Something is off here - is there 454 players with clutch stats in the league? Or is he comparing clutch time stats for Sengun to league-wide regular time averages? Because this is widely misleading and last I checked despite the volume he was close to league averages. Sengun has just been used too much in the clutch, except a couple games he’s been pretty good at clutch time actually.
in my mind Sengun has taken a big step forward this season. The problem is that the offense is sooooo focused around KD+Sengun Iso/PNR that it absolutely tanks any bit of synergy and flow out of the rest of the team.
Anyone else miss Alpi’s bounce pass under his legs on the screen instead of a handoff? I saw someone in the Dallas game do it and I couldn’t remember the last time he’s done it. He started either last season or the season before doing it a lot and then stopped. I am sure Ime hated it. Lol
We also rarely get the no looks or behind the backs from the post anymore. Granted that's because he's out of position or they send a double but still, make passing fun again.
lol! Clutch’s never ending Sengun fixation. He was having a great game against clippers, also the best +/- among 20+ min players, -9. Same for Sacramento. He was +3 with 12 for 17 shooting. Meanwhile Jabari logged -20 in both games with poor shooting. I mean he gad bad games and good games in the road trip but trying to correlate losses with his role while coaching issues and other player performances are there is something else.
I always said the haters come up with weird reasons to hate our star player and then start throwing out weird trade options that would hurt the team both short and long term. They always chirp after anything less than great performances coupled with Ws then pine for the days of Silas-led Jalen trash ball. Listen to the national media and the respect they give Sengun, not second rate wannabes.
@Clutch cherrypicking stats to bash Sengun. Gotta love it coming from the site owner. Honestly pathetic
He had great games vs the Kings and Pelicans. What the haters don't mention with the Pelicans game is while he was on the bench in the 4th, the Pelicans cut it from 21 to 16. Cute no biggie. Then, still on the bench they cut it to 12. Uh oh! 3 game minutes passed with Sengun standing at the scorer's table and the lead cut to 6. To the point that Ackerman yelled "They can't get Sengun in the game." By then it was too late. Sports can be cruel. Pelicans were confident and not missing. The masterclass against Denver, the win that the league did not allow, left out of the post.
There is always 'you can't win a championship with Sengun' last resort. With OKC, Wemby Spurs, and Jokic Nuggets, it is practically a miracle to win a title for teams like Rockets or Minnesota, who could have a legit chance if it weren't so loaded.
I do think that Sengun in the primary playmaker role is better than the primary scorer role. His scoring ability in the paint opens up a lot of options. He needs to figure out when to force the issue and when to set up his teammates. Coaching should also design plays that take advantage of his gravity inside.
Very true. The irony is Ime always resisted and rejected the idea of using him as a playmaker, until he was absolutely forced to. As much as a good coach he is, he just doesn't belong to this era of basketball imo.
Scoring and playmaking should go hand in hand. Look at Jokic, because of his passing he gets better opportunities to score inside and he ends up with a ton of assists AND a ton of efficient points. Not saying Sengun is Jokic. But the principle is the same. The ability to pass opens up your scoring and vice versa. Most great offensive players have both and that's why they are so difficult to stop.
Sengun has only had under 10 shot attempts in 3 games, so these very low shot attempt games are basically meaningless as a sample size. As far as games where he takes a ton of shot attempts, the biggest correlating factor is simply that he played more minutes in those games. Most of his highest-FGA games were overtime affairs. Other than that, I suspect if there is a correlation that means anything here, it's simply that our record sucks in close games so far this season. We are 3-6 in games decided by 5 or fewer points. Those tend to be the games the starters play the most minutes as well partly because we've gone into overtime (and blown it) so often, and partly because Ime of course tends to ride his starting group more in a game that's highly competitive.
It's not wrong, if you look deeper into it, Sengun takes middies. So when he takes 20+ shots the rockets are effectively scoring 2's at most. When Sengun takes less shots, the shots are being distributed to players like JSJ and Reed who are more likely to take 3's. The maths in advanced basketball is saying you can't rely on heavy dose of 2's anymore. Which is why we still lose when Sengun is balling out with 20+fga. I would prefer Sengun takes less shots and looks to create more for others. That's the recipe for us to win.
Your statement is not even true in the small sample you have. We shot 8 for 24 against the lakers. It is a bad efficiency and the number of shots is not even a lot because Sengun took less shots. and correlation (not that there is one) is not causation. You are making the causation with no evidence to support it. We could as well say, Sengun passes more when his teammates are making shots and he doesn’t have to insert himself in. Having said these, I think the rockets will take more 3s in the rest of the season and we are just seeing the beginning of a trend. It is independent of Sengun’s number of shots. More because ime can’t find advanced solutions to offensive problems and he is forced to shoot more 3s as a simplistic solution.
Or he prefers missed 3s to turnovers, because we turn the ball over when we try to move with the ball. Which is not a bad idea outright but not investing in Reed’s playmaking and decision making is very short sighted in my opinion.
