More than a passing fancy
Rookie center Sengun continuing to improve in all facets of his game
DALLAS — The no-look passes, the sort that draw roars at home and oohs and ahhs on the road, don’t come without practice. Alperen Sengun must work on his craft.
By now, Orhun Gungoren, Sengun’s friend, translator and frequent companion as the Rockets’ teenaged center makes his way around the United States for the first time, should know better. But he still tends to forget.
“Pass the salt, Al-P.”
“It hits sometimes my head, sometimes my shoulder,” Gungoren said. “It’s dangerous to live with him.”
“I’m always working on it,” Sengun confessed, speaking entirely in English with no small amount of pride in his dramatic improvement with the language.
“I’m working before the game. Lunch, we are working on it.”
With that, he caught Gungoren laughing, so Sengun began pantomiming passes.
“It’s a fork, like this,” Sengun said between giggles and a pretend over-theshoulder pass. “It’s a knife, like this.”
In games, he said, it comes naturally but not for show. Sengun sees teammates open before the defense, often before his teammates.
“It’s something I’m feeling in the game,” Sengun said. “I’m not thinking before I get the ball, ‘I will give this pass this way.’ It’s what I’m feeling, and I’m seeing how I’m comfortable now.
“(Opponents) don’t understand how I will do the pass. I’m turning … but I see the (open) guy. After I see it, then they’ll see it.”
His offensive talents, from his unusual passing ability to a variety of post moves, made Sengun the 16th player in the draft, with the Rockets spending two first-round picks to get him, and still make him an important part of their rebuilding. But in recent weeks, the Rockets have used him differently, as Stephen Silas’ first substitute for forward Jae’Sean Tate, allowing Sengun to play more often with Christian Wood.
The improvement with the pairing defensively has allowed them to play through a few brief stretches in each game and offers a glimpse of possibilities.
“He’s a rookie,” Wood said. “He’s young. He’s 19. He has a long way to go. He’s learning this season, like everybody is. Me, too. You can see his progression, getting better defensively.”
Wood moves to forward, Sengun mans the center position, and they have meshed well enough that, since the All-Star break, they have outscored opponents by 5.2 points per 100 possessions.
“I had a conversation with Christian about that (on Wednesday),” Silas said. “It’s important for them to play well together and making sure that when we have two bigs on the floor that we’re spaced correctly and we’re functioning well on offense and then rebounding and defending at the same level or a better level.
“They play well together. Christian has proven he can guard certain guys on the perimeter well as long as he’s not … guarding guys coming off screens and running around. But if he’s in help, he can be a good helper; he can be a good low man. Al-P, if he can stay out of foul trouble with his technique, which is getting better and better, can defend fives and hold his ground and be physical and rebound.”
Silas cited Sengun’s “natural ability to help his teammates play better” offensively for making the combination fit. But unlike the long-since abandoned effort to pair Wood with the since traded Daniel Theis, making it work has been about the strides taken defensively.
“We are doing good defense together because two big guys on the inside, generally,” Sengun said. “Whoever is coming inside, we can close the rim.
“On defense, I’m better with him. Offense, we are good now. In the beginning of the season, we didn’t play a lot, you know. Our spacing was bad. But right now, I know him, he knows me. We are talking during the game. He’s talking with me, and we have good communication now.”
That did not happen by accident. Coaches have throughout the season instructed not just to communicate but how. There is also just chemistry that develops.
“There’s the comfort level between the two,” Silas said. “We have a 19-year-old rookie coming in from Turkey who didn’t really speak English very well and nobody knew him. You build bonds, and the communication gets better. One of the things we’ve been harping on all season is the communication and making sure we’re all speaking the same language on the floor as far as what our coverage is, what the next call is, (and that) we’re not saying ‘under’ when we’re supposed to be saying ‘through.’ ”
Until this season, when talking about defense — whether in English or Turkish — teams were not speaking Sengun’s language. That too, he said, has changed.
“Last season, I didn’t want to (play) defense,” Sengun said. “I was an offensive guy. Right now, I need to (play) both sides, offense and defense. Right now, I’m more focused on defense. Last season, I was an offensive guy and didn’t need the defense. Now, I need the defense.”
Still, he is also a passer. That has not changed and likely never will.
“When he has the ball in his hands, his first look usually is who’s open,” Silas said. “That helps everybody play well, especially Christian. He makes it good for others because he can make plays for others (or) he can score.”
It is just best to keep eyes open because something can come flying at any time, from sharp passes to sharper objects.