Next Nikola Jokic??? Alperen Sengun Scouting Report
Nikola Jokic was a player that was underrated consistently for years, both before, and even after, being drafted into the NBA. At 7'0" tall, and around 300 lbs, Jokic was a post force that not many in the Liga ABA could stop. He was drafted 41st in the 2014 NBA Draft, and before coming over to the US, he stayed one more year as a draft-and-stash player to show off his basketball talent even more.
Another player who is a dominant post force in Europe at the moment is Alperen Sengun. Don’t be intimidated by his name, it’s not too hard to pronounce, especially when compared to other players that have come out of Europe such as Giannis Antetokounmpo. While you may have seen Giannis as a rookie and stayed away from talking about him due to his name, I’m sure you can all pronounce it well now. Sengun is a dominant post force, like Jokic, however, he played in one of the best leagues in Europe, unlike Jokic. This league is known as the Turkish Basketball Super League, abbreviated to the BSL.
Many will think of him at first glance as a post player, but he is not merely a back-to-the-basket big, similar to many players of the past eras of NBA basketball that have now gone out of style.
Offensive Breakdown
One major question about Sengun is his ability to stretch the floor and give the team that drafts him good enough spacing on the court. Across his play in all the games he has played in as a professional, being his 3 years in Europe and his play in FIBA tournaments, he has shot 22.9% from 3. This is broken down into his individual competitions below.
While these percentages aren’t ideal, he has had a relatively low volume of attempts, and FT% is a better indicator of NBA 3P% than a prospect’s College or International 3P%. Let’s have a look at his FT%, with his attempts and makes shown in a table below, similar to the one above.
Obviously, his mark of 67.2% overall isn’t ideal, but this past season, his mark of 79.4% is on very high volume, and it is his most recent performance at the FT line. This 79.4% indicates that he has high upside as a shooter, especially from 3, due to a high level of touch.
Aside from his shooting, he is an excellent playmaker, especially out of the post, but also in transition. He can use ball fakes extremely well, which in some cases, can generate passing windows to cutters from nowhere. However, he isn’t particularly advanced at using eye fakes out of the post, which is a potential area of future development. In transition, he is very good at hitting teammates leading the break, and can also handle the ball himself and finish around defenders with his athleticism and large strides.
Another aspect of his offensive game is his offensive rebounding, which allows him to get easy putbacks, even in traffic. While he is underrated athletically, he isn’t the most vertically explosive prospect, but his timing is probably one of the best in this class, which gives him a significant advantage over more athletic rebounders when crashing the boards.
Even if he doesn’t pan out as a shooter, he could still bring value as a PnR man, which he already excels at. He is a very good passer out of the short roll, and he can both set solid screens to generate space for the ball-handler, and roll to the rim with solid explosion.
While I don’t expect Sengun to be a high priority post player early into his career, as he becomes more solidified in his role, I could imagine him getting some good touches. He is an absolute monster in the post, with generational level footwork, and post moves in which he has the grace of a ballerina, despite being 6'10" and almost 250 lbs.
I expect that Sengun will be able to handle the ball in the NBA, especially more than he did for Besiktas, and he should be able to both bring the ball up after a defensive rebound like a wing would, or lead the break in transition. If any of you know about Sandro Mamukelashvili, another prospect from this year, projected to go in the 2nd round, I expect that Sengun will be able to have a similar role when he establishes himself in the NBA, to Sandro in College. I think he has the athleticism to take some Centers off the dribble, and he has the body control to be able to make spin moves off drives better than Pascal Siakam.
Even as a shot creator, he has some potential, while it was rare, he had his moments shooting off the dribble, and in particular, here is one play that is rare to see from anyone of his build.
Defensive Breakdown
While his offense clearly projects to be above average, a big question mark many people have is regarding his defense. Due to his nature as a ‘slow, plodding big’, he is underrated in this aspect of his game, although he still has much to improve on to become NBA level in this regard.
As a rim protector, Sengun is actually quite solid. He is good at maintaining his verticality and doesn’t pick up a ton of fouls. However, he isn’t the greatest shot-blocker and doesn’t use his vertical explosion well in this aspect of his game. On the perimeter, he is not very confident at all, and he rarely defended perimeter players all season.
Off of ball screens, Besiktas mainly played a drop coverage, but Sengun is actually pretty solid at maintaining both the ball-handler and the roller for long enough for the guard defender to recover. He does well at forcing the offense into inefficient mid-rangers most of the time. Even if he does get blown by due to a speedy guard coming off the screen, he uses his hands well to give solid contests, and he has good timing on blocks when he isn’t in a good position with his feet.
I project him out to be a solid enough defender, due to his ability to get rebounds and cause a few turnovers. He also is solid at not fouling, so that is another positive to his defense. However, like Jokic, he isn’t great at stopping the offense from scoring by lowering their actual shooting percentage, which is the most important thing to defend, so overall, he’ll probably be around average. While I project him to be a PF or a small ball C on offense, I think he might not be up to scratch as a defender early in his career, but as he develops, I expect he’ll be able to both stay out on the perimeter, guarding forwards and stretch bigs, and he’ll be okay at defending ball screens as well.
Player Comparisons
Given Sengun is a European playmaking post big, there are two comparisons that fit this exact model, being Nikola Jokic and Domantas Sabonis. I have also compared him to Kevin Love due to his shooting projection and rebounding ability, and now let’s break down the validity of these comparisons.
Right now, Sengun is expected to be selected in the first round in the 2021 Draft, which will occur on the 29th of July. On draft day, he will be 19 years old, and 4 days, and we can now compare his production to these comparisons when they were a similar age.
Nikola Jokic
Firstly, Nikola Jokic. When Jokic declared for the 2014 NBA Draft, he was 19 years and 5 months old, which is a similar age, despite slightly older, to Sengun at the moment. Let’s compare their prior seasons, with both box score and some more “advanced” statistics.
Now, just to put this comparison into perspective, the stats are adjusted for minutes played, and for the pace that their respective team played at. As we discussed before, Jokic was approximately 5 months older, and he also played in the Liga ABA, as opposed to Sengun’s play in the T-BSL.
To distinguish between how competitive the leagues were at their respective times, KK Mega Bemax, Jokic’s team, finished 8th in the ABA, and the top 2 teams from the previous season, KK Partizan and KK Crvena Zvezda played in the Euroleague that season. These teams finished 14th and 17th out of the 24 Euroleague teams that season, which gives a relatively simple way of determining the competition level in the Liga ABA.
In the T-BSL this season, where Besiktas finished 5th in the regular season, 2 teams qualified for the Euroleague, being Fenerbahce and Anadolu Efes, who finished 7th and 3rd in the Euroleague regular season. However, in the playoffs, Fenerbahce got knocked out in the first round, whereas Anadolu Efes won the Euroleague championship. Given this, it is clear that Sengun’s league had a higher level of competition, and both he outperformed Jokic at the same age with the box score, and his team performed better than Jokic’s against better competition.
Although Jokic developed at a fast rate, both after being drafted and in the NBA, their level of production at the same age points to Sengun being the better player, and with a good enough development rate, he should be able to keep up to Jokic’s level of production.
Domantas Sabonis
At the age of 18 and 3 months, Sabonis had just finished up his first season with a professional team, that had played in the Liga ACB, or the Spanish league. This league is generally considered to be the highest level of competition for domestic leagues in Europe, which means that Sabonis’ team, Unicaja Malaga played against better teams than Sengun’s Besiktas. However, after only playing approximately 10 minutes per game, Sabonis moved over to the NCAA and began playing for Gonzaga. After he finished his freshman year, he was approximately 19 and 3 months, a similar age to Sengun’s 19 and 4 days by the time of the draft. Here is another statistical comparison, with all stats being adjusted for pace and playing time as above.
Overall, these stats, while similar, still show that Sengun was the better player at the same age. Not to mention, despite playing in the ACB earlier in his career, Sabonis’ move to the NCAA meant he began playing against far easier competition than Sengun, who was playing against fully grown men, whereas Sabonis was merely playing against other players his age.
Kevin Love
As with Sabonis, Kevin Love also played in the NCAA, however, for UCLA. At the time of the 2008 Draft, where Love was drafted 5th overall, he was 19 years and 10 months old, which is only slightly under a year older than Sengun will be at the 2021 Draft. Here is the comparison of their pace adjusted stats per 36 minutes.
Given these stats, it is clearly very close between the two. However, Kevin Love was, at the time, almost a year older than Sengun, and played against worse competition in the NCAA.
Despite not being a film breakdown, I hope that these stats at similar ages show that Sengun could be on track to have a similar career to either Jokic, Sabonis or KLove. I personally believe he could get to a level like Jokic, but as I said in his offensive breakdown, I think he will be more suited to playing as a PF in the NBA, rather than a C.
Overall
Overall, Sengun is ranked 4th on my Big Board, in Tier 2, with Evan Mobley and Jalen Green. The consensus mainstream media has him in the area from 10 to 20, with this being from sources such as ESPN, Tankathon, Bleacher Report, and The Athletic. I am very high on him due to his upside, as I hope I have pointed out, and I hope that this has encouraged some of you to have him a bit higher on your board.
