What happened to Alperen Sengun?

Still putting up better numbers than the Gasol Bros.

Rockets are still lacking #1 option, if Amen will be this in few years. As far Durant being that,
who going to score when he gets double team? Why is Durant turning the ball over so much? even Amen too.

still even on those lakers and grizzlies teams, they had
a bench.

I think the rockets lack scoring depth on the bench. If they don't address this in the offseason with FVV, and Adams coming
back, there got be a few low key FA, they can snag to hit shots off the bench.

The bench is really slim on the scoring. Okogie is good bench player but still need fine some deadly
shooters.

 

His coach watched video of him comfortable in the post and in rhythm, and cooking.

Then watched extended video of how bad he is behind the perimeter, and came to the genius conclusion he's going to play him 99% of each game on the perimeter.

 

I am a big fan of Alpi, However he is not paying as good as he used to. One thing that I really do not like is his regression in Rebounding. With defensive rebounding he now usually faced the player he is boxing out. Not even looking to rebound. I am not a fan of that development.

 

The most telling is his defensive effort has been slacking. So it's likely a motivational issue.

I think he is competing with KD for the lead dog role on offense and it seems that Ime is not siding with him. That affects his offense too. And the offensive schemes aren't helping either.

 

development is not linear and we're trying to make Alperen something he's not. He's horribly inefficient and we're trying to give him more shots than he should be taking. I agree with Mathloom, have him take more 3's and less mid-ragnge. We need to improve his efficiency by him taking more efficient shots and letting more efficient guys take those looks.

He will be a winning basketball player if he is more of a 18 ppg / 7 apg guy vs a 22ppg / 5 apg guy.

 

He needs a 10 day break to decompress. Too bad Adams went down so a break is not logical.

 

What happened to Alpy?

He started posting up 3 feet outside the 3 pt line because he was getting pushed around inside by guys like Saddiq Bey....

 

Dickerson's tweets have finally sunk in

 

I've gotten backlash for writing this before. If you devalue a player who's performing well and put his name up for a trade, he won't give the performance he should. Because he no longer feels like he belongs to the team. On top of that, Dickerson's tweets were the icing on the cake.

Team spirit is very important in all team sports. People who have played team sports know this well.

 

I once mocked a poster for suggesting Alpi was an alcoholic. The posted presented a story of Alpi consuming alcohol on a plane as proof of his disease.

Seems maybe, just maybe I owe that poster an apology.

lol

 

I don’t think it’s slacking. His body can’t seem to do what his mind wants it to. He’s falling down like Yao use to.

 

He is affected by the evil eye. He needs to wear one of these:

 

I'm not a Sengun stan but the haters are getting carried away. That's partially Sengun's fault for playing an unaesthetic game and having bad body language, which makes the hate flow.

But context is king - Sengun is playing most of his minutes with no competent ball handler and against 3 defenders with a foot in the paint waiting for him around the rim. His "job" in Udoka's offensive philosophy is to create middling efficiency shots on non-spaced floors that we'll offensive rebound 40% of. There's a reason everyone in Houston (except the most context immune scorer ever, KD) has had low TS% for their archetype -- FVV, Jalen, Jabari, Reed. Even Amen is only at 57% TS and he is 3rd in the league in assisted dunks.

Defensively, Sengun has had really bad opponent three point shooting luck this season, bottom 5 percentile. He's always been an impact > eye test guy defensively, but the bad luck has hurt his impact metrics, EPM etc. That's just random.

Is he my ideal player? No. Is he a really really good player, age 23? Yes.

There's a real chance he gets traded this summer, because he doesn't fit with Amen and the FO loves Amen. But zero chance that happens if Sengun isn't being valued as a blue chip asset in the deal. The FO would just keep him instead.

 

People with understandings indicate Sengun is back on the Raki.

 

It's a long season. If he wants to be a great NBA star then he will need to focus more on the NBA since it's demanding in the current 82 game iteration.

Off-season is really when players hone and develop their conditioning, strength, and skills.

 

I don't know what's in his head, but he doesn't seem happy out there. He complains constantly, the defensive effort isn't the same, his shot selection is terrible, he looks absolutely lazy at times. There have been times during a jump ball when he didnt even jump. He still gets numbers, but anyone with eyes can see that something is off with him. I hope he's fighting a nagging injury or something, because he's too young to have fallen this far for no reason.

 

Its the system we have that's not conducive for Sengun's skillset.
Though, I think what we're currently seeing from Sengun is his ceiling, but in another offensive system such as the Warriors or Spurs I think his efficiency will increase.
Draymond locked his ass down game 7 last year.
If you want to improve Sengun's efficiency, surround him with better perimeter players and a point guard who can get him to his spots in pick-n-roll action.
However, we have a coach who values defensive minded/hustling players over offensively-skilled players.
Even with a healthy FVV, I know believe we wont make the Finals with Ime as the coach.
I appreciate his efforts to reset the culture and bringing winning basketball back to Houston, but we'll need an offensive minded coach to take us to the next level while we have KD on this roster.

 

Your context might make sense if Sengun's efficiency had only decreased this season. In 23-24 Al P averaged the highest scoring of his career, 21.1ppg on 58.5 TS%. In 24-25 he scored 19.1ppg and had a big dip in efficiency to 54.5 TS% despite playing with almost an identical roster. FVV, Jalen, Dillon, and Jabari were all there and Amen was better than the year prior. It's not like his shot profile changed, his free throw rate was the same and his volume of jumpers remained low. His finishing around the rim just got worse.

The concern is that his low efficiency is crossing seasons. Why is he well below league average again despite adding KD and the team shooting better? Why is it so much worse in the second half of this season than the first half?