opportunity to isolate but not the opportunity to playmake, you'll rack up turnovers due to offensive fouls/travelling/steals, but no opportunity to generate assists.

All of these assist efficiency numbers do stand out if you look at the past 4 games where he is used as the primary playmaker. 35% assist percentage over that stretch, and it was even higher until the Laker game where he decided to cook Thomas Bryant every time he saw him instead of looking for the pass. Same with ast/tov, that's at 2.1 which is pretty good.

I just think these stats are hugely impacted by how the team uses the player and what kind of opportunities the player gets. They are pedestrian, as you pointed out, for the whole season. But they are eye popping in the games where he's given the opportunity to run the offense.

 

I posted this in another thread. Reposting here:

Ast % is directly a function of number of assists made, which depends on your role(usage is not the right place to look at) and your capacity to make assists. Usually these go hand in hand, players who are capable of making assists are put into roles to make assists. After all this is in the best interest of the team. So you can use the stat as a measure of playmaking ability. But in the world of Silas, it does not work like that. KPJ is put into a role to make the assists, Sengun and Green are not. So Sengun's and Green's assist % are not really indicators of their playmaking ability.

If Sengun continues to have this new role, his assist % will go up significantly. Also his assist/to because he will have significantly more chances to make assists, without actually handling the ball that much more, so his turnovers will not go up at the same rate.

Similarly if Green is given a role more similar to KPJ's, his assist % is going to go up. His assist/to not so much due to this role change, because the new role will come with more ball handling, more prone to turnovers. So if his ast/to rate is going up, I would attribute it to getting better at either making assists or turning the ball over less. The to stats will tell us which one it is, or if it is both.

 

ah the context, the nuances, and the sofisticated details!

 

Ya about these short stretches, we said that about Green for the entire month of November, 13 games, where he scored 22 ppg on 60 ts% 5 apg with the Rockets having the best winning percentage for a month so far this season(still bad because ya we suck).

And that goes back to my point of the fickleness of claiming what player is going to be better for 20 year olds. What if Green has another month where he plays like he did for a 13 game stretch before which means he is capable of doing that? You suddenly going to change up narratives? People are making to many assumptions about Green and dismissing him for a rough December and January.

 

I would argue that benching the worst defensive player in the league would "magically" improve the defense of the entire team.

I have long term concerns about Sengun, but right now he's the least of the Rockets problems. Let them deal with using 2 to 3 picks and coming away with who were currently the worst 2 performing players on the team.

 

Yeah it's a small sample so it is hard to judge, but it's all we've got. There's nothing else to look at if you want to judge his ability to be a playmaker, to be a good passer, and generate good assist stats. I'm not suggesting that this stretch represents his "normal" level with 100% certainty. What I am saying with 100% certainty is that his numbers in games where he ISNT allowed to run the offense should not be used to draw conclusions about his playmaking abilities.

Also, I'm not even talking about Green. I don't know why you keep bringing him up. I'm not pushing any narrative. I'm telling you what I'm seeing from Sengun in the Sengun thread. If people are making assumptions about Green that you don't like, you can take it up with them.

 

So I’m one of the people that believe Sengun can become a serviceable defender.

first of all he’s more athletic then he gets credit for. He’s got really good body control for his size and he’s super limber. He can touch his toes from a standing position. During warmups if you watch his stretching he’s limber.

his footwork isnt fast, but it’s natural. You don’t have to have super quick footwork to make it in the nba; if you have good instincts you can mitigate some slow footedness. His feet are better than he gets credit for.

Effort. This is inconsistent on the defensive end, but there are flashes when he’s locked it. There could be a lot of reasons for this, but Sengun generally provides good effort as a player. It can become more consistent on the defensive end.

He’s not afraid to play physical. He’s not Christian Wood, he doesn’t shy away from contact.

and he’s still learning the game; especially defensively where it’s not the priority overseas that it is here. He’s 20 yrs old. If he gets the right coaching and he puts in the effort, and he starts understand defensive rotations better, he’s gonna get better defensively.

and of course I agree with Cxbby that Sengun will start to get more foul calls as his star rises.

 

Your mother

 

His basketball IQ is really high, so there is no reason he should not improve significantly.

 

Very very strange how you still think about an exchange with a random person on the internet. Is your life that boring?

 

lol random people are everything, any random man is just another you...don't put down the significance of random people...

 

Unless I actually know the poster in real life, that poster is just a profile picture and a couple of sentences to me, at any given time. The world is too big, to care about a random discussion or argument on the internet after some hours.

More power to you if you put a degree of significance on that poster, but personally, I don't care about an exchange I had with a poster on CF from 30 minutes ago, much less any time longer.

 

yeah but some posters are larger than life

 

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His defense has been improving and he was not shy away to ask the refs what he should do in order not fouling. His improved English allowed him to communicate better on and off the court. Last game Edward scored 40+ points efficiently, but Edwards was not his man and there was no resistance at all from the guards, especially Jalen Green, to make Edwards' life much difficult. You see, Wolves made adjustments to Sengun during half time, and Silas kept letting Edwards did whatever he wanted. Coaching is important. I think Sengun will play much better defense if we can get a better coach.

 

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In LeBron-Sengun clip, Hollins surprised (when Denis scored) and said that: "There is no defense in Lakers,...".

Rockets plays no defense for a very long time. People should focus on whole team's defense I suggest..