The Athletic: Bruno Fernando Will Start Over Sengun When He Returns

Was Green scoring at will last night? Having Sengun clogging up lanes makes things more difficult for ANYONE trying to drive to the basket and that's something Green needs to do when his shot isn't falling.

I'm not saying Sengun will never fit, but right now to play the style he wants to play, he has to be able to shoot the 3 well enough to where defenders respect it.....and he has to be willing to actually shoot it. Right now defenders can lag off of him when he's away from the basket and his instincts as the roll man are pretty terrible. He's young, those are all things that can be fixed, but they are also reasons why right now the starting unit works better with Bruno than Sengun.

It's not that Bruno is better than Sengun, he's not, it's that the offense works better with a player who can do those things.

 

He doesn't have the athleticism or instincts for either, that's my point. How many times in the last 2 games did he end up in the way of the player trying to drive because he was still trying to post up instead of getting to the rim out of the way of the guy driving?

That's something he can work on and get better at, but right now it's not working.

 

He does fine with Green running the PNR. Finishes at a high clip too.
KPJ is the problem

 

Sengun is in the 41 percentile as the roll man in the pick and roll.

Bruno is in the 95th percentile as the roll man in the pick and roll

The only big man on the Rockets worse at being the roll man in the pick and roll is Jabari Smith who is embarrassingly bad at it being in the 35th percentile.

Basically with Sengun as the roll man, it's 50/50 that he'll convert, with Bruno as the roll man he scores almost 86% of the time.

So now that you are faced with the numbers, do you want to retract anything?

 

Now, do the numbers with Green as the ball handler and KPJ as the ball handler.

That, is the problem.

 

Ah yes, with player first fans it always has to be someone else's fault....

 

Bruno has not ran a single PNR with Green.

KPJ isn’t a good passer out of the PNR outside of Bruno.

Green and Alp have a super high efficiency running together.

But, of course, a KPJ only fan is blinded to this.

 

Ah yes, it only effects Sengun....

Neither KPJ or Green are particularly competent as the PnR ball handler....and every player on the team other than Bruno sucks as the roll man.....but for whatever reason Bruno is one of the best in the NBA. Clearly the takeaway has to be that it's all KPJ's fault.

Brilliant analysis.

 

Blinded by your only fan fandom I see.

Ego/Green have no problem with Alp and PNR. But KPJ does.
The only player he has efficiency with is Bruno.
That’s a KPJ problem

 

LOL, ah yes, I'm the one blinded here.....it's completely rational to blame all shortcomings on other players.

An unbiased person would easily be able to see that Bruno is simply the ONLY player on the Rockets competent to be a roll man in the PnR, but you prefer to go the conspiracy theory route.

Sengun is really bad this year as the roll man, he was even worse last year. Just accept that isn't one of his strengths and move on to save SOME credibility.

 

He didn’t run much roll last year.
He’s not had good numbers with KPJ as the ball handler. That’s on KPJ, there’s plenty of video evidence of bad passes and not staying on his path.
There’s also plenty of evidence of your love for KPJ, pretty sad you’re an only fan of such an inefficient player

 

You don't sound like a Rockets fan at all when you say Bruno fits better to the starting 5. That is just silly..

 

I would like a bigger sample size.
Man is averaging 5.7 pts per game. Man could be the best pnr man and it means nothing to me if he only scores 3 buckets.
Doesn't really justify utilizing him over Sengun when it comes to PnR.
Ah yes, he scores 86% of the time, pfffffft.


"Better PnR", "better lob target", all of this means jack sht to me if KPJ doesn't utilize lobs frequently and the man only scores 3 buckets a game.
Sengun offers so much more to the offense than what bruno can offer.


If u cite sengun's defense as being a liability, i would counter that the sample size for bruno is too small to gauged if he's a better defensive option to warrant sengun being benched.


All in all, it's logical to conclude right now that Sengun offers way more to the team starting than bruno. The only reason for sengun to b benched is b/c kpj and silas fails to utilize him properly.

 

It just depends if you are looking out for the team as a whole, or just out for Sengun. The Rockets struggle in the PnR, Sengun is terrible at it, the guards aren't terribly good at running it, but Bruno is REALLY good at it. Having that available opens things up for the starters.

Either you want to set them up for success, or you don't care about that and just want more Sengun at all costs.

I'm not even saying to play Bruno more than Sengun, just to stagger Sengun with the starters a bit by having Bruno technically be the starter and Sengun can run the second unit.

It's telling those who push back on that idea and why.

 

Sports is like this. Every "so called" fan feels entitled to have an opinion on teams, players and coaches.

You have an opinion and this dude has another :
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3gTT4ZFI7qw

 

This stat is literally "Value over replacement player".



http://www.espn.com/nba/hollinger/statistics/_/sort/VORPe

 

James Piercey before he found out Alperen Sengun has better defensive field goal % at the rim than Myles Turner :
James Piercey after he found out Alperen Sengun has better defensive field goal % at the rim than Myles Turner:



It's hilarious that this guy is posting bullshits like he's a f*cking basketball guru and thousands of people follow him. lmao.

 

Sengun leads entire NBA in offensive rebounding.

Tari is top 5.

Yet neither player is getting enough minutes.

 

What? KPJ is raw? So, you admit that he isn't as good and at the cusp of stardom as you've been arguing for?

 

His IQ isn't high defensively, given how he can't defend a chair. He's literally a practice cone