Part 3)
Alperen Sengun He played in Turkey's league, was the MVP, and he was deserving of it, so not like the Avdjia and Vezenkov examples. However, he played in a crappy team, despite that some claim otherwise. It's a crap level team for the standards of Europe. And the Turkish League is an OK league for European standards. It's certainly in the upper tier of domestic leagues in Europe, but nonetheless, overall it's also far below the level of EuroLeague, and it's also below the level of the secondary European leagues, like the EuroCup and FIBA Champions League.
Sengun's team, Besiktas, actually played in the 4th tier European league, the FIBA Europe Cup. That's 3 league levels below the EuroLeague. And that league is absolute trash. And his team didn't even do jack at that 4th European level. They were eliminated at the first group stage of the competition. Sengun had great numbers in that league, but it's the 4th level European league. It's a lower level than the Turkish League is. It's miles below the level of the EuroLeague. So it's much different than Doncic's situation was in Real Madrid.
Let's look at how Sengun played in the Turkish League playoffs against Efes. Efes won the EuroLeague championship. Sengun's team got swept by Efes 3 games to 0. The scores of the three games were Efes 96 - Besiktas 77, Efes 104 - Besiktas 86, and Efes 96 - Besiktas 66. So all three games were blowouts.
In that series, Sengun performed like this:
Game 1: Efes 96 - Besiktas 77 (19 point loss)
6 points
3 rebounds
2 assists
0 steals
0 blocks
Game 2: Efes 104 - Besiktas 86 (18 point loss)
15 points
2 rebounds
2 assists
0 steals
1 block
Game 3: Efes 96 - Besiktas 66 (30 point loss)
23 points
7 rebounds
5 assists
0 steals
0 blocks
So in the Turkish League playoffs against Efes, Sengun's team was swept 3-0 and blown out in every game, losing by an average point margin of 22.3 points per game. In the series, Sengun's numbers were:
14.7 points per game
4.0 rebounds per game
3.0 assists per game
0.0 steals per game
0.3 blocks per game
So basically, a huge drop in production, and his team being blown out in three straight games. It's against an elite EuroLeague team, and it's a small sample size, but that gives an indication of his actual current level as a player.
To give a comparison, Mam Jaiteh is a French center that was also playing in a crap team in the Turkish League this season. Here were Mam Jaiteh's numbers in the Turkish League this year:
16.7 points per game
10.8 rebounds per game
2.1 assists per game
0.7 steals per game
0.9 blocks per game
Mam Jaiteh - as a comparison example (production wise):
Mam Jaiteh is 26, so that's why you are not hearing about him in the US sports media. His team didn't play in a European league this season. But Jaiteh has played in European leagues before.
https://www.euroleague.net/competition/players/showplayer?pcode=002581&seasoncode=E20134.6 points
3.7 rebounds
0.3 assists
0.4 steals
0.4 blocks
Jaiteh had great production in the Turkish League this season, but previously, he didn't do jack squat in the EuroLeague.
This was Jaiteh's production the last time he played in the EuroCup (2nd level European league):
https://www.euroleague.net/competition/players/showplayer?pcode=002581&seasoncode=U20184.3 points
4.8 rebounds
1.5 assists
0.3 steals
0.3 blocks
Jaiteh didn't do jack squat in a secondary level European league either. But his numbers jumped way up while he was playing in a crap Turkish League team this season. To be clear, I'm not comparing Jaieth and Sengun as players. Sengun is very skilled and talented and I'm not talking about it in that way. I'm just trying to make it clear as to what level of player Sengun was actually at in a true European sense this season, instead of the nonsense BS you will see in US sports media.
If you read some of those US sports media draft articles, they make it sound like Sengun was the best player in Europe, like he was playing in the best league in Europe, and like he was dominating this, and dominating that, and blah, blah, blah - just a complete total bunch of stupid hype gimmicks for NBA marketing.
You have to have actual objective analysis in its proper context, with a proper base to compare to, and with an actual understanding of what it really means. Not some of this nonsense you will see in some draft articles like, "Sengun was totally dominating against grown men in a premier European league". That's amateurish analysis at best, and it's possibly even in the realm of being clownish analysis.
The reality is that Sengun was extremely good by European standards,
for his age. In an overall sense, of course not. If he was playing in the EuroLeague, he would have been a role player. Of course being a role player in the EuroLeague at age 18, and being a big man on top it, since they usually develop slower, is very good. It's very difficult to do that at that age, especially for a center.
But regardless, he would have been a role player in EuroLeague. So people should really just ignore all that "dominating and destroying the best competition in Europe" nonsense in US sports media. That kind of silly "analysis" is enough for me to know right away that they have very limited knowledge or understanding of anything about European basketball.[/quote]
