Turkiye dominates bitter non-rival Lithuania 93-73.
It has come to this, I have written an article with the new Content Management System, also known as WordPress. To think, I used to complain about Chorus. That’s modern America for you.
Anyhow, over in the lands of the Hanseatic League, also known as the freedom-loving; Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, (which I would love to visit one day), there’s a major basketball tournament underway. Since Europe and other exotic places like Canada are now supplying the NBA with MVPs, yes, it’s a major tournament. As Rockets fans, our interest lies mainly in the performance of Alperen Sengun. Or as the announcers variously called him “Al”, “Sin-Gen”, “Sin-Gun”, and “Shin-Gin”. Maybe he’ll change his name to “Bill” to make random announcers happy?
Anyhow, Turkiye and Latvia have roughly similar levels of NBA or NBA adjacent players on their rosters. Turkiye of course has Alpie, and also Furkan Korkmaz, and Omer Yurt7. Latvia boasts Kristaps Porzingis, Davis Bertans, and Arturs Kurucs, who I think might have shown up in the GLeague or Vegas Summer League. Also they have Dairis Bertans, so they’ve got double the Bertans cleaning power. (The picture of the Bertanses look like the same picture on the FIBA site.)
Latvia began the game trying to cover Sengun with Davis (Dave) Bertans (Bertie). This emphatically did not work. Eventually they’d put Kristaps Porzingis and two or three other Latvians on him. That didn’t work either. Sengun looks stronger, quicker, and more decisive than last season. Perhaps it’s playing with other Turks. Perhaps Turkiye’s offense is more advanced than the Rockets. Also, perhaps Sengun is an ascending NBA star, and no one else on the court is close to that?
Sengun’s hesitation moves, step throughs and slithering through multiple defenders reminded me of the 23-24 season. So did his passing. When Latvia cut off his moves around the basket, he found open shooters, or, gasp, cutters from the baseline corner heading to the basket. What a concept. What I saw was that when shooters make open shots, Sengun becomes a player that makes a whole defense scramble to catch up.
I don’t know if the Rockets sent anyone to watch Eurobasket, and I don’t know if anyone besides Ime Udoka going would matter, but this is how Sengun plays best. Yes, he’s Turkiye’s best player by a large margin, but just imagine a pass out to a shooter, who is wide open because Sengun has several defenders around him to, not Kenan Sipahi (who to be fair, shot well, 6-6 is pretty good) but Kevin Durant.
Sengun seems to be one of the least talked about NBA players at EuroBasket, but 16/7/5/1/1 in 27 minutes makes a statement all its own.
Poll - I have no idea how to add a poll. I would if I could. Fire Nico.