Overall agree that Amen and Sengun both are an issue together that will likely be very tough to resolve. I'd say Sengun has already reached Sabonis's peak such that I think it is very logical that Sengun likely has a much better ceiling. I lean more Amen than Sengun. I'd probably give it another year with Amen and Sengun before looking to break it up (unless a Top 5 player becomes available). Though, I'd be fine with Sengun over Amen if that ends up being the way.
About where I'm at. And I wouldn't include Giannis in the guys I'm willing to trade for by the way, even though he's a top 5 guy (or very close). The fit issues are too significant and his ability to stay healthy for the playoffs has been too unreliable. We don't have a stretch 5, and whether it's Sengun or Amen going out in the deal, you still have the two non-shooters problem. If Ant Edwards became available (which seems unlikely at this point, Minny is playing well) I would be willing to include either one of Amen or Sengun in the deal, but not both. I can't see SGA, Wemby, Jokic, or Luka becoming available this offseason.
Yeah - I prefer Amen as a player but I think ultimately I'll be happy just addressing the root cause over "who". My conversation of "who" is largely driven by money and additional cost to supplement - if Amen is making more money than Alpi - this is maybe a different conversation. I think the wildcard here is the new CBA is changing the math of who gets a max and who doesn't in a real way. At the end of the day Amen will make some amount of money and will have some offers as a result and Alpi the same - we ultimately should be taking the deal that makes us the best team after it. As long as we adress that they likely can't exist I'm good - provided we aren't doing the win now "go all in and get Giannis and KD at the expense of our youth". That would piss me off in a major way.
A lot of this I agree with, except a couple things (and I'm not a Sengun stan): 1. Sabonis doesn't "work" as a guy you give major money to because he a) is 29 and is at his ceiling, b) he doesn't create; without a DHO/PnR partner better than him he's just a high level garbage-man rebounder, and c) he can't play the 5 in a successful defense. None of those are true of Alpi. Alpi's issues have more to do with his championship ceiling than roster building constraints he imposes, imo. (c) applies to Randle and KAT too. The Rockets have had a top 5 defense the last two years with Sengun as the starting 5, 7th the year before. Our defense was great in the playoffs that way. Amen isn't carrying them - they are a very good defense even with Amen off the floor. Randle and KAT OTOH require a team to have a defensive big at the 5 covering for them to make that possible, and that guy will be a non spacer. And for Sabonis, since he can't play the 4, it seems impossible. 2. You're right that both Amen and Alpi are non-spacers. But there is a fundamental difference between a C non-spacer and a wing non-spacer: it's much easier to find a replacement high-level wing that spaces the floor than a replacement high-level C that spaces the floor. This is the core unanswered question with the "Alpi and Amen don't work together long-term, so trade Sengun" plan. To actually solve the problem as proposed, you'd need to replace Sengun with a starting-level C who is can be the full time 5 on a great defense and is guarded at the three point line. There are just a handful of those on earth. Jokic, Wemby, and Chet obviously aren't happening. Naz Reid and Okongwu cannot defend as full time 5s. Lopez and Porzingis are on the verge of retirement. So basically we are forced to acquire Myles Turner? I am generally in favor of this plan anyway, for "fan" reasons mostly. But it is an incredibly difficult needle to thread. The universe of possible championship winning roster configurations that include a non-spacing, non-primary wing playing 40 minutes... is very very small.
You could argue that either of them is the problem but fundamentally centers aren't really expected to be floor stretchers while wings are. A floor stretching center is more a luxury than a necessity and as @carl_herrera points out, wings are much more abundant. With Amen, we're still looking for a needle in that proverbial haystack. I've never really been a Sengun fan, I've dismissed him as a centerpiece at pretty much every turn or the idea of "building around" that guy. I just don't see an avenue to building a championship roster around a non-spacing wing who needs to reside in the paint for the bulk of his minutes and then comes the extension - people talking about everything from a max to a Sengun Special for Amen. I can't see paying him that kind of money when he basically has no on ball offensive tool kit and shoots 36% from beyond 3 feet and he needs others to "assist" those shots at the rim for him. I'd rather move Amen for the best shooting guard I could find which when combined with Reed as starter puts everyone back at their natural position. The alternative being move Alpi for a stretch 5 ..... and your options are?
One note on #2 -- I think the number of stretch 5s in the league is expanding rapidly right now and I think there's a good chance there will be a lot more of those guys out there over the next couple of seasons. Look at the 2024 draft class alone with Sarr, Clingan, Ware, and Filipowski. You also didn't mention JJJ, by the way, who is a very good defensive player and a decent enough 3P shooter, but is wildly overpaid, or Bam Adebayo, who appears to have expanded his range out past the 3P line. Now granted, those guys are all young and on rookie contracts and hard to acquire, or hard to get onto the team for other reasons (Bam is probably not available for any price we'd be willing to pay, for example). Even still, my point is that it appears to be a fast-growing archetype in the league right now, either from existing players like Bam and Jock Landale adding the shot to their repertoire, or from young guys entering the league. So I wouldn't assume we know for sure what the landscape is going to be in a few years when Amen is in his prime, nor do I think we can assume he won't be at least a mediocre/below-average shooter by that point. I admit my faith in him developing a jump shot is at least a little bit irrational or based on "intangibles" given the evidence at hand, but I just have a lot of belief in his work ethic and drive.
I thought the Pacers were 14th in team defense last year in the regular season. That's why their ascension to the Finals and did very well on defense in the playoffs were so surprising. I really think that we should play more of the "weak defense strong offense" lineups more to see what happens. I know it's not going to happen with Ime. He'd pull the plug as soon as the defense looks like they are collapsing. So we end up having unreliable small sample size data to really gauge how much does the tradeoff affect winning. The "weak defensive" lineups getting pulled when they are doing badly makes the data look bad on them. They have no chance to recover from a bad stretch.
You illustrate my point - people seriously underrate the scarcity of players who can legitimately be a full time starting 5 on a very good defensive and rebounding team. Sengun has proven that he can; if he hadn't or couldn't, his value proposition would be waaay murkier. Sarr - Not obvious that he will be C. He weighs about 220 and plays/rebounds less physically even than that. The Wizards don't seem to think he is a C, they just acquired a starting C to keep Sarr at the 4. Also not going to be traded anytime in the next few years. Clingan - Good player, but still some distance away from actually being guarded at the three point line. Also not going to be traded anytime in the next few years. Ware - Not a starting level player and a poor + low IQ defender. Spoelstra doesn't like playing him much for a reason. Pretty far away. Filipowski - A truly awful defender. No chance he can ever be a full time 5 on a real defense. Bam - Obviously an elite defender, but he isn't actually guarded at the three point line. Jock Landale - lol. JJJ - Not a C at all. There is this grass is always greener effect where a theoretical version or future version of a player on another team is more appealing to people because they don't see the actual constraints of that player in the same way as if he was on their team. I would guess maybe 1 or at best 2 of these players meet the requirements a few years from now, and by that time guys like Turner may have aged out. So no, IMO there will not be some conveyor belt of good defensive full time 5's who are guarded at the three point line. I don't think that's a get out of jail free card for Amen being a non shooting non primary wing.
Maybe the question we might ask ourselves @carl_herrera / @Corrosion is how does Detroit make Ausar and Jalen Duren work? Duren and Alpi are VERY different players - Alpi more of a playmaking hub like Jokic and Duren is a more traditional big...but shifting playmaking duties to a wing(in this case Cade) and gaining defensive presence seems to be working out well for Detroit. I don't disagree with any of the points mentioned before but it is a uniquely interesting data point that we have insight into what a player very very similar to Amen is doing on a thriving team with a different collection of non shooters on a team. I think we can all agree the West is a better conference which explains some of that - but Houston is one point better than Detroit on offense and 3 points worse on defense so there is something to be said for a better defensive player than Sengun with similar paint effectiveness even if you lose all the fancy playmaking to get him. Not saying i want Duren - but submitting this as an exmaple of what you could see with Amen paired with a similarly limited in range, but more complete overall big man. FWIW, I think Amen can do some of the Giannis/Westbrook work of mercilessly driving a guy into the rim but that is never going to happen with Alpi on the court at the same time and Ime is going to overlap Amen and Alpi generally as a response to Alpi's defensive limitations. I also think Amen is responsible for more winning plays than Sengun - Sengun fumbles defensive posessions and makes mistakes forcing scoring opportunities that aren't there. It doesn't always look pretty for Amen either but generally he is more selective of an offensive player and takes better quality of shots. Most importantly - we still need a 3 level scorer and if you believe that Reed can be that guy, he is going to be a lot more dangerous in a wide open uptempo team - THAT is where Amen unlocks something in Reed either as an uber flexible running mate or as a guy pushing the break quickly and putting pressure on defenses that aren't set yet. You lose ALL OF THAT if you choose Alpi over Amen. The thing about 3pt specialists is - the numbers are even better if you can squeeze a few extra possessions in for them - the only thing better than a 40%+ 3pt shooter is if that shooter takes more shots. Amen both plays faster and forces defensive stops that turn into transition opportunities....you are also going to get more Points per possession with Amen because he gets more and one opportunities and he shoots better from the line. I think Sengun is a FAR more polished playmaker and offensive talent but I think Amen is better for this team running with Reed than Alpi is.
I would trade Alpi for Bam in a heartbeat. Agree he isn't a 3pt threat but he does have significantly more gravity to the mid range than Sengun...but I don't think Riles would make that trade.....but Bam, Tari, Amen, Jabari, Reed, and Durant - maaaaaaannnnnn - that's a mean lineup.
If you need a bucket Alpi can go get you one when guarded 1v1. Not sure if there’s another center besides Jokic that can do that.
When Houston needs a bucket NO team is going to let him go one on one - he's getting doubled for sure and because he now thinks of himself as "the man", he is probably going to put up a contested shot rather than find the open man in a situation where our team needs a Hero. Alpi is good, but he isn't Durant in that way and oh by the way, his chances of making the shot fall dramatically outside of 6ft from the rim so "getting a bucket one on one" assumes he is able to get within 6ft of the rim.
I thought it was more on professionalism and not on court talent. Spoestra likes switching, but I've seen Bam and Ware play together recently. Looks like they are playing 10 mpg together often. I just don't see Spoelra playing a backup center with Bam unless he likes him.
Detroit has not made Ausar and Duren work yet, in the way we’re talking about. At least not to a greater extent than we’ve made Amen and Sengun work. We can definitely be a great regular season team like them, as is. We’ve basically been that. They’ve had a poor average halfcourt offense the last two years, like us. Ausar only plays 26 mpg, frequently doesn’t close, and only 22mpg during the playoffs last year. They lost their first round playoff series because their half court offense was non functional. If they beat a couple legit teams this postseason with Ausar playing full starter minutes - I’ll look to them as an example of making two non shooters work on a championship quality team, for sure.
The commanding of a double/triple and his contract is precisely why you don’t trade him. If Alpi can work with Fred then he should be able to work with Reed. The concept has already been proven…something I can’t say about Amen and Reed starting together.
I’ll give got the disingenuous 7th seed quip, you should know better, but would you rather not make the playoffs?
I would rather build a team that can compete in the modern NBA, and FVV isn't a starter on that team, and Sengun is a big question mark. DD
