Sending me 2 metrics with no further analysis or context is simply ineffective in proving your point. Rather foolish and shows your lack of understanding of analysis. Besides you sent defensive rating in the “clutch”. This argument you present me is nothing new. So if you have deeper analysis then present it because sending links to tired re hashed metrics is getting old. And whatever defensive rating says it does not show the fact that players are not afraid to drive on Sengun nor does it depict the succesw rate of players driving on him which I specifically talked about. Happy Holidays!
I'll give it a shot, I have a couple reasons that I don't think he's a bad defender anymore. The first one is you can look at the on/off numbers with our defense, in the first 3 years of his career the defense got worse when he stepped on the court, but in year 4 that's not true. In the first 3 years you could see that teams shot very well at the rim against us when he's on the court, in year 4 that's not true anymore either. In his first 3 years teams would target him on defense and score on us in bunches, in year 4 that's not true anymore. We see a lot of teams targeting him relentlessly and they can't score. Famously in the warriors game recently, you had a few of the anti-Sengun guys complaining on twitter how the warriors were "picking on Sengun" going at him over and over and over...and what was the result? They had their lowest points in any half this entire year (they had 37 at halftime), and they ended the game with 90 points. I think if you isolated against a poor defender over and over, you'd be able to score, and teams just aren't doing it. On top of all that I struggle with the logic of anyone on our starting 5 being a poor defender considering how good the result is. We have the second best defense in the league, and our starting 5 is an elite defensive unit, with an even better defensive rating than the team is a whole. How bad can any one of them possibly be? It's not like we have Sengun out there with 4 clones of Amen Thompson. He's out there with Fred, Jabari, Jalen, and Dillon. Unless you think those 4 guys are all-nba defenders, I just don't see how bad Sengun could really be. If he was so bad then teams would be able to score on us, like they used to in the last 3 years. But they can't. The improvement I've seen from Sengun is enormous, and I think he's a great defender now. And I think it's really hard to argue otherwise, considering the results.
That’s a respectable assessment. I still disagree. I never said he was terrible. I have said numerous times on this site that he has vastly improved. I also have said by nature of his physical traits that area is an inherent weakness. Some bad tendencies are still there as well. As I observed in games this year teams are still driving on Sengun with their 2 guards and 3’s with no fear straight into his chest. Take last night’s game in the first quarter. Pelicans started Herb Jones at C. Jones drove on Sengun twice into his chest scoring both times. One play on the break Jones was on the wing. Jones decided to drive. Sengun was in the paint but came out a little to establish himself. As Jones got into his dribble and hesitation moves Sengun backed up giving too much space. Jones easily slithered his way in getting position then rising up in Sengun’s chest for a layup as Sengun went straight up and down. In the first 8 min or so Jones, Murphy, and Murray attacked Sengun in the paint and all were successful. To Sengun’s credit I did see him successfully defending the paint on a few plays later in the 2nd and 3rd quarter going straight up and down. He has greatly improved in this area instead of fouling consistently as in years past. But the point is paint defense is still a weakness as he allows these 2s and 3s to go at him with no hesitation and successfully score. Whereas players turn around against an Embiid, Porzingis, or Gobert. Some of it isn’t his fault as he is naturally smaller in bulk, height, and wingspan than some of the premier Centers in the league. But it doesn’t preclude that this area is a weakness. The data I have seen is inconclusive. I would like to see opponents success rate in drives in the paint against him or iso scoring against him. I don’t have this data. All I have is paint data which shows he is among the leaders in allowing paint points. But this data usually does not distinguish from him having help defense or when defenses collapse on his player. Although the data it is promising. To your other point, the Rockets other 4 are very good 1-1 defenders. They play great help defense and swarm opponents going to the paint. I like how Sengun has improved his 1-1 defense and makes an effort to guard the perimeter. He also fouls less in the paint and really good with going straight up and down or challenging driving players layup. But my observation is teams are still not respecting him and this is an inherently weak area.
@harold bingo Encouraging numbers for Sengun. I flitered the data to include only starting centers with at least 28 min per game and have played at least 20 games for first 2 sets of data below. Other 3 sets of data i could only filter to starting centers and excluded the players NBA.com deems starting centers such as Kevin Love. The data isn’t clear because it doesn’t clearly explain what DFG% or opp FG% means. According to the website the equation for DFG% is: DFGM/DFGA But DFGA= The number of opponents shots attempted when a player or team is defending the shot DFGM= The number of opponents shots when a player or team is defending the shot So we don’t know if it only counts one on one situations with the player or also includes help defense. Just as in player Def ratings includes team defensive rating. Despite this the numbers for Sengun is still encouraging: Opp pts/game in paint allowed: 30 (8th) Less 6ft: DFG%: 55.8% (10th) RA%: 59.6% (3rd) behind Chet and Mobley Less 5ft FG%: 57.7% (4th) behind Holmgren Mobley Porzingis Paint Non RA%: 38.2% (3rd) behind Embiid and Chet
We need to close this thread...Amen will not a our Star on the team...will be a complimentary player for our team, which is great if he can be a Scottie Pippen type of player for us...Amen needs to continue to develop his offensive game, which we know will be the heavy focus going into his 3rd season.
I think Herro deeked him. If it's just Herro saying something "you a b**** dawg" or something he can take a gander at who ended up on the floor 20 feet away from the scrum. Ain't a damn person afraid of cornball looking ass Tyler Herro.
