One thing I’ve noticed about centers from overseas like Sengun, Jokic, and Embiid is that they have more polished low post games and passing skills than almost all American centers along with a knowledge of setting screens.
To be fair, Embiid didn’t really have polished passing skills until this season. Pretty crazy how he’s been able to pick up that weakness. Also, Adebayo is the only American center I can think of who is close to that level. Adams, Nurkic, and Poeltl are all from overseas too. It’s weird how that’s not really taught in America. Playmaking from the posts is super valuable.
You cant really call embiid from "overseas." Yes he came from cameroon but he basically played his whole career in america. Unlike Jokic, Sengun or any other overseas players
Embiid is not a foreign center in that he learned the game later in life mostly in college and the pros in the US. He was raw as heck coming to the nba with no post game
Oh for sure he’s having a great season and so far Sengun hasn’t disappointing us at all , Houston is definitely cooking something big with those young guys
If Nikola can keep this pace up for another 6-7 years.. he could become the first player in history to be top 25 all time in points, rebounds, and assists.
I think Sengun is more like Sabonis and probably a more skilled version. It's very hard to compare to Jokic, he just sees the game at a level maybe 5 other players in NBA history were able to see.
Arvydas was too strong, neither his son or Jokic can compare in that regard, maybe Sengun will be able to because he is still growing, when he stops growing he might add some more muscle, we will have to wait and see, it's rly hard to add muscle when still growing, hopefully that doesn't ruin his shot like it did to Giannis when he bulked up his shooting got way worse@@vidicisthegoat5444
Jokic was also inspired by arvydas. He was the first true point center imo but jokic took it to another level. If only he was able to come to the nba in the mid 80's, portland might have won in '90 and '92.
@@woo_shynen8805sabas himself admitted he wasn't ready for the nba at that time, hard to believe with all his talent and skill but the game is more mental than physical
@@kirillsergeyev7116 you probably haven't been keeping up with the magic lately he's a big reason why they're on a 9-0 run with his defense and hustle plays
I don’t think Sengun will ever be the playmaker, rebounder, floor general, basketball genius, or efficiency monster that Jokic is. BUT I do think he can get to like 80-85% of Jokic when it comes to those attributes. And he has an athletic, slashing element to his game that Jokic doesn’t have, that could somewhat bridge the gap. Jokic is my favorite player ever and I think projecting Sengun to reach Jokic’s ceiling seems kinda crazy. But I absolutely think he could become a multi-time All NBA center using Jokic’s style of play, more or less. Honestly, I think “Jokic Ball” is about to become a trend in the NBA, and teams are going to start seeking out big men who play like this. Much in the same way Steph ushered in the 3 ball era.
@@Young_squeezewe'll get there sooner than you think, as even bigman today is given the freedom to play outside the paint... We're in the positionless basketball era...
More like somewhere in between Sabonis and Jokic. I don't think anyone is the next Jokic. That undersells Jokic's historic greatness. I still don't think people have processed just how good Jokic really is.
The most improved player so far this season, already was solid but man he’s been on another level this season. He’s clearly proven he’s the best player in the 21 draft class
You can definitely see the similarities in their games: Sengun has a similar skill set in terms of passing ability and scoring effectively in the post.
He's a really good player maybe he is the next jokic maybe he's not but I wish him success. Rockets fans need to thank jokic and udoka. It took us nuggets fans so long to watch other people see what we saw in jokic. I'm glad joker has paved the way for this type of skill set to be valued in a center.
you're missing the point I'm saying as a nuggets fan I had to listen for years people to say we couldn't win a championship with that as our best player. Just because comprehension isn't your strong suit don't call me a clown.
The Rockets in many ways feel like a less experienced and smaller version of the Nuggets. Sengun - Jokic: ball-dominant big man w/ advanced passing who can run your offense VanFleet - Murray: Point guard who can also play off-ball while not being a complete cone defensively Brooks - Gordon - Defense-oriented forward that can't be left alone on O. Murray has 4 inches on VanFleet and Gordon has 2 on Brooks, both of which pay dividends on team defense and allow for better switching in order to hunt mismatches. The X-factor for Houston is Green and whether he can stem his chucking in favor of efficiency. Jabari is still so young you're trying to figure out what role he is going to fill (IMO w/ time he could develop into their MPJ-lite)
I watch plenty of rockets games, and i swear that van vleet is not even half the player murray is, he can't slash or finish under the rim. Brooks also doesn't slash off ball like gordon does or catch lobs. I'm actually quite disappointed in green, chucks alot of shots and turnovers. Jabari on the other hand, could be our next star, his post fadeaway game is getting elite.
Because we had a bad coach, who just rely more on athleticism, than playing real basketball, which is a brand for the ages in American basketball, particularly with black coaches.
I think his real problem now, along with Wemby in parallel is body size. You might see Jokic as chubby player, but he is good on contact and very rarely injured on top of high-end talents. Both Wemby and Sengun have lanky/small frame despite their height which make them have a tougher match-up against big tough C. If Sengun work on his body size along with his offensive weapon, I can see him on par with Jokic in near future.
There's tradeoff between being slick and taking up space. It's agility! Sengun has a deceptive quick footwork like Hakeem, leaving the opponents off-guard many times. I would prefer the current one: as long as his teammates close that defect, it's a much more dangerous weapon since not many tall players have that.
>If Sengun work on his body size Sengun is still growing, hard to add muscle when still growing, we will have to wait a bit for him to stop growing first, Sengun needs just a bit of confidence when passing and he can catch up with Jokic in few years with this pace, Sengun also have a major advantage over Jokic and that is quick release, it's easy to play against smaller guys but once you get matched up with big guys it took Jokic those sky hooks to get over Anthony Davis and Wembanyama is troubling him, but Sengun doesn't need to make shots like that to shoot over big guys because he can shoot quicker and they have no time to extend
jokic build like an old refregirator,i do not think sengun would have that upper body diameter before 5 years and also think jokic reach is at least 7- 10 cms more than sengun's this effects reb numbers( just listen paul george's comments about jokic's rebounding)
Seeing the value these guys bring makes me think the future drafting will focus around building on big men again. Even felt VanVleet was brought in to be their own Murray as they are both less ball dominant off the ball pg's
Rockets definetely had that in mind. Van Vleet was brought in to have a veteran guard who feeds Sengun of the pick and roll and is a leader for the other young guards. Also Dillon Brooks has been a nice addition to the team.
Great analysis, thank you. Jokic comparisons are early, but fair. A center like Jokic comes once in every 3 decades or so; his basketball intelligence and court vision is second-to-none. Having said that; Sengun is a great find for Houston, considering he was a No: 16 draft pick and he is only 21. Many greats of the game were not even drafted at this age! Absent of any serious injury -God forbid!- he has only upside to go. Jokic, Sengun, Sabonis are the kind of guys that make the game fun again, they make you love the game again. There is something poetic about a big man making an intelligent pass, rather than outpowering his opponent and dunking.
he can jump quick. too. very underrated for his size. it's like he doesn't have to gather. he just jumps, not high but enough to cover some airspace and contest shots.
There is no next Jokic just like there is no next Curry, they are one of ones and it’s disrespectful to compare them to normal big men this man just another Domantas Sabonis
Sengun just needs a bit of a confidence boost you get from better defense honestly, his passes are slow, he is overthinking it, maybe he just needs someone like Aaron Gordon in his team who he knows WILL catch the ball even if he messes it up, otherwise slow passing he is evenly matched with how Jokic was before, he even has one advantage Jokic still haven't overcome(but have found workaround to) and that is his release, it's SO FAST for a center, to the point of not making any sense to do the hook shot Jokic makes against tall defenders like he did against Anthony Davis in playoffs last year, that offsets Jokics slow release and it works against everyone except maybe Wembanyama and Boban Marjanovic, because they are too tall, you gotta catch them off guard to shoot like that against them which Sengun with his quick release shouldn't have problems with anyway
in euro we teach how to play more than us. but alperen is not just a generational talent, he is best talent turkish guy since basketball is invented. you still dont get. eventually you are gonna get it.
Udoka immediately realized that Sengun was the guy Houston needed to build around. Before he took the job, the Rockets were aimlessly “rebuilding” and looking like an AAU team letting Jalen Green and Kevin Porter Jr. and others toss up bricks every game. With Udoka, the veteran additions of Van Vleet and Brooks, and centering around Sengun, this team finally has an identity.
bruh u said that sengun was lucky to be surrounded by non selfish teammates. look at jalen green and his partner in crime before this season, they were selfish as hell with the complete green light. thats cuz the coach, ime udoka, came in and set these guys straight.
How the script has been reversed. EU centers were just good at setting screens. Now it's flipped. American centers are now the screen setters and those European centers are now playmakers.
He might just have said: ” When I arrived in the NBA they started feeding me steroids and now I’m 6’11 and more muscular. It’s totally safe because no one’s testing you since that could potentially cost money for the league.” But, yes I agree. Sengun could very well be Jokic II. I wouldn’t call him Jokic 2.0, but he can be in the future.
I wanna say as someone who watches football (soccer) the sport either the most amount of professional players in a sport I’m pretty sure. It’s very hard to become a replica of a player when you just model your game after them. The experiences jokic got through whatever games he played, and his life experience has helped him become a master passer and basically what accumulated to give him his game iq. This creative type of player isn’t something that can be replicated or surpassed by modelling it off someone. It happens all the time. In football, the equivalent I would say to the creative player jokic is, is the number 10. And it’s a dying breed since it used to be fairly common for a lot of teams to have a creative number ten. But there’s barely any now. Anyways, people that have tried to be the new version of a creative player has almost always failed. Since the creativity is unique to one person, you can be similar if you really have the talent. But more often than not they fall short since they try to replicate something that basically can’t be replicated.
I'm a houston fan and i think baby jokic or jokic lite is an overused term for him. While there are similarities in their games, I don't think he needs to have the pressure of being the next jokic. There are still very notable differences in their games, he doesn't play bully ball like jokic, slashes way more and he's more athletic, jokic tends to have better basketball iq and does not do the flamingo etc like sengun. I'd rather it be the first alperen sengun, than the next jokic.
sengun's post footwork is better but his rebounding and posting into the basket is not as effective as jokic, being like what, 20kg lighter? They play at a different frame and they don't fully play the same
I mean the comparison is valid and Sengun has the skills to be the next Jokic but he doesn’t have his offensive capabilities polished yet plus Jokic is a somewhat better defender but sengun can get there
Ime Udoka... I didn't know he went to the Rockets after the Celtics. Would that be a regret for the C's if they don't win the NBA title while Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown on the team?
Watched the rockets this year a couple times. Never knew about Sengun before that because Never liked the Rockets. Green and Smith are just garbage. But, Sengun is definitely special. Maybe not Jokic special. But he is very good.
Stop declaring up and coming prospect to all time NBA greats. Alpi is my boy, don't get me wrong, I even called his NBA draft when he was playing at under 18s but Jokic is an all time great, and arguably is in the top 8 players of all time discussion. I'm not saying it because it puts too much expectation on a young player, Alpi has that dawg in him and can handle it but it's kinda disrespectful for the Joker.
Sengun and Green could actually end up being a worse version of Jokic and Murray. I haven't seen much of Jabari but is it fair to say he has a similar game to Porter or am I way off base lol
Call yourself out for saying what your said about Dillion brooks, you drank the same kool-aid everyone else did when laker fans said he was bad just to fit in and you used Dillion brooks in like 8 or more thumbnails to clown him when he was a grizzlies player.
I'll bet you 100,000 USD that in the next 15 years, he doesnt have one season as good as Jokic 2022 run. Let's do it. Since you're so sure he's the next Joker and you'lre willing to bait thousands of views with a stattement like that
