Alperen Sengun is the Rockets' REAL franchise player - all other threads are copycats

Also, if either Sengun or Sarr could develop a 3pt shot, I could see a lineup of;

C - Sengun
PF - Sarr
SF - Smith
SG - Green
PG - Amen

 

I think Alpi is well on his way to 35%. But if we are rolling with Amen and Alpi, I don’t want Sarr starting next to them anytime in the next 2-3 years.

We need 3 guys who can catch and shoot plus defend at a high level. 2 of the 3 probably need to create their own shot relatively well.

Smith certainly fits that profile. Eason and Cam round out what I believe is a pretty decent fit.

Sengun
Smith
Eason
Whitmore
Thompson

 

I was honestly responding to @DaDakota 's comment. I dont think anyone disagrees with your point about shooters. Basketball is a team game. Every piece must mesh with each other in perfect harmony for a team to win a championship. I think if we had good shooters, Sengun would have as much assists as 9 or 10. That's a sign of good harmony. However, Clutch and many others on this board think centers in the modern game of basketball today should be defensive anchors and rim protectors at the minimum. They think Sengun is not it. So, the argument here is whether Sengun is good enough to be the center for a championship caliber team with "good shooters" around him or not. I honestly dont care what anyone on this board thinks about that. That includes Clutch and DD. That being said, following over the years what the FO is doing, I think Rockets will eventually trade Sengun. That's my take.

 

I understand your point.

My point in response was that right now today it doesn’t matter one iota. Alpi is our only really good player. We have a couple ok players after that then trash - debate amongst yourself who is in what group.

so it’s a useless argument.

this team today is basically as close to completely starting over a rebuild as it is to finishing one.

any argument about whether you can build a championship type team around Sengun right now are beyond useless…. ESPECIALLY so when it’s an archetype argument - eg you’re not even arguing whether you can get a better center but a different type of center. Outside the best of the best if the best of those - which you’re not going to get and you failed to achieve lottery luck to get, or the one year you were in position to take such a player passed for effectively a bust of a pick (maybe JG has a long career but he’ll never come close to #2 pick hype expectations) - you’re just getting an actual worse player at that position just one more of an archetype that crowd likes.

so the concept of should we get a worse player at center but one that fits an archetype “I” (not me whomever thinks this way) I think is better is absolutely useless since the rest of the team sucks ass.

trading/replacing Sengun as an argument isn’t even about archetypes. It’s about the fact you sick so much and all your other prospects have meh value so to improve in any way you have to give to get.

That’s not MY preferred course of action. My preferred course is to package JG, Bari, one if Cam/Amen and picks to get a true star type payer to pair with Alpi, Tari, the remainder of Cam/Amen, FVV, DB and better additions around the edges and try and be a 4-8 seed a coupon years while you then try and trade your way up so to speak (see Denver Nuggets slowly improving the pieces around Jokic/Jamal).

This most probably still doesn’t result in a championship but the absolute worst position for a team to be in the nba is in the suck treadmill never catching up for 10+ years and I’m as a fan not doing another 5 years of compete **** ball.

regardless, you either build around Alpi or trade him cause you have no other assets and basically you trying to start over.

 

Agreed! Still, I think FO wants to trade him cause time is the essence for survival

 

Guess so, teams are drafting more by need.

 

To your post above, having a traditional rim protector....that would be more traditional thinking than modern NBA thinking.

Modern thinking would be everyone defends, everyone scores in balance.

Something the Denver Nuggets are doing......plus the MVP player.

 

He was causing Chaos helping and recovering, poked 2 balls that led to steals in the final 4 minutes.

 

He was good (especially in offensive rebounds ) except assisting. Only 2 assists, just 1 more than Cam. It is unacceptable but Ime does not mind.Even Jusuf had 5 assists in 17 minutes.

Alp-2 assists, Jabari-5 rebounds. Unbeliveably low numbers.

 

He was good defensively, and bad offensively. He needs to be way better than this.

 

Even on his average days, he impacts the games.. thats why he is our star....

 

I think conditioning is still a problem for him. He rarely has a great two-way game because when he puts a lot of effort into one end, he doesn't have enough left for the other. I'm hoping he'll be able to take his conditioning to the next level over the offseason and keep working on his shooting--if he can take the next step in both of those areas I think he'll be an all-star pretty easily next year.

 

There’s a ton of potential to his game but he has some major holes he needs to patch to become the player he hopes to be and many of us want him to be. Shooting with a quicker and more consistent release, protecting the ball (as opposed to getting stripped more and more of late), conditioning, and playing through fouls (or what he thinks is a foul).

 

He always plays way way better when he blitzes/hard hedges.

keeps him engaged, active, requires less thinking … and beyond all that he’s just way better at it than drop. Unclear why it isn’t what they do AT LEAST 50% of the time.

 

Loved his defensive effort tonight.

 

Agreed. And lately, when he does have great two way games, it's usually because the other team has a walking triple single out there at center. Guys who are not an offensive threat whatsoever, so he can pick his spots to rest. Like Drew Eubanks last night, for example. And this didn't seem to be an issue for him earlier in the season, he had some of his best two way games early on against Jokic and Valanciunas, Sabonis, even Anthony Davis. I'm hopeful that he can improve on this. Everything he's shown us so far says that he will.

 

First his back has to heal.

 

Something he has to do to clear the next level. That's the biggest and my only concern. The great ones manage to be great 76 games and struggle for 6 against the Super Sonics.

 

Sengunyama