The Year of Al P
Working in NBA media extends far beyond covering the wins and losses. Unlike the NFL, there’s just too many games to cover every game. Today’s basketball fan is also uninterested in reading game columns, especially in a Twitter environment where they can just read quotes and analysis in real-time. And only a handful of teams receive day-to-day coverage (title contenders and glamour markets). For the third season in a row, the Houston Rockets enter the season as neither of those.
And as a result, they’ll receive the same level of national coverage that the other 20+ teams receive: check-in coverage. Check-in coverage is exactly what it sounds like: when analysts check in on what they deem to be the biggest storylines for a team after an extended stretch of games. Most of these storylines are pre-determined and for the Rockets, they’re blatantly obvious: 2021 second overall pick Jalen Green, 2022 third overall pick Jabari Smith Jr, and pending restricted free agent Kevin Porter Jr.
Not all of the stories to check in on are pre-determined though. Most teams have at least one story that sneaks up on the national media. For the Rockets, the biggest under-the-radar storyline stems from a transaction that should’ve received more attention this summer; the Dallas Mavericks’ acquisition of center Christian Wood.
Not only does Wood give Luka Doncic the pick-and-roll partner he sorely lacked in last year’s playoffs, this was also a nice move for Houston on a few fronts. To start, a first-round pick and two seconds is decent compensation for Wood. Considering the suppressed market for big men, Houston wasn’t going to get much better than this for a player that clearly doesn’t fit into their timeline. And then there’s the biggest reason this trade should’ve gotten more national attention: it opens up the Rockets’ starting center position for Turkish big man Alperen Sengun.
It makes sense why national types consider this to be an insignificant storyline. Houston is a rebuilding team and most NBA fans don’t care who’s starting for them outside of Jabari Smith Jr. and Jalen Green. The fact that Alperen Sengun wasn’t even a lottery pick further justifies looking past the long-term ramifications of a fairly run-of-the-mill June transaction. But there’s a very specific flaw in that logic: Sengun should’ve been a lottery pick.
Going into the draft last year, many in and out of the league thought Sengun had serious All-Star potential. The 6-foot-9 big man was an incredibly decorated prospect, winning MVP of one of the most competitive basketball leagues in the world (BSL in Turkey) at the age of 18. Sengun’s footwork was unparalleled for someone that young, lending itself to a versatile low-post game. His passing instincts were off the charts, often finding teammates before they even realized they were open. And though he didn’t get the chance to display it his rookie season, Sengun’s an underrated athlete, meaning he can be an effective pick-and-roll partner in a pinch.
He was also an analytics darling, faring well on team proprietary modeling systems - even Kevin Pelton’s open-to-public WARP projections on ESPN where he was incredibly projected number one. For those unfamiliar, these systems attempt to predict how a prospect will perform at the NBA-level often using that player's statistics and historical translations. It differs from your traditional basketball scout in that human bias is seldom ever accounted for in real time. There are obviously biases taken into account when building and tweaking the system.
Nevertheless, Sengun consistently projected as a top prospect on most models and on a more subjective “eye-test” level, he was awesome as well.
So why did he drop? We’ll probably never know for sure. But here are two educated guesses:
The “European big who can’t defend” stereotype.
It feels as if Sengun was placed in a box with past coveted European big prospects. For example, time and time again Sengun was compared to fellow countryman Enes Kanter. “Turkish big man who’s amazing on offense and a potential liability on defense? Sounds like Kanter.” It was baffling to read and felt incredibly lazy, especially because the two played completely different styles of basketball.
Group-think.
This may require an article by itself, but the “basketball inteligencia” has grown pretty homogeneous about their shared values. Everyone wants to construct teams with switchable ‘3&D’ wings throughout the lineup like the Boston Celtics. And while it’s nice to have that quality on a contender, it’s almost impossible to build one with such a narrow framework. You’re limiting the player pool by at least 80%.
In fact, among the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Team All-NBA selections last season, only three players fit this archetype at the peak of their powers - Jayson Tatum, Kevin Durant, and LeBron James. Alperen Sengun is a center with possible defensive liabilities - essentially the devil for this group of people. Should it be much of a surprise that the players that keep falling in the draft every year are ones that don’t fit this bill? Again, this article is for another day, so let’s move on.
Perhaps unsurprising in retrospect, Sengun had a monster rookie season.
Alperen Sengun (per 36 minutes):
16.7 points
9.5 rebounds
4.5 assists
1.6 blocks
1.4 steals
55.2% True Shooting
Some advanced stats on Alperen Sengun:
10th among rookies in PER
2nd among rookies in VA
2nd among rookies in EWA
PER = Player Efficiency Rating
VA = Value Added
EWA = Estimated Wins Added
As mentioned before, Sengun is now a starter. I don’t think people have fully grasped the implications of that. While it’s true that Sengun often finds himself in foul trouble, he’s going to see a significant increase in minutes. Last season, he was averaging 20 minutes per game, often pulled from games when he was just starting to find a rhythm or flow.
Now he’ll have an additional 10 minutes per game and increased usage to really torture defenders. It’s important to keep in mind that reports will grow more detailed on Sengun and he’ll have to face better defenders. But he’s also going to have better offensive players around him to take the bulk of attention off of him.
The Rockets also had a draft night that should make you giddey if you’re a Sengun fan. Sengun has two significant weaknesses as a basketball player: three-point shooting and defense. By drafting Auburn’s Jabari Smith Jr. and LSU’s Tari Eason, Houston has effectively opened the floor up for Sengun and further insulated him defensively.
At any given point, the Rockets can place two plus defenders next to Sengun in the frontcourt; Smith Jr., Eason, or even third-year forward Jae’Sean Tate. He also won’t be required to be a floor spacer because everyone else in the starting lineup will be capable of making catch-and-shoot 3s. As a result of the more open floor, Sengun will face less double-teams and have much better assist opportunities.
Consider this: Sengun put up those numbers last season playing a significant chunk of his minutes next to Daniel Theis and Christian Wood. Imagine what he could do with even slightly better floor spacing? Factoring in normal health, usage, and playing time, it’s very possible, if not probable, that Sengun posts multiple 20-10-5 games this season. It sounds crazy, but it really shouldn’t when you look at his production last season and the better-optimized ecosystem he'll be stepping into this year.
In 2005, there was a documentary released based on former Rockets center Yao Ming’s rookie season called “Year of the Yao”. In addition to being a fun watch, there was an interesting subplot throughout the documentary about how there was a degree of skepticism nationally about Yao’s talent level despite his first overall selection. TNT-analyst Charles Barkley famously placed a bet on Inside the NBA against him. Yao finished second in Rookie of the Year voting, made the All-Star team, and narrowly missed out on an All-NBA selection.
Let’s be clear: I’m not at all comparing the two players. Yao was clearly the bigger and better prospect coming out. The two also play completely differently. But it is strange that while so many people viewed Yao’s success in the NBA as an inevitability, that inkling of doubt remained. It shouldn’t feel like the number one overall pick is having a coming out party in his rookie season, but on some level, that’s exactly what happened when Yao came alive down the stretch of the season.
It would not surprise me if next season has that kind of quality of Sengun. He has his vocal believers that think he will break out next season based off of whatever combination of data they want to use. He also has people that haven’t quite bought in based off of perceived league-wide trends and values. Kind of like Yao’s rookie season, a Sengun breakout would feel obvious to many, but surprising to others.
Even if it appears ludicrous, predicting that Sengun becomes a household name for NBA fans next season seems like an obvious move to me. It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that I am indeed one of those believers. When you analyze Sengun’s performance last season and juxtapose his old environment to his new one, it’s hard not to be.
This will be the Year of Al P.