Play him with the second unit, run the offense through him and him alone. That’s the solution if you want to keep him on this team and have him truly succeed. It isn’t a slight, but with Durant and Thompson and now Bari coming around, Sengun gets less and less touches. Now he’s just a center a who can’t shoot and is a liability on defense. Run the offense through him with the second unit and you’ll get what he used to offer.
I have grown to hate his play style. Nobody plays primarily from the post anymore. It’s one of the most inefficient shots in basketball.
Sengun is having a better year offensively this year than he did last year. I think because this team is perceived to be underachieving and last years team was considered overachievers he wasnt scrutinized as heavily. But make no mistake, he wasnt all that last year either. On a team wide note... Speaking of perception, this years Rockets team is likely to finish with the best off rtg in franchise history by a pretty big margin. Last years team would be #3 all time. Problem is compared to the rest of the league theyve just been average. They arent keeping up with the modern NBA. Dantoni's teams were ranked lower than udoka's offensively but at the time they were ahead of most of the league (relative ratings). But this years team actually shoots the ball really well. Much better than last year. Better than the Rockets under Dantoni. The PROBLEM is THE VOLUME OF THREES. Yes the turnovers are a bit higher. But not astronomically higher. Under Dantoni the Rockets took 40+ 3's per game. This year we are taking about 30. WE ARE 29TH IN 3'S ATTEMPTED PER GAME. This is offensively the Rockets biggest issue. Not Sengun, even though I dont think he is all that.
If you recall Stone and Ime came out at the beginning of the year and said something like ‘oh we don’t think we have to be one of those teams that chuck 3s’. The math on that was so iffy it was clear it wouldn’t work - and what’s weird is how many 3s they were trying to shoot the season before even though they were pretty bad at it, I think they said at some point they want to get at least 40 up at some point and were really forcing it bricking shot after shot. That’s what’s puzzling to me, no consistent vision, no identity, wild swings in roles, the evidence just keeps piling up that Udoka doesn’t know what he’s doing on offense.
Sengun is a very good player. Let's not kid ourselves - he is 100% a borderline all star on talent - literally one of the best 25ish basketball players in the world. Let's give the guy some credit - he works hard and deserves his flowers. He hasn't looked great of late but he also has been playing high level basketball since last summer so he is most definitely tired. I think the guy is legit a gamer. That being said - I would prefer we trade him but it's less to do with him specifically and more to do with the quickest way to assemble a more complete roster here. Sengun would fetch more on the trade market than others and i think we could net a fairly decent return for him. As good as Sengun is - those top 15ish guys are all legit game changing stars and have 3 level scoring capabilities. Right now Sengun is a one level scorer with high level facilitation skills - but you gotta build a specific type of roster to maximize Sengun's skill sets and I think it would take more effort for us to build that around him today than it would to just trade him and try to supplement what Amen/Reed/Bari/Tari bring. I mean those 4 guys could be significantly better in a more uptempo offense that tries to create TOs and play in transition - but that's the opposite type of offense than what Sengun needs. Its like we have a D'Antoni style personnel sitting there but we are trying to play like a late career Karl Malone team. Alpi is the better player - but he is also not likely to develop 3 level scoring after 5 years in the league and like I said above - those top 15 guys are ALL 3 level scorers so I don't think Alpi is going to magically develop both a mid range game AND a 3pt game when he is nearly 40% of the way into his career at this point. The odds are just not in his favor - nothing wrong with Alpi, but the mismatch in team playing style is what we need to address here, not specifically Alpi as a player.
Yeah, I remember Udoka said that he wanted them to shoot more 3s. We are shooting a lot less this year. I think it's mostly personnel. Durant loves the middies. We lost two volume 3pt shooters in Jalen and Fred, and two non 3pt shooters Sengun and Amen have increased usage.
