We underrate Yao, really. Health slowed him down. Same advanced stats used for Sengun says "per-minute", Yao is a top 40 impact player all time. Numbers wise, even other Hall of Famer Rudy T was putting up 24/9/3 in his peak. It is a credit for Sengun at 21 to get these comps and numbers. Still he needs All Star selections, longevity, and deep playoff runs to elevate his ranking.
Also if Sengun was chinese, there was no way the nba would let the rockets and silas treat him as he did. And rockets wouldn't anyway just for the sake of marketing.
You could make an argument that he is the Most Important Big as without Moses, the Dream (Most Valuable Big) we know may not have appeared in his ultimate form.
If Sengun would have had Rudy T. as his first coach followed by Van Gundy in his second year, I feel comfortable saying he would be way ahead of Yao in year 3. Silas was terrible and actively worked to keep Sengun down. I think Sengun will easily surpass Yao on the list of Rockets great big men. Hayes, Moses, and Hakeem will be much tougher to pass. I doubt he ever reaches Hakeem's level (who I think is GOAT for all the NBA for his impact on both ends of the court) but I do think he has a real chance to supplant Hayes & Malone as a solid #2.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fully behind Sengun and want him to be an all-star every year from now until he retires, but that's all hope until it happens. Right now, as things stand, we can't say he's "just behind" Yao, because Yao has actually achieved those accolades. Everybody's numbers from Yao's time are lower than modern players for the most part, the game's changed. Yao was literally a top 2-3 center in the league for pretty much his entire career, I really truly hope Sengun gets there too, but we need to stop disrespecting our actual legends in favour of our potential future ones in all seriousness.
Don't be silly, everybody knows it's a conspiracy against Sengun and Sengun only and the entire last 2 years were designed just to keep him down. Because racism apparently (by a league predominately made up of people who've experienced more extreme actual racism than most groups in the last 150 years.)
It's not disrespect. Chinese voters helped him massively in his first couple of seasons that's a fact. Turks are doing the same for Sengun but their population 1/20th of China i think so it might not work and honestly i will not going to act like early Yao was better than current Sengun because he became an all star. He was averaging 13 ppg and got selected. Yao became an elite center later on yes but i still don't think prime Yao was tiers above this version Sengun. Yao was top 3 center itl i agree with you but you can make a case for Sengun being the 6th best center right now. Jokic, Embiid, AD, Bam, Kat and Sengun. I legitimately think that he is better than Sabonis skillwise. I think we are still underrating Sengun. This kid completely dominated Sabonis twice, got Jonas fouled out twice. Held his own against AD, put him in foul trouble, ran through Chet, outplayed Jokic, outplayed Turner also put him in foul trouble. Am i going to act like he isn't borderline elite rn because he isn't all nba or 5 time all star? Hell no. Sabonis is a 3 time all star but i'll take x1 all star Brook Lopez over him any day of the week. What i'm saying is the actual gap bw Yao and Sengun isn't 8 all star selections.
I do not think it was race related but there is no denying that idiot Silas had a bias against Sengun. I am glad he is destroying Detroit now helping them set futility records. .
Ok, forget the all star selections/popularity contest. He's still an All rookie team and 5 all-nba team selections away, that's not "just behind." It's flat out disrespect. It's not as disrespectful as the people saying wild stuff like he's the second best big man in our history when we literally have Moses Malone in our history. It's absolute lunacy. Sengun is awesome, and I think he'll start getting the popularity votes too sooner rather than later because his personality is in some ways even more appealing than his game. But let's cut the hyperbolic bullshit and let him grow into those achievements rather than downplaying the careers of literal all-time greats to prop up somebody who hasn't had an all-anything selection yet.
Show me the 'athletic scrub X should start over Yao' article and then we are talking about things in the same stratosphere. I am sure there was a similar thing with Yao as well and he was at a disadvantage but I am also sure it was nothing like what happened with Sengun.
If you apply your methodology of making posters with an extreme take a prototype of a group, then you could as well do it with any group here. The guys with racist arguments were not many and I don't think they are even here anymore, even if there are some, I am sure they will not be here to stay. Yet, it is convenient to use them as examples and ignore that Sengun was not treated fairly or correctly. The arguments of Silas being a racist and Silas treating Sengun fairly are equally dumb. But you are only bothered by the first take and sof. Silas was not a racist, but it is ironic to show this kind of bias when you are making fun of the racist arguments.
Well Charles Barkley had to kiss an ass on TV because he lost a bet to Kenny Smith that Yao could never score more than 20 points. Some people in the media, including former players thought the Rockets wasted the #1 pick for a slow footed 7'6 dude from China.
Here's what you said, quoting you AGAIN!!!! "after Hakeem, Sengun is THE most dominant big player in Rockets history". THOSE ARE YOUR WORDS NOT MINE!!! You can't even remember what you wrote??
Yeah, misevaluation of bigs skills and discrimination against the otherwise talented is not a new thing . With sengun what surprised me most, his footwork, body control, vision and passing was so good for his age that I wouldn't expect him to go through the same type of stuff. To the contrary he got the most of it, ironically by the team who traded up to get him.
And yet you don't know who Moses Malone is because if you did you wouldn't be spewing that Sengun is the 2nd greatest big man behind Hakeem.
It's obviously way too early to say anything like that. But let's hope he gets there. Let's check again in 10 years at the earliest .
Don't be silly compare their careers, Sengun's the GOAT! Moses Malone: 1x ABA All Star 12 x NBA All Star 3 X NBA MVP 1 X NBA Finals MVP NBA Champion 4 x All NBA First team 4 x All NBA Second team 1 x All NBA Defensive first team 1 x All NBA Defensive second team ABA All Rookie Team 6 X Rebounding Champion NBA 50th and 75th anniversary team All time ABA team First ballot Hall of Famer Jersey retired by 2 organisations. Alperen Sengun: Quarter of a season of star level production How racist can you be to not realise Sengun is the second coming of Dream and the top player in the league?
It's not racism and it's not a conspiracy, Silas was just a dumbass and a bad coach. He was singularly focused on playing one style of basketball regardless of his personnel. He wanted to play with ball dominant guards who either isolate on the perimeter or run high pick and roll. Basically the style of ball we played with Harden/Capela for years. Or the style he played with Luka when he coached the offense in Dallas. It was either 5 out small ball with a spaced floor, or 4 shooters plus a rim running center who could set good screens, catch lobs, and protect the rim. That was it, that was the only style of basketball Silas had any intention of playing. I truly believe if you were able to put year 3 Jokic in a time machine and put him on last years rockets, Silas would have had the usual suspects convinced that he sucks. He would've been benched because he can't play defense and can't catch lobs from the head honcho. Rocketchamp would be posting that Jokic is worse than Bruno Fernando. It's not racism, it's not a conspiracy, it's coaching ineptitude.
