Alperen Şengün

without providing a hyper elite counterbalancing category.

So LaMelo Ball, Alperen Shingun would be the two guys I would throw in that mix.

Ball is horrible at field goal percent, but he's not great at anything.

He's good at a bunch of stuff, but he's not great at anything where you're like, oh, well, at least, you know, that's my build now.

Alperen Shingun, same kind of thing.

He's an excellent scorer for a big man and you like the rebounds and the assists and all that stuff is good.

All of that stuff is good, but his free throw number is bad.

They just they just are.

Kevin Durant, Alperen Chingun, they're two guys.

They're two best players.

Love to slow it down.

And when you think about that, when you think about just – I guess this is kind of a broader lesson from last year's team.

Do you feel like there should be any level of, like – overwhelming concern from Rockets fans based on what we saw this past year, be it, you know, concern with the coaching staff that Emei wasn't able to put a better product together offensively without Fred or just concern from the players themselves that like Amin and Alpi and Reid couldn't really step up to fill that void consistently or effectively enough throughout the year to mask how ugly things really got.

It's something that we've gone back and forth on, I think, a few times in this offseason.

Did Fred's absence kind of expose the shortcomings of Ime Udoka and his coaching staff? Perhaps that's true.

And like, you know, there were times where you saw Reed or a Kogi or Tari or Jabari scared to throw that entry pass.

They didn't know how to, whereas Fred has a knack for, for spoon-feeding Alper and Shingun.

The chemistry between those two guys, even though Fred, to your point, is a bit limited, and we're going to talk about some of those limitations here in just a moment, he is able to get Alpi the ball in spots where he can be significantly more effective, where he doesn't have to do nearly as much of...

the pounding the air out of it, the backing down, the Charles Barkley dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble post-ups to be able to get to his spots to be effective.

He better than Paulo, but he ain't better.

He better than Paulo, but he ain't better than Sengun.

Or he better than Paulo, he better than Sengun, but he ain't better than Dylan Harper.

Like, he was kind of throwing me off with stuff like

that.

I just, I thought Josh Hart locked him up in the playoffs, and he didn't impress me in that series.

Deni Avdija, Osar Thompson, Alperen Sengun, and then I had rookies Cam Boozer, VJ, well, second year VJ Edgecombe, AJ Dabanja, and then I had your guy, AJ Mitchell.

Then I had Darren Peterson, who I, I like, I like you reaching on him.

Uh, your boy Josh Giddey, Kason Wallace, Peyton Watson, Devin Vassell.

I'd rather, I'd rather gamble even on a Jaylen Johnson, a Kiante George, an AJ Mitchell-

Yeah

... uh, over Alperen Sengun.

And I know that that sounds silly just given what's happened, but I, I, if I'm looking at this from th- the, the standpoint of I want to give myself the player that I think helps me the most get to a championship, I'm just gonna be much lower o- on Sengun than I am on any-