Rockets’ Alperen Sengun Ranks as Eighth-Best Number Two Option in NBA

Alperen Sengun’s NBA career has been a bit of an obstacle course. He was drafted outside of the draft lottery in 2021, while Jalen Green was selected second overall. In other words, Green was expected to be the franchise player, starting from day one.

Sengun, on the other hand, sat on the bench behind Bruno Fernando, who he was clearly better than. Sengun didn’t start until his second season and has taken leaps and made improvements every season since.

Last year, it was Sengun, not Green, who represented the Houston Rockets in the All-Star game. Sengun became the team’s best player, drawing double teams on a nightly basis and facing the opposing team’s best defender on a regular basis.

In other words, he became the team’s number one option. The offensive engine, if you will.

This season, however, he’ll be the team’s second option, behind Kevin Durant, who was acquired in the summer for Green (and Dillon Brooks, along with draft capital).

It’s not a knock on Sengun.

Most players would be forced to take a back seat to Durant. In fact, there are only about 10 players (depending on how you rank players across the league) who wouldn’t.

Sengun instantly becomes one of the better second options in the league.

In fact, according to Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo Sports, Sengun is the eighth-best secondary option in the entire league. Six of the players ahead of him have already entrenched themselves as some of the best players in the league.

The top six are below:

1. Jalen Williams
2. LeBron James
3. Evan Mobley
4. Jimmy Butler
5. Karl-Anthony Towns
6. De’Aaron Fox

We’ve heard a good bit about how Durant’s presence will open things up for Sengun, and rightfully so. However, on the flip side, Sengun’s presence helps Durant as well.

He’s never played with a center quite like Sengun. Then again, there aren’t many centers who are like Sengun, outside of Nikola Jokic and Domantas Sabonis, who have both made All-NBA teams.

Durant and Sengun can play off one another and will be hard to stop in the pick-and-roll action.

Again, Durant has never played alongside a big man like Sengun. He’s played with role players at the big man position, who specialized in specific things.

Sengun’s playmaking is going to be pivotal for the Rockets this season without Fred VanVleet and we’ve already seen in during the preseason, as he’s averaged 8.7 assists through three games.