Jokic v. Sabonis v. Sengun on DEFENSE

[penbeast0]

Three offensive minded centers, who is the best on defense? You can break it down by schemes if you wish: who is the best switchable defender, who is best in drop coverage, etc. but please make an overall conclusion.

[70sFan]

I think Sengun is clearly the best in my opinion. Probably Jokic a clear 2nd.

[MoreyWins]

There's not a discussion to be had. Sengun is 1st.

[MoreyWins]

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[GeorgeMarcus]

I'll go with Sengun as well- he has really impressed me on that end of the floor. When he first came into the league I thought he was doomed to be a liability.

Then I'd probably go Jokic followed by Sabonis

[Woodsanity]

1. Sengun

2. Jokic

3. Sabonis

Sengun's scoring touch is pretty poor though sadly.

[trex_8063]

1. Sengun

2. Jokic

3. Sabonis

Sengun's scoring touch is pretty poor though sadly.

Yeah, he's tasked with way too much offensive burden on that team. They just lack the weapons; having watched a little of the GS series, I'm sort of shocked they were actually a positive rORTG in the rs [13th in the league]. They looked awful on offense in the games I watched (especially game 7, which was sort of hard to watch).

Sengun has been kinda inefficient all year long, yet they seemed to be running their offense through him whenever I was watching.
The end of game 4 felt bizarre to me: you're down by 1 pt with 13 seconds left, you call time-out, presumably to draw up a play. And that play is.......to have Sengun [a proven low(ish) efficiency scorer] play iso-ball against Draymond frickin' Green???

Anyway, that's a bit of a derailer. He's awfully young, though, so still a lot of room to improve on offense. Good amount of potential there.


And I agree with the consensus (re: OP's topic): 1. Sengun, 2. Jokic, 3. Sabonis

[MoreyWins]

1. Sengun

2. Jokic

3. Sabonis

Sengun's scoring touch is pretty poor though sadly.

Yeah, he's tasked with way too much offensive burden on that team. They just lack the weapons; having watched a little of the GS series, I'm sort of shocked they were actually a positive rORTG in the rs [13th in the league]. They looked awful on offense in the games I watched (especially game 7, which was sort of hard to watch).

Sengun has been kinda inefficient all year long, yet they seemed to be running their offense through him whenever I was watching.
The end of game 4 felt bizarre to me: you're down by 1 pt with 13 seconds left, you call time-out, presumably to draw up a play. And that play is.......to have Sengun [a proven low(ish) efficiency scorer] play iso-ball against Draymond frickin' Green???

Anyway, that's a bit of a derailer. He's awfully young, though, so still a lot of room to improve on offense. Good amount of potential there.

Sengun lacks a real PnR partner or proper spacing to make what he does look pretty. They've doubled down on churning out lineups that prioritize defense and offensive rebounding, that means the Rockets sometimes put 2 to 3 non-shooters on the court at one time. Offensive rebounds have been one of their best forms of offense the last 3 months, certainly more reliable than any perimeter scorer they have. So when you see Sengun going right at Draymond, the options that Houston were hoping for were either a made FG or an offensive rebound by Steven Adams.

[trex_8063]

1. Sengun

2. Jokic

3. Sabonis

Sengun's scoring touch is pretty poor though sadly.

Yeah, he's tasked with way too much offensive burden on that team. They just lack the weapons; having watched a little of the GS series, I'm sort of shocked they were actually a positive rORTG in the rs [13th in the league]. They looked awful on offense in the games I watched (especially game 7, which was sort of hard to watch).

Sengun has been kinda inefficient all year long, yet they seemed to be running their offense through him whenever I was watching.
The end of game 4 felt bizarre to me: you're down by 1 pt with 13 seconds left, you call time-out, presumably to draw up a play. And that play is.......to have Sengun [a proven low(ish) efficiency scorer] play iso-ball against Draymond frickin' Green???

Anyway, that's a bit of a derailer. He's awfully young, though, so still a lot of room to improve on offense. Good amount of potential there.

Sengun lacks a real PnR partner or proper spacing to make what he does look pretty. They've doubled down on churning out lineups that prioritize defense and offensive rebounding, that means the Rockets sometimes put 2 to 3 non-shooters on the court at one time. Offensive rebounds have been one of their best forms of offense the last 3 months, certainly more reliable than any perimeter scorer they have. So when you see Sengun going right at Draymond, the options that Houston were hoping for were either a made FG or an offensive rebound by Steven Adams.

Very good points.
I recognized Houston doesn't have the shooters (for example, are 27th in the 3PAr while also being only 21st in 3pt%), and DEFINITELY recognized their offensive rebounding was the primary engine of their offensive success: #1 in the league in OREB%, and by a good margin--->the gap between them and #1 and the Blazers at #2 is the same size as the gap between #2 and #7.
The one other aspect they've been good at is turnover rate: Sengun does actually have a decent turnover economy for a big (2.6 topg isn't bad for how much offense he's responsible for); and FVV and Dillon Brooks have downright elite turnover economies.

But boy, they're otherwise awful offensively: as poor as they are in 3pt shooting, they're technically worse at 2pt shooting (27th in the league in 2pt%), and dead-last in FT% [while also being 26th in FTAr].

So in light of all of this, maybe you're right that it actually wasn't a bad play-call.