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

Can you imagine If Alperen makes another leap? Or two more leaps? Instead of 30% from three and 70% from the line, what If he climbs to 35% from three and 80% from the line? The Dream fadeaway last night... The threes... The shiftiness/quickness of the handle combined with the strength. My goodness... He is a good player now, but can you imagine If he found regularity on all of those things at the same time?

Can even his biggest deniers deny that he could average something like 27-10-6 with relative ease, for 10+ years? We are at 21-9-5 right now, and it just feels like he has so much more to optimize and perfect.

Okay, one last thing. On the JJ Redick podcast, Alperen mentioned that he did not want to take 5+ threes a game. This bothers me, and I really hope that Udoka changes his way of thinking. He needs to be a "complete player" to consistently handle all the great bigs in the NBA, and I think that includes around 5 threes a game. It would unlock the bully parts of his game that are so special, and it would allow him to abuse some of those big bruiser centers like Valanciunas. This is not just about Alperen. The ROCKETS would greatly benefit from having more floor space too, namely Amen/Cam/JG... Would make it easier for Alperen as a passer If his man was not dropped off in the paint.

 

Wemby is a great defender but his mistake in most of those plays is he isn't able to use his length as effectively when he is standing out of position - especially under the hoop where Alpi is able to go into his body before going up - this matchup exposed Wemby's strength and Sengun knows how to take advantage of that. The Spurs probably should have sent help MUCH sooner on Sengun but he was getting the ball so deep in the paint, Wemby was already cooked the moment Sengun got it.

To me, I think what this game really highlighted is, Sengun is really effective when he can use his body to outmuscle his opponent so maybe that's a reason to have him playing 4s more or doing more things that get him on mismatches....but in order to get him "on an island" with a smaller opponent, you have to surround him with shooters otherwise the help can and will be there and teams won't be hurt as much by sending help. I think the other recent observation is Sengun doesn't seem quite as effective against larger players - true centers. To me that says, we would really benefit from that rim protecting center who can take the bad matchups from Sengun....but they HAVE to be able to shoot and be able to space to give you the ability to put Sengun on an island with a player offensively. It's like we need a Al Horford a few years ago, a healthy Kristpaps or Anthony Daiv, a Brook Lopez(the one who got away!!!), or maybe a Myles Turner.....and I think really this is the point I keep bringing up around building around Sengun - he requires a very specific set of players around him to let him be his best and those players are harder to come by so either you find the handful of players who can band gown low AND have good enough shots to open the floor up OR Sengun needs to put muscle on AND he needs to find more range as well.

 

dude needs to send Zach Collins a Christmas card for giving him so many career highlights.

 

But Lob threats, rim runners, rim protectors, lions, tigers and bears oh my!

 

Who saw Alpi muscle up to Wemby. After the game, Alpy made Wemby feel like a player after a football game.