Point Sengun Might Be About to Invert Basketball

Senhub is dead - long live Point Sengun. In Houston's season opening loss to OKC, Alperen Sengun exploded for 39 points and 7 assists and announced his intent to join the NBA's uppermost echelon of stardom with an all-round mesmerising offensive display. This was the necessary tonic the Rockets needed in the wake of injury to Fred VanVleet and the question mark it raised over any offense not ending in a Kevin Durant shot. Despite both Sengun's and the team's overall improvements over the past two years, I like many have had the sense there has been something left on the table, with more playmaking potential from the Turkish all-star waiting to be untapped. Enter, the 'Senhub'. But was this what we got on Tuesday night? I'd argue we got something different, something more unexpected.

The idea of ‘Senhub’ usually conjures up an image of Sengun creating out of the post, with player movement and cutting around him, shooting and secondary playmaking, all revolving around Sengun somewhere on the block as the star of the offensive solar system. We did not see much of this against OKC. Instead, Sengun dominated as a downhill ballhandler slicing through the defense with pinpoint passing and insane shotmaking. Sengun had 18 drives, per NBA tracking data, good for 13.6 per36. His season average last year was 8.8. Conversely, he only posted up 4.4 times per36, compared to 5.7 last year. While he still looked to play back to the basket at times, his game was much more of face up, north-south one than I had envisioned it being.

There are clear limitations of Sengun posting up which were obvious from the first play. Look at how cramped the lane gets as he tries to work on Chet Holmgren, with Cason Wallace digging all the way into the paint and ignoring Thompson on the weakside corner, who eventually receives the pass and bricks the shot (his midrange may be underrated, but Thompson’s 3pt shot continues to look as ugly as it did in the OTE league).

Now watch Sengun drive from the perimeter. The defense collapses just as hard, but as he attacks early north-south, this time there’s more space on the backside for Amen to cut and Sengun is a wizard at finding a pass out of tight pockets.

Watch that again. That’s your center bringing up the ball while the point guard cuts under the rim. The Rockets have completely inverted basketball.

Sengun’s instinct as a passer are vital here. As a downhill driver, the decision tree that ballhandlers have becomes unlocked. Take James Harden in his years with Houston. He is dancing with the ball at the top of the key. The defender takes a half step backwards in anticipation of the drive? Boom, 3, instantly. Defender plays too high up? Blow by. Center steps up to help? Immediate lob pass to Clint Capela. Center stays home? Floater or layup. Help comes from the corner? Kick to the shooter. Rinse and repeat a few thousand times and you have a high functioning basketball machine running efficient offense by making muscle memory decisions with no hesitation. There is a very clear ‘if defense does A then I do B’ decision tree which can be repeated over and over and over again. Now watch the play below. Sengun has Brooks Barnhizer on him and has a clear intent to drive, he goes left, puts him on his back and spins, but watch how Aaron Wiggins has left Reed Sheppard and navigated over to help. Wiggins doubles at the moment Sengun has his back to him, and yet as soon as Sengun spins and sees the help – BAM – immediate pass to Reed. Not a moment’s hesitation, despite a second defender suddenly appearing under his nose where a moment ago there wasn’t one. That’s Harden-level processing.

I use Harden’s name intentionally because Sengun's game was painted in as many shades of James Harden as it was Nikola Jokic. Watch the play below - it’s pure Harden. He brings the ball up, tries to ISO, gets stuck so passes away only to immediately ask for it back. He calls for a screen to try to force a switch or defensive mistake, then clears out, sizes up his defender, draws the fouls and gets the and1. I saw this for a decade in Houston, how good it is to see it back.

The final play I want to highlight is Houston’s last scoring possession, where Sengun put the team up 124-123 with 11 seconds left in double overtime. It’s notable because Sengun and Kevin Durant are the two backcourt players, this is (nominally speaking) your point guard and shooting guard. Udoka places Sengun one pass away, so when Durant gets hard doubled, Sengun has acres of space to take it to the rim. But he throws in a eurostep to get there just as Lu Dort is positioning himself to take a charge. Think of the pressure of the moment - it’s the 58^th minute of basketball, you are down, if you miss this the game is over. You have a big open space before you and so you launch yourself into it, eyes wide, desperate to score, and then at the last second, have the poise to manoeuvre yourself, despite being nearly 7 foot, so deftly you simply hop-step around the defender all in one fluid motion and then finish with your offhand. Alperen Sengun is basketball poetry.

There are clear downsides to Houston not having an established point guard. I long to see a high pick n roll with Sengun catching and floating down the lane with shooters all around him for the easy finger-roll layup. Sengun had 97 touches against the Thunder and only two of those were elbow touches. That’s a 1:49 ratio compared to 1:11 last season. Without Fred, Sengun is not going to be getting the basketball in the middle of the floor off the catch, and a huge element of his game will be taken away. He will post up more against lesser defenses to compensate, and we saw some Durant/Sengun pick n roll stuff which was tantalising to say the least, so there can still be variety here. But with Reed continuing to look shaky (albeit with solid ball movement as a ball handler) and Amen preferring to attack in isolation, the roll man opportunities for Sengun are going to be significantly reduced. Opportunities instead will come from the backcourt, where Sengun will have to shoot and shoot well to thrive. On opening night he certainly looked the part, going 5-8 from deep and comfortably firing over contesting defenders. But he’s a career 28% shooter and even in his much-heralded Eurobasket outing this summer, he shot a paltry 31.8% from the shorter FIBA line. I happen to think he has a bit more lift on his shot, which looks like a meaningful tweak, but I would caution fans not to hold their breath just yet – and maintaining that lift throughout a long season with a 29% usage rate (as Sengun had vs OKC) will be incredibly hard to do as fatigue sets in.

With or without the shot, Alperen Sengun looks ready to book his slot at the All-Star game again this year. But will he do so as a frontcourt player, or a backcourt player?