The Athletic: Bruno Fernando Will Start Over Sengun When He Returns

Sengun's play is getting better and better all over. I think people put too much focus on whether he starts or not. It's clear that he can be the focal point of an offense but that ability makes him even more valuable when you don't have both KPJ & Green on the floor. I'd rather see Bruno with the starters than see Bruno with the 2nd unit.

Too many people take Sengun not starting as a slight when in reality it's more of a slight against Bruno. In a developmental year it makes sense to give Bruno run with the starters and see if the flashes they saw from him are real or just was a fluke. Right now there isn't much to judge Bruno on so I think it makes sense to give him a chance, but without cutting Sengun's minutes. Garuba has played well so it's unfortunate his minutes will go down in the short run.

Overall, the Rockets are lucky to have some options at center considering the last time they had a center it was Clint Capela who was really just a lob threat and rim protector.

 

I do not care if he starts. But I want him to finish games. Which he doesn't get to. I care if he gets over 30 minutes. He is Currently one of our two best players. And one of our 3 best prospects. He needs minutes and clutch time.

That being said I do want him to develop chemistry with the other 2 top prospects (Green and Smith). So he needs to share the court with those two.

 

I can't understand how Garuba can play excellent defense and drain 80% of his 3's on a hot streak and then lose his place in the rotation to a guy who basically hasn't played this season and has never in his 4-year career had a better 17-game run than Garuba is having right now.

If I'm that player, I'm going to that coach and telling him he's full of sh*t about earning playing time. That's your coach sh*tting on someone's morale and communicating to the team it doesn't matter what you do on the court, he's just going with his gut.

If there are not enough shots in the starting line up, Garuba should start over Sengun. If that's not an issue, Sengun should start. There's no argument for Bruno until one of the other two has a streak of bad games. Silas wants to start Bruno so badly, but it just looks awful to do that right now.

Further, if you're doing this to suit the other playmakers, then do it to suit Green and not just KPJ. Garuba is the best floor spacer of the bunch right now, how can that NOT suit Green and KPJ who we want to see attack the rim more than anything?

I have to say, this is a baffling choice by the coaching staff if it's what they're planning. Like who cares if we win a bit more and KPJ averages 1 more assist? It's not helping anyone else, especially not the highest value prospects in Jabari and Green. We're paying Garuba as much guaranteed money this season as the entire 4 years of Bruno's contract. More for Sengun. How is there any logic in this decision?

I hope Garuba and Sengun have done enough to make Silas feel silly about this decision. Give the younger guys what they've earned, and definitely give them a chance to show out now that the schedule is about to get much easier.

 

i sound like a broken record but as soon as we embrace Sengun as iniatitor on offense via the high post is when we will really see progression.

 

Since his career night in Dallas - Usman Garuba has made 4 field goals in 4 games/74 minutes - total.

 

I want to point out that the Kanter discussion was on Rox watch, you guys brought it here. I only told you what was discussed for clarity.

please keep politics out of the GARM, there is a debate and discussion area for that.

if you are sensitive about the comparison to Kanter that is your problem, it was a simple basketball comparison as they are both from Turkey and highly skilled.

We are not going to modify our bball discussion because some of you are butthurt about politics, don’t come here and demand a change because it makes you uncomfortable. Ignore it.

DD

 

Kanter was more than decent offensively he was better offensively than Sengun just not anywhere near the playmaker.

If he was only decent offensively, he would not have gotten any minutes because he was so bad defensively.

The fact that you cannot even admit they are similar offensively really says a lot about you and your allies.

 

Why should anyone in here care that Kanter talk would offend Turkish fans?

The Turkish fans here can talk **** about KPJ all day every day, should we American fans be offended?

Nobody in here should care if Kanter or Alpi are Turkish or not this should all be about basketball which as we now see is just as much political as basketball to you.

Turkish fans don't have some right to not be offended this place offends everybody at some point, but you think you should be immune from things that you offend you?

Who the heck do you think you are?

 

LOL.

The entitlement of some of you guys.

If you did that your ass would be at the end of bench because at the end of the day you are a fringe NBA player on a lottery team and you think you can just go to a coach and tell him he is full of ****?

 

Honestly this. You can watch many teams run high post offense, or post split offense throughout the game and have a high success rate. You also see teams running it with much less skilled players than Sengun. I think it was DD that posted in another thread about players needing to change to match Sengun's skillset and that may not be the best avenue to success. KPJ, Green, and Jabari would all benefit from high post and split post offenses. Their skill sets match these offenses. Silas hasn't shown much creativity outside of PnR offenses. He hasn't adapted to his players, and although these last few games are improvements, the offense still breaks down into iso stepbacks way too often.

 

I believe the entire team would benefit moving off the ball with Sengun initiating - I think that should be our main offense.......

I don't think the ORG believes that though.

DD

 

I agree except i think this is specific to Silas not necessarily the org. If we keep Silas past this year, you're spot on. If Silas is let go, I think who the next hire is will tell a lot about what the org thinks of these young guys.

 

This is Bruno's 5th season in the league. What does he has that has not been seen? He's an athletic bruiser who can give you 10 minutes a game as a backup. I see him as a Tarik Black kind of guy. He is not going to be a starter on a good team. Why do we need to entertain the possibility that he can be the starting center of our future?

 

I actually don't care who initiates the offense but would love to see more back door cuts or weak side screens to the basket. We do some off ball screens for players (Matthews, Jabari...) but mostly away from the basket for threes. Would love to see more movement towards the basket for easy buckets or fouls.

BTW you can have that offensive play style with KPJ at your helm you just have to insist on execution and hold players accountable when they don't.

 

Once again, YOU were the first one talking about Kanter's politics, using the same twisted logic that Kanter and Sengun are comparable because they are Turkish to conclude that when I criticize the comparison it must be because of his politics, because I am Turkish(again another assumption) and I am bothered by Kanter's fight with Erdogan(another assumption).

I am not sensitive to Kanter comparison. If it is a bad comparison, I say it is a bad comparison. And that is exactly what I did. You are the one obsessed about the political aspect.

Please keep politics and assigning political views to the posters you know nothing about out of this forum.

 

Ahhhhhh....we have reached agreement......feels good !

No problemo!

And I do think Kanter and Sengun are comparable, both are centers, both are low post guys, both are 6'11" and both are from Turkey - that alone makes them comparable....it is ok if you disagree though....

DD

 

I don't know if thats a good comp, Tarik Black was more of a ground bound post dude, Bruno is actually pretty athletic player.

Again he's the only real lob threat big man, it does make a difference, it seems easier for the Rockets guards than them trying to thread the needle through traffic to the other guys - but anyway I don't think he's going to play more than 15 min a game anyway.

Plus the Rockets need to train with an above the rim player a bit this year. After we get Victor, all the existing big men's days are numbered anyway.

People like to argue a lot about playing time, but between injuries and rest etc there's really only 2.25 healthy guys for 2 spots anyway - all of the histrionics about Bruno starting in this thread added up to far more time than he's been healthy for, Sengun misses games, gets into foul trouble.

I mean the Rockets had to give Boban real actual rotation minutes - there's time to go around

 

If it is okay to disagree, then don't relate it to Kanter's politics. It contradicts what you say, which always happens anyway.

 

I think it all comes down to one thing. Silas has an extremely limited set of offensive plays in his toolbox and tries to choose players who fit there as a prototype regardless of how good they are at it. Many of the posts after yours just point in this direction as well.

I don't think Silas will feel silly about his decision but he certainly will look silly. It is not that important though. The way he handles the KPJ experiment is already much worse than this.

Here is another thing that shows me how he perceives players. When Garuba, Eason and KMJ is on the floor without KPJ or Gordon, the ball moves very well. But they have so little credit that with the first mistake, Silas puts in Gordon or KPJ to kill all the movement and let KPJ or Gordon dribble the ball out to drive to the basket for a low % play. I don't think he understands the value in those players, and what they are capable of nor he has the ability to have plays for those players. He just sees them, along with sengun, as a lower class of players which should be assigned limited roles. All the progress in Sengun, Garuba, probably in KMJ seems to happen despite Silas, not with his support. For eason it is too early too tell, but it would not be surprising to see something similar going on.

 

Spot on.