Houston Rockets All-Star center Alperen Sengun has been ranked among the five best current NBA players at his position this season.
But how high did he climb?
Frank Urbina of HoopsHype has opted to rank the 6-foot-11 big man out of Turkey as the No. 4-best center heading into the 2025-26 season, behind only five-time All-Star New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, All-Star San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama, and three-time league MVP center Nikola Jokic.
A major opportunity for Sengun this season
Urbina posits that Sengun has All-NBA potential. He’ll have a major opportunity this year to level up. After a 52-30 run in 2024-25, Houston brought in 15-time All-Star forward Kevin Durant as the centerpiece of a blockbuster seven-team trade, and signed a variety of exciting new pieces, highlighted by 3-and-D combo forward Dorian Finney-Smith, returning center Clint Capela, and defense-first guard Josh Okogie.
Last year, the 23-year-old averaged 19.1 points on 49.6 percent shooting from the floor and 69.2 percent shooting from the charity stripe, 10.3 rebounds, 4.9 assists, 1.1 steals and 0.8 blocks a night in 76 healthy bouts.
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“Sengun is another center with that modern, skilled twist to his game, as he can not only score with his back to the basket or after facing up, but he can also rebound at a high level and make plays for teammates in a creative manner unbecoming of a traditional 5. Sengun is probably just a reliable three-point shot away from reaching those All-NBA heights,” Urbina writes.
Urbina notes that Sengun managed to emerge as the Rockets’ best player last season even without a long range jumper — and points out that Sengun is actively working to make improvements in that department.
Serbian coach Djordje Sijan indicated that he worked with Sengun to finesse his 3-point shooting this summer ahead of EuroBasket, per Milun Nesovic of Meridian Sport.
“There is a lot of pressure on him to shoot more. In the NBA, the way modern basketball is played, he wants to be a center or a power forward who opens up the floor,” Sijan said. “We worked from the first day to the last, and he brought the mechanics of the shot to perfection. Now we need internal stability, self-confidence to apply. Mentally, that’s the pressure. I tell him that basketball is like a cake, made of layers. And the layer he lacks is the 3-point shot. In the NBA, the whole game is about speed, shooting, reaction, and reading.”
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