Season is basically over so some thoughts on Sengun. He's a much improved defender, specifically at PoA. Sometimes teams pick on him with lob passes but it's not as prevalent as previous seasons. He's a decent rim deterrent. Overall not a plus defender but not a minus one either. Offensively he's a mess right now. Reminds me of that old Simpsons bit with Mr.Burns where he has 3 Stooges Syndrome. Seems like all of the things hes trying to be are trying to get through the door at the same time and none actually do. Worse shooter. Worse at the rim. Worse playmaker. Worse at posting up. Same at FTs. Worse at 3s. He's serviceable enough but unless he gets drastically better at many of those things, he's going to be traded after or during next season. Like Jalen, the playoffs are going to be make or break for him. If he puts up some good performances and some bad ones, can live with that. If he gets played off the floor throughout the series, its going to be a long long offseason. He's not exactly clunky like Scottie Barnes....but hes not Cade Cunningham either. Like Jokic and Giannis before him, he needs to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that his limitations won't hinder him. They have far too much this season.
I think you're being overcritical due to his recent struggles. He looks like someone who's being asked to play too much defense and he's getting out of whack on offense. To me this is not a long term issue, because his offensive skillset shown since his rookie year is very impressive. At worst, I feel you just ask him to take it easy a bit on defense so he gets back to his more efficient shooting days of the past. Or perhaps the Rockets can try to get someone like Myles Turner who can space the floor and pick up some of that rim protection slack. Similar to how they wanted to with Lopez two years ago. I am disappointed that he still hasn't extended his range nor improved his FTs. Again, I feel this is more just due to him being worked on for defense than his inherent shortcomings. Now, if he's still this efficient for an entire season next year, that would be a different story IMO.
It's wild that he has made some of the best Defensive centers look like melted butter this season, Evan Mobley, Jarret Allen 2x, The Eiffel goober, Zubac triple doubles, JJJ + Edney, Keller, Wendell Carter, Miles Turner, Mirrored Sabonis yet people overreact to him missing 48% of his FGAs. The sneaky borderline MMA style of defending by Adebayo and Isiaah is one that he has never leveraged. Warriors do what the Warriors have been doing to bigs since 2006. Philly had to start a SG at Center and Lakers forced to Front. That's up to the staff to figure it out. 2007 they avoided the fronts with the constant cutting. Boston had to switch to two centers to stop Sengun which I love because it provided ammunition for Ime to try it out himself. The Duren match ups. Sengun outclassed him twice last year. They only played once, where Duren got his revenge at 12 pm on MLK day which is a curse for Rockets bball. 12 pm? we couldn't play at 8 am.
Every night, they are literally trying to put him on an opponent that isn't an offensive threat and isn't likely to be involved in pick and roll. He's been at his best when he can ignore his man and play help defense instead. Not sure how that's being asked to do too much. All you have to do is to look at the players that he's spent the most time guarding. Udoka is trying to keep him out of situations where opponents can take advantage of his lack of foot speed. Opponents will try to force him into those same situations. Whoever is more successful will go along way towards determining how we perform in the playoffs.
"Alpi has the match up advantage on most nights" Ime on MT show on Sengun playing against the better bigs and knowing when to play through him and Jalen. Oh and the better ones are in their mid to late 20s.
I literally just said the same thing in the game thread. Forget baby Jokic, he's a top-tier future best power forward in the league if we get the right center beside him. Anybody even trying any Sengun slander needs to sit on it right now, dude looked like a superstar out there tonight.
In this smaller NBA, I’ve never seen Alpi as anything but a center since he was drafted. However, the double big lineup is flashing me back to a different time, when bruisers laid waste to the paint and every rebound was a dogfight. At power forward, Alpi immediately becomes one of the biggest and strongest in the game today, not to mention the most skilled. He can stretch the floor to an extent and is a passing savant. Maybe it really could work, at least sometimes. I am really impressed.
this I've said for years he just a big manu Ginobili. I mean did you see that behind back move he put on Caruso tonight. That was vintage Ginobili.
Mercurial, creative, and eminently entertaining. They don't play alike, per-se, but the vibe is totally the same. Glad that Alpi is having fun and being himself on the court again. Using him as a boring post-up guy is absolutely not ok when he is a top 2 most skilled big in this league.
