Just goes to show you the value of Jabari and Tari. With them, they don't go down 28 and the defense ratings stay good for everyone. When you're down 25 and you're not in there when the comeback happens, the rating is going to take a hit. I counted only 4 bad defensive plays. The 3 lobs and one shot where he left his guy wide open . He closed out, on shooters that were not his man 3x, but they all went in. Do people consider that bad defense if you close out and the shooter makes it? I just think it's better offense. I would like the Rockets to bring back Battier face guarding but knowing how nba players want to cheat the system, they'd just move their head forward to intentionally get smacked on the face for a foul. All that and I don't think he got benched for bad defense. The team just got hot and Coach rode the hot hand. That happens often in sports, only Harden would get jaded by that.
That's how he racks up the rebound numbers he has. Watch him run back from the logo to grab a free rebound when his teammates are trying to box opponents out.
Just sit back, relax, and smile. Alperen is inevitable. If it isn’t apparent by now, it will be soon. Resistance is futile and that’s what makes it so darn funny. Stop trying to win people over, let Alperen do it. Chillllllllll.
Sengun's a young white dude with solid fundamentals who doesn't jump very high. We in Houston like mean-looking, rim-running, shot-blocking big black athletic types.
If a coach can't take advantage of the fact that a player of his is double- and triple-teamed all the time, he's not a very good coach.
I don’t want to keep commenting on this but this are all explanations to what he might be thinking of Sengun, not why he hunts his bad games. That’s bad fandom and I don’t think anybody can convince me otherwise. Just don’t like the player and make valid criticisms and be happy if he gets better to disprove you. Chasing low games is not something I can have respect for or can be justified by opinions about the player.
Jabari if he bulks up in the next few years. Not quite to Anthony Davis size, but somewhere in between. Jabari and Sengun can play a tandem 4/5 depending on opponents. Sengun has a strong base. He should eventually be able to hold his own against the Jokić/Embid-type size/style. And on the ones who play primarily over the top, Jabari can help off the weak side. Sengun is not bad enough to have to eliminate man defense from the playbook. But team defense will help his relatively minor shortfalls on the defensive end.
I just re-read this post and I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to throw shade or demonize the people in this group that I've described. I do think there are a couple people of them with room temperature IQ but Clutch certainly aint one of em, and overall it's a totally reasonable stance. I think it's a normal part of fandom to have strong opinions on this kind of thing, it's part of caring about your team. A lot of OKC fans felt this way about Westbrook, and they were right. They knew the whole thing was a waste of time. I've heard similar things from Knicks fans who think it's a waste of time to go all in around a core "superstar" duo of Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson. Those guys are good, but they're just not good enough, and where do you go from there? But people also said the same thing about Jokic, and he won a title. And I'm sure we've all heard the most famous example of Barkley talking about Curry and "jump shooting teams" not being able to win. So who knows. So anyway, I was trying to be as objective as possible with the way I described it. As I said @Clutch can correct me if he wants to but I think he would agree with how I characterized his thoughts on the whole thing in my first post. I get it and I don't have any issue with it. Anyone who's on this site is a level above "we're winning games, lets gooo!!!!" type fans. We're all playing mini-gm to some extent because we have a vision for the future of the team and we want to win a championship. This is all part of that. I try to remind myself of this anytime someone gets described as a "hater" of some particular player. It all comes from a place of team-first fandom.
I am almost sure that is the case. It is the only thing that makes sense. He will be either gone via trade or benched after the deadline.
It is still true that Sengun could end up not being "good enough" to be option #1A on a contender--however, to not acknowledge that he is the closest among our current players is, I think, a bit specious. If he were 26 years old and hadn't gotten better in years that would be one thing, but at age 21, having improved every season so far and already showing flashes of superstar-level ability to take over games, I think we're to the point where we have to acknowledge the odds heavily favor him being the guy to build around.
Problem is that Sengun didn't have a bad performance. He was 6 for 12, 12 points, and was watching teammates chuck up crap for much of the game (Udoka didn't adjust one iota to get cold shooters cutting for easier looks). Had one of his better rebounding games. He wasn't ridded by TOs. Most of Thomas' buckets weren't pick and rolls where Sengun was getting burned, if you watched carefully his individual defense wasn't bad at all. And it cannot be stressed enough that Brooklynn shot itself in the foot with the myriad of missed FTs. The Rockets had plenty of open 3s early in the game that they missed, they happened to get hotter with the outside shooting in the 4th. He neither played a bad game last night, nor did he against Charlotte when he "only" had 11 points on 5 of 7 shooting with 7 boards and 6 rebounds sitting out the last 15 minutes of a blowout.
