In DEFENSE of Alperen Sengun - Analysis on why Sengun may already be an above average defender

Your mom

 

Also, Ayton, Nurkic, Poeltl, Valanciunas, Zubac, Wendell Carter Jr., Vucevic, Looney, Plumlee, Damian Jones, Robinson-Earl, etc.

I assume you meant defensively - otherwise, the list would be a lot longer.

 

The advanced stats are so flawed. Just watch the games.. Sengun is one of the worst defenders at the 5 in the league. He offers nothing on that end and you can’t build around that. Too slow to switch or step up on screens, lacks length and explosiveness to protect the rim, fouls a lot, and doesn’t have good defensive instincts. Luckily he’s good on the other end

 

The advanced stats don't say Sengun is good at defense.

 

Maybe you're just sh.t at reading the plays man. Maybe your eye test sucks.
Like:

 

Since nobody is trying to do this I'm going to do the west starting Ca by defensive rep

Denver - Jokic, not great but clearly better on defense by any stat/eye test
Memphis - Adams, easily better.
Sac - Sabonis - ok finally someone arguably on par with Sengun
Phoenix - Ayton, easily better
LAC - Zubac, easily better
Minn - Rudy, haha.
Dallas - Powell? Easily better
NO- Valenciaunas, probably better? Bigger at least.
Warriors - Looney or Green - haha
OKC - other Jaylin Williams - don't know
Blazers - Nurkic - he's not good, but doesn't get overpowered by Nurkic, like Sengun does.
Jazz - Kessler ha
Lakers - Davis ha.
Spurs - don't know, used to be Poetl who was better.

That's the whole WC.

If Sengun is "above average" on defense why is he obviously worse on defense than nearly every starting C and in the very bottom tier of defenders with Sabonis and or Nurkic?

Sounds like "below average" to me.

 

They always try to pull some **** out their asses to prove his a decent defender. He’s one of the reasons why our D is awful

 

You gotta stop the bs. It’s a fact that he’s awful on defense. I know it’s hard for some of you to admit, I expect that

 

I can’t think of one thing he’s good at on defense, can you? You’d think with his “IQ” he’d be able to draw charges, but he doesn’t

 

lol two idiot circle jerk...maj21 and ScamFisher

 

Why do we have to be idiots when I comes to criticism of Sengun? Y’all need to stop acting like he doesn’t have flaws. I give him credit for his post game, but he’s awful on defense. He’s not alone, many others are as well

 

Every other thread says "trade Jalen Green" "Get of rid KPJ", "Fire Silas!!". But all Sengun threads are "Sengun is really good defense" lol. He's a horrible defender

 

I think Sengun is an average defender, maybe slightly better. I also don't think advanced defensive individual stats are much of use because a lot of good defense is positioning and moving correctly, stopping things before they happen and team work, which are not captured by defensive metrics. So, I looked at the details of defensive raptor (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-our-raptor-metric-works/) to see why box score raptor values Sengun's defense better than Giannis, Mobley, on par with Allen. The variables raptor uses are:

- Steals
- Offensive fouls drawn
- Opponent's field goals made and attempted
- Enhanced defensive rebounds
- Positional opponents' points scored
- Positional opponents' offensive rebounds
- Distance traveled for perimeter players
- Opponents' free throws made
- fast break turnovers
- Penalty fouls commited
- opponents' offensive rating

I am not sure if sengun is better than Giannis or Mobley in any of these categories. So how does he rank better than the two? Because the stat is additive, it has to distribute the production among players so that the total is team production. That means the worse your teammates are, the better your raptor is. And I think that is the main factor in Sengun getting the rating over Giannis and Mobley.

I had also looked at defensive box plus-minus before and my conclusion was the same. It is not very useful. When you go deep into the definition, you can see. And for both metrics, the people who introduce them are aware of the limitations of these metrics and explicitly say that.

And your reasoning (MOST (not all) the players you expect to be good defenders are on there.) to justify advanced defensive stats is also flawed. If I return every cancer test a positive result, I would identify all the cancer cases correctly. But the test would be terrible. Any reasonable metric would have good defenders there. The question is whether the ranking is good and which players are evaluated incorrectly. Sengun over Giannis or Mobley is wrong in my opinion.

 

Sengun fans are legit insane lol. He has potential to be an all star offensive player. However, defensively he’ll be food against any game planned offense. He’ll foul out by the third quarter. Imagine a team like the 2018 Rockets hunting Sengun on switches. Sengun is decent as a drop defender but he isn’t an elite rim protector so his offense has to be so great, ie Harden or Jokic, that it’ll offset his weaknesses defensively. He has that kind of offensive potential, but to claim he’s a good defender.. LMAO.

 

Alpe Sengun is 20 years old and in his 2nd year, averaging 15ppg, almost 9 boards (just over 3 offensive), 3.7 assists, shooting 56%, has a block and just under 1 steal per game in 28 minutes, which is pretty good, in my opinion. Yes, he needs to improve his defense, as do most of the young players that make up this Rockets team, and he needs to stop passing off when he has an open 3, but the kid is working on his game. When Sengun is on the court, overall the Rockets play better. Someone show me a stat when he's on and off the court that proves that isn't true.

This board seems obsessed with talking down our young players, or else pretending they are God's gift to basketball. There seems to be little "in between" among a lot of you. We are likely the youngest team in the NBA, with a lousy head coach, and a GM that apparently likes to poke his nose into the coach's business, when he should be paying attention to his own job.

Considering how screwed up our team is now, outside of the players, it might serve us well to cut those players some slack. They all deserve better than they are getting, from the coaching staff, the front office, and this board. In my humble opinion.

 

20 year old Jokic vs. 20 year old Sengun:

 

You are right. He leads the Rockets in all advanced stats easily and by far.

Offensive win shares, defensive win shares, overall win shares, offensive/defensive/overall box plus-minus, value over replacement player.



Same with RAPTOR stats:

 

I think 99% of C's don't learn how to anchor a defense until some point in their 3rd or 4th season so let's give him a chance. His explosiveness is definitely much better now than it was when he got here. I'm seeing more good flashes of defense from him these days. He will surprise us with his defensive production next season. He's only just beginning to understand some basic things about protecting the paint in the NBA. Getting rid of some bad habits. I don't agree with those who say he'll be as bad a perimeter defender as Jokic. I think he'll be much better at that than Jokic.

His offense is what's going to carry his career. He has to develop that 3pt shot to create spacing and draw out the opponent's pain protector, but otherwise his offensive game just needs experience. There's no better time than now for him to be attempting 3pters in a game, it's a good time to develop that skill and I'm glad I've been seeing him take 3's more often.

 

ah nice work detective...very informative! so you back to my eye test I guess? LOL

 

ah you gonna turn cfers into analytics haters breh... just like me..you can really prove anything using statistics