25-under-25: Alperen Sengun is the star big nobody is talking about

Alperen Sengun ranked No. 20 on The Step Back's 2023-24 25-under-25, ranking the best young players in the NBA. Check out the rest of the list here.

The Houston Rockets have no shortage of young talent. Jalen Green, Jabari Smith Jr., and Amen Thompson are all top-five picks. Cam Whitmore and Tari Eason weren't lottery picks, but should have been. And yet... is there a better prospect on the team than Alperen Sengun?

Short answer, yes. There are better prospects. Green and Thompson, to be precise. Is there a better player than Sengun? Right now, that's a diffcult question to answer. Fred VanVleet has a championship on his resume and the Rockets paid him $40 million annually to leave Toronto for greener, state income tax-free pastures. Dillon Brooks is making $20 million annually.

But, there is a case — an extremely strong case — that Sengun is the Rockets' best player. He generally doesn't have the cachet of Green or Smith (or his new veteran teammates), but that is largely due to Houston's chronic mismanagement of Sengun under Stephen Silas. With a more accomplished head coach in the driver's seat, it's easy to project a sizable leap in production for the Turkish center. With it, expect more NBA fans to realize the special talent brewing in the Rockets frontcourt.

At first blush, Sengun doesn't fit the profile of your "modern" NBA center. He's on the short side, listed at 6-foot-9 with eternally ground-bound. He doesn't rotate well in space. He gets burned on switches, and yes, the defense is a serious problem. On offense, Sengun loves to wax poetic with his footwork in the post. He's a throwback player in a rapidly evolving league.

That could lead one to temper long-term expectations for the 21-year-old, but it shouldn't. Skill is underrated, even in today's skill-happy NBA. Few attributes are more important than feel and touch. Sengun has both in spades, blessed with a preternatural understanding of passing angles and how to leverage his unique physical attributes to gain scoring advantages. Around the rim, Sengun can unleash a deep bag of tricks before softly kissing the ball off the rim. The mid-range and 3-point jumpers are a work in progress, but Sengun has a shooter's touch and the basketball I.Q. to one day become a full-on offensive centerpiece.

The Houston Rockets are about to unleash Alperen Sengun in new and exciting ways

"Anytime you have a big that can initiate the offense, whether from the high post or off the block, you want to take advantage of his skill set," Rockets head coach Ime Udoka told reporters. "He’s deadly in the pocket. You can hit him on the half roll, and he can make all the plays there. That makes it easier for everyone else."

Sengun fits into a small group of genuine playmakers at the five spot. Nikola Jokic and Domantas Sabonis are the obvious points of comparison: burly, brute-force scorers who can make every pass in the book. It's not fair to saddle the 21-year-old Sengun with those expectations, but there aren't many teams who can fashion their entire offense around a such a nimble offensive weapon.

The Rockets should place Sengun in a position to succeed, with speedy splashers (Amen Thompson and Jalen Green), 3-point bombers (Fred VanVleet), and lanky defensive wings (Dillon Brooks, Jabari Smith, Tari Eason) abound. The Rockets can penetrate from the perimeter, involve Sengun in screen actions, or let him cook out of post-ups. There's so much optionality for Udoka and the new coaching staff as they construct the offense. Sengun still needs to clean up a few errant turnovers, but generally, the previous Rockets regime was reluctant to let Sengun explore the breadth of his skill set. That should no longer be the case.

It will be a while until Houston starts to win games. The young core has a lot of growing left to do; the previous coaching staff failed to establish winning habits. That leaves Houston years behind the curve, but at the same time, there's so much untapped potential. Sengun in particular will benefit immensely from a real, experienced head coach who has experience with multi-faceted playmakers in the frontcourt. Sengun can take the Al Horford playbook and riff on a level that is frickin' sublime. He oozes creativity, and the Rockets should lean fully into that. Let Sengun freestyle. Let him find pressure points in the defense and press.

This should be the season where NBA fans start to realize how special Sengun is. It's best to think of him as glue. Houston has perimeter scorers aplenty, a genuine playmaking whiz in Thompson, and plenty of high-upside defenders. Sengun is the literal and figurative man in the middle — setting screens, searching for teammates, finishing at the rim, and supplying the connective tissue to bring all the pieces together. His ability to operate from different areas of the floor, to impact different areas of the game based on team need, should work wonders as Houston tries to figure out its identity.

Sengun stock is on the rise. Invest while you still can.