Also, we don't pronounce his last name that way so it is a stretch regardless. To keep the football analogy going, time to huddle up and get a new play call, err, nominee.
The phonetic pronunciation used by the NBA is (e.g. The English pronunciation): AL-peh-ren SHEN-goon However, the Turkish phonetic pronunciation is: HL-peh-ren SHEN-gyoon per ChatGPT so... So yea, definitely not "GUN". If they adopt "TGUN", nobody outside of Turkey or Houston will ever pronounce Alp's name correctly even again. lol
rather than start a new thread, here's more from The Athletic: Where do the Rockets stand? “You watching the Cavs’ game with the Rockets?” That was a text from my dad during the first quarter of Houston vs. Cleveland last night. About 45 minutes later, he revised his question. “Should have asked if you were watching the Rockets!” The Rockets (10-3) have definitely garnered plenty of attention over the last year or two. They controlled the Cavs (10-6) for most of their 114-104 victory, holding off a 19-point Donovan Mitchell fourth quarter. Alperen Şengün had 28 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. Kevin Durant had 20 points. Aaron Holiday put in 18 off the bench. Stars were good. Role players were helpful. Opponents were hammered on the offensive boards. On the broadcast, Doris Burke said the Rockets shouldn’t be mentioned with the Thunder and Nuggets at the top of the Western Conference just yet — a grouping the Rockets hoped to be part of prior to the season. But losing Fred VanVleet to a knee injury before it started hurt those chances quite a bit. Even without FVV, should the Rockets be considered in that top class in the West? The Rockets are currently a half-game behind the 11-3 Nuggets. And the Rockets have a better net rating than every team not named the Thunder. Houston had the 13th most efficient offense a year ago. But it couldn’t shoot (23rd in eFG) and it was mostly predicated on not turning the ball over (sixth) and offensive rebounding (first) keeping possessions alive. That’s not the case anymore. The Rockets now have the best offense in the NBA. They’ve jumped to eighth in effective field goal percentage and to sixth in free-throw volume (from 26th!). They’re playing slower. They’re more methodical. And they’re executing on this end of the court instead of just playing a chaotic game of tip-in drills. The Rockets are the top 3-point shooting team in terms of accuracy, making 42.3 percent of their attempts. But this team has the lowest volume of 3-point attempts. So they’re making the most of the few 3-pointers they put up. They’re just bullying everybody on the boards and making life hell for the interior of every opponent. The entire Rockets team outside of Amen Thompson has delivered on outside shooting. They seem to have a great balance of bully ball and offensive execution. So why wouldn’t they be up there with OKC and Denver when their results are similar to both? The Rockets haven’t slipped much on defense. They were fifth last season and currently sit seventh in the league — giving up a little over a point per 100 possessions in comparison. The difference between Houston and the OKC-Denver contingent early in this season just seems to be recency bias. The Rockets haven’t won a title in decades. Durant hasn’t won one in seven years. And the Nuggets and Thunder took two of the last three. If the Rockets aren’t there right now, they’re definitely not far from it. Their results show they should be in that conversation.
