Gobert, Diaw, Batum, Petro, and Pietrus are just some French guys that have played in the NBA. Historically, France has put 47 players in the NBA, second only to Canada (62) for international representation. If you're talking international ball, the Rockets have had the best NBA players from Nigeria, China, Turkey, Venezuela (Herrera), Switzerland (both Capela and Sefalosha, the only two ever in the NBA), Israel (Omri Casspi), and Brazil (Nene). However, if Oscar Schmidt had ever played, Nene would be second.
Growth is logarithmic not linear which is to say the amount of effort and time that goes into getting even 1% better when you are really good is significantly higher than getting 1% better as a mediocre player - it's no different than people who go through big weight loss changes and find it significantly more difficult to work off the last few pounds. Stats wise, their numbers for the the first years as being a featured offensive player are nearly identical - Sengun took more shots on slightly lower efficiency and Sabonis was a better rebounder. I chuckle at how many people seem to lack familiarity with Sabonis yet dismiss the Sengun comparison when they are VERY similar - crafty offensive players with high level bball IQ and great passing skills. I would argue Sengun is good but Sabonis is still quite a bit better than him at a number of relatively subtle things at basketball that make him a more effective player on the court that go beyond counting stats and any decent scout would back me up on that. The problem is those things go largely unnoticed by the average fan who wouldn’t necessarily see how the subtle positioning of a big around the screen(where they are in relation to the two players they are covering, how their feet are positioned, where their hips are pointing, how 'big' they make their body) in a show and recover scheme can make a huge difference between a successful action vs one that starts a chain of events that leads to a quality shot(that may not actually go in). It’s part of the craft of basketball. It’s why some guys seem to get a lot of tipped balls or force awkward passes in the same defensive scenario despite another player seemingly executing the same strategy don’t and still other players the opposing team just gives up and tries to remove said player from the action altogether-think vintage Kawhi where the opposing team just said if Kawhi is on you, just go the furthest spot from our play action. That said, I don't have concerns that Sengun will be on Sabonis' level if not a little better which is a guy who makes a couple of all star games. My concern is really that - he will very likely just be another Sabonis and I wouldn't necessarily build around Sabonis if I were building a team.
I get where you are coming from with Sengun - I agree to an extent re Sengun-I think he is going to be really good and potentially even a little better than Sabonis but not as good as Jokic. Maybe a top 20-25 guy in the league but the problem is in the playoffs you play all the top 20 guy teams. I think the type of switchy 3 and d guy you refer to is at a premium in the league and that’s my concern with Sengun that in order to set the table around him you need to be able retain like 5 fairly expensive players to build a rotation. It looks okay now because we got those guys on rookie deals - but you can’t pay Jabari, Amen, Tari, Brooks, etc and not be deep into the luxury tax. THAT is the hidden cost of building around a player with Sengun’s types of limitations that most on this board are not considering. It’s not the next step - it’s the steps a few years from now when Sengun is at his peak and we are struggling to put a roster together that creates enough space for him to excel AND gives enough defensive flexibility to scheme Sengun out of disadvantage situations against quicker guards. People will blame Stone for not being able to solve an impossible situation of how you construct a roster of role players around Sengun when the archetype you need IS the most expensive type of role player. That’s why Boston is able to have the roster it does because their two best players are good enough at everything that they don’t take anything off the table that you need to fill with another player so you can play role players like Hauser or Horford and not break the bank but don’t create problems that other teams can easily exploit because the other 4 guys mostly can scheme themselves out of troublesome matchups. That becomes harder the more weak links you have on the court offensive or defensively.
My bad. Still think Sarr is being overrated because of recency bias regarding Wemby. If the Rockets get him, I hope he’s great.
Agreed. But it feels more likely that we'll be trading #3 with assets rather than picking at #3. Hope I'm wrong.
You act like nobody knew about the kid before this year. lol. People have been following him for at least the past 3 years. He's a 7-footer that plays perimeter defense and has great help/weakside defense with a body that has room to bulk up. In this draft, he's near the top simply because this draft doesn't have too many players considered elite-ceiling talents like other drafts. He could end up a bust just like damn-near everybody else near the top, but him being #1 isn't really overrating him to me. If someone else has him at #3 or #4, that'd be fine, too. It's all just relative to this draft's other talent since there is no unanimous "best player".
I thought about him before I didn't. There's this other guy from Greece who is pretty good. Tall fellow. Freakish even.
Weird. I don't think of him as Rudy Gobert at all. You put Gobert on an island, and he's screwed. You put Sarr out on an island, and there's definite hope because he can move his feet and defend on the perimeter. Sarr's presence in the post isn't at a Gobert level, either. Can't wait to see Edey unleash his outside shooting and 3pt "rain" on the NBA!
It wasn't until Sabonis' fourth season that he started playing over 30 minutes per game and became a "featured " player as you stated. Sengun is going into his fourth season next year. Lets wait and see how they compare. We can compare them again when Sengun is 28 like Sabonis is now and see who was better.
Not to argue semantics, but if you see Sengun as being on the level of Sabonis or better, and Sabonis is an All NBA guy, by definition that's top 15. Sabonis might have been closer to 10 than 15 too. At some point, if you have a guy that's this good, I think you just roll the dice and see what happens. In the last 20+ years of Rockets basketball, there have been 4 (maybe 5) guys on the team who hit that level. And we've been luckier (better?) than most franchises. If you want to just wait for another guy to hit (or exceed) that, then you might be waiting a while. Now some people might not be so optimistic about Sengun. If he's more like a top 30-50 guy, then maybe the calculus is different. But I think if the assessment is that he's likely to hit All NBA status, you pretty much have to build around him long term. I think *every* team will need to fill out their roster with 3 and D guys, so I'm not sure if building around Sengun is necessarily that much more expensive than most team plans. You're likely going to need 2+ (super)max guys, 1-2 20-30M guys, and probably a ~10M guy on a deal of a contract at least. I guess this is also where I say I'm not as down on Sengun defensively as others. I think he does need plus defenders around him (though I guess most championship teams need that), but if given that, I think he's probably good enough to be on a top 10 defense (with decent rim defense)... like he did this past season. He does have big issues, but honestly to me it seems most of it is effort/focus related. I still think of moments like that IST game against NOP where he was scrambling like crazy on defense, but then there were games in December or January where he was just standing around at times. Perhaps it's telling that Ime and Sengun seem to be prioritizing strength, conditioning, etc over shooting (and shooting is super important for him). I do debate on whether it's possible for Sengun to do his thing on offense and still be good enough on defense. I think a Harden or Luka can slack off on defense more than a center can (though *no one* can slack off in deep playoff runs). I'm hopeful his increased conditioning will allow for that and minimize the things we saw last season, but maybe that's not possible. I'll be keeping an eye on that this next season (and hopefully I can see how he does in the playoffs). Unless you're Wemby or probably Chet (maybe healthy Porzingis?), you might have a similar-ish problem "overpaying" a center with weaknesses anyway. Except these weaknesses would be on offense instead of defense (and some defensive centers might still have defensive weaknesses). I have a hot take that these high end defensive big men that don't really offer much offensively are kinda overrated. You might have to give that kind of player a max (or very close to it) just like Sengun anyway, so I might argue you'd get better value building around Sengun. As for roster management long term, I think that will be tricky. I'm not going to pretend it's likely all these guys will stick around long term. But I will say that a lot of these guys still have a couple of years on their rookie deals left, and I suppose you could push most of them to RFA. That pretty much guarantees you're never overpaying any of them during that initial extension. Given how RFA typically works, you might even get a decent discount (see Austin Reaves). It will be very expensive, but if the team has success, maybe it's worth it. Oh you threw out Brooks, but I'm not super worried about his contract long term (especially with rising cap and his annual value declining). Not that it was a great deal IMO, but I think by the time most of the young guys get into their next contracts, that deal will either be done or nearly done. I guess the argument is that we'd have to pay the same amount for a similar type of player, but I think the Rockets clearly overpaid Brooks (by a lot) just so he'd be fine rebuilding the culture here vs signing for a cheaper deal with a contender. I'd think if the team was in contention (with at least one top 10-15 player), you can probably get a Dillon Brooks for cheaper than his current deal. You probably also need a lot of luck in roster management too. Boston did a great job, but I also think they got really lucky with some of their deals (especially the Jrue and Porzingis). That's the value of always being flexible and having options so that you can pounce on deals like that. Lucky for sure, but if you don't do things properly before those deals, you don't even get to do them. Stone will have to be ready for that (and wasting FRPs and other assets don't give me a ton of hope so far). Oh and of course if others in the core just explode in their development, maybe that changes things too. If Jalen turns those March numbers into season numbers, then maybe you think about building more around him. If Amen starts hitting 3s at 36% and doing everything else we think he can do, then maybe you focus on him. If the Rockets draft Reed, and he's immediately putting Curry and Nash to shame...well you get the picture. I single out Sengun since he's furthest along IMO, but I'm just going with the best chance of having a top 10-15 guy. I'm not too picky as long as that guy is on the roster somewhere. ----------------------------------------------- Sorry I was super busy today, and I wrote part of this in chunks. It ended up being way more disorganized and full of rambling than my usual posts (which are already highly disorganized and full of rambling). Apologize for that, but hopefully my main points come across somehow.
