Rockets center Alperen Sengun‘s breakout campaign was cut short after he suffered a right ankle injury in March, but he firmly established himself as Houston’s star, Kelly Iko of The Athletic writes. Not only is he Houston’s best player, but Iko asserts he may just be the most important as the Rockets continue to transition into a contender.
“The talent level is real,” head coach Ime Udoka said. “It’s what you see on film and play against, and he’s taken a step as far as that. Competitiveness and going up against specific matchups right from day one. I think he’s improved defensively across the board, some of the things and challenges we’ve presented him with. He’s not even close to reaching his ceiling and has a ways to go, but he’s had a great year, and his future is bright.”
Iko talked to 11 of Sengun’s teammates and all of them spoke highly of the All-Star caliber player.
“Just being around him, he’s a good guy,” two-way guard Nate Hinton said. “He wants to win. He plays hard every night and tries to give it his all. That’s one thing I learned about him, going out there and taking the game seriously. Trying to dominate every night. He has a lot of game and can be one of the premier guys in this league if he takes care of his body. Just keep developing, lot of potential. Can also be a potential threat from 3 because he’s always open, they don’t guard him out there. If he hits a couple of those moving forward in his career, it will up his game some more.”
We have more from the Rockets:
- A month ago, the Rockets were out of the postseason picture and Udoka was questioning the team’s focus. At the end of February, Houston was 25-34, lost Sengun and Cam Whitmore due to injuries, and shut down injured forward Tari Eason. But now, as Iko explores in another story, Houston has won seven games in a row, as well as nine of its past 10. The Rockets are playing faster, shooting better and are playing aggressive defense. Now, at 34-35, they’re just 2.5 games out of the play-in tournament. The improved play of the likes of Jalen Green, Amen Thompson and Jock Landale is helping propel the team.
- Landale’s improvement over the course of the season was on full display in Thursday’s win over the Bulls. As The Houston Chronicle’s Jonathan Feigen observes (Twitter link), Landale finished that game with a season-high 14 points and season-high 10 rebounds, along with three blocks. He also matched his career high of five assists. Entering Thursday, Landale had been averaging 6.8 points and 4.0 rebounds in his past 10 games after averaging just 2.2 points and 2.1 rebounds before that.
- Dillon Brooks and Chicago’s DeMar DeRozan were ejected after being involved in a scrum on Thursday, ESPN details. DeRozan came off a screen and hip-checked Green, who was bringing the ball up the court, sending the Rockets guard down in pain. The initial foul by DeRozan was declared a flagrant 2 and Brooks was given a technical for responding and getting physical with DeRozan. After the game, Iko asked Udoka about the number of scuffles Houston’s been involved in this season (Twitter link). “Not a bad thing to have chippy games,” Udoka said. “I don’t mind that part of it at all. If a guy takes a hit, teammates gotta stand up for each other.“
WTF: 2.5 out after that great run! Playoffs may be out of the question with 13 games remaining, although not the toughest schedule.
25% chance to make play-in
IF
Lakers or Warriors stars were injured within next 7 days.
Lakers have a very difficult schedule remaining. They have 13 games left. Eight of their last 11 games are on the road. They could easily lose 7 or 8 of these games. Rockets need to finish strong. Regardless, Coach Udoka has the team playing hard and that is with four of their better players out. Players out: Sengun, Whitmore, Eason, & Steve Adams.
T=Tossup game, W=Win, L=Loss.
GAMES REMAINING:
Philadelphia T
Indiana L
Milwaukee L
Memphis T
Indiana L
Toronto W
Washington W
Cleveland L
Minnesota L
Golden St. L
Memphis W
New Orleans L
DeRozan has nothing to talk about. He made comments on not liking Brooks coming at him afterwards… bro, you pulled a literal Albert Belle body check on a smaller dude. Of course his teammates are going to go after you. Are you stupid? You’re lucky that didn’t initiate an actual brawl.
“I was surprised just from the simple fact that I was trying to hedge out and just be aggressive, obviously bumped him, but if you look at it, I kind of tripped into it.”
Bull. Crap. You tripped after you ran into him. You didn’t slow down in the slightest and just ran straight into the kid. If you’d tripped, you’d naturally be like “oh crap, didn’t mean to hit you that hard”, not just stand over him and then walk away. You’d have an actual reaction of some kind instead of literally nothing. Even Horry when he hip-checked Nash into the scorer’s table in the ’07 playoffs looked more contrite.
I’m not a Rockets fan or Bulls hater, and DeRozan is a good player. But that was stupid.
DeMar also pushed Brooks with his hand after the screen as if to say “Hey Dillon watch this”
If only Poetl could become Sengun… So many dudes get paid and become lazy…
Poeltl has always been that way.
It will be interesting with sengun, he is putting good stats, but they play much better without him.
If I were them, i would look to move him for real impact player. With fvv contract salary matching won’t be a problem.
You definitely don’t trade a 22yo Alpo Sengun when he’s making $2/3M a yr. You figure out how to make it work
It’s rare that this happens but I agree with Sankara. Sengun has tons of talent and 6 games is way to small of sample size to be making a decision like trading a good and young talent.
You’re crazy. Since Sengun got hurt the Rockets have had an easy schedule. Yes they beat the Cavs, but the Rockets play great at home.
Also the Cavs are badly hampered by injuries. Missing Mitchell and Mobley is terrible.
Young Alpo being extremely dominant vs Germany at u18 Euros about 4/5yrs ago. Last summer it was Nikola Topic being just as dominant at this very same event. If u fw match madness & basketball in general I implore u to check out the fiba youth tournaments this summer (along with the Olympics as well obv). There’s gonna be a lot of future NBA talent… link to m.youtube.com
I don’t see Houston making it. Last year the Mavs tanked to keep their pick, no team in the play in this year needs to.
Houston doesn’t even own their first round pick this year, so tanking is irrelevant.