Şengün the Hub: The solution to the Rockets’ offensive struggles

Slow start, quick turnaround

Şengün the Hub: The solution to the Rockets’ offensive struggles. One week into the 2024 season, every braindead box score watcher with a smart phone was ready to publicly write off and trade away Alperen Şengün. People were searching for a solution to the Rockets’ offensive struggles and doing all kinds of mental gymnastics in the process. Couple that with the many people who bought into the lie from last March that the reason for the Rockets and Jalen Green‘s supernova run was because of his absence and you have a lot of people doing a fine job of setting themselves up for embarrassment. The reality is, no matter how good other members of this team might be for stretches, the one player with the ability to truly unlock this offense and get it to its ceiling with its current personnel is none other than the Wizard himself.

It’s not like it was unfair to critique Şengün’s play to start the year. His finishing touch abandoned him through the first handful of games and he showed off a bit of tunnel vision while he was trying to find his way out of a slump. The offensive structure wasn’t doing him any favors in the moment either. Nothing was coming easy and it didn’t seem like Udoka had any plan to consistently generate easy looks for his guys. After a few games, Alperen started to find himself a little more and his scoring numbers picked up to meet the level of his stellar defense and rebounding that he has been putting on display. However, the offense as a whole still seemed to be struggling when guys weren’t able to make difficult shots in large quantities.

It’s not necessarily that the Rockets haven’t been playing well. I think it’s fair to say that they’ve exceeded a lot of NBA fans and media’s expectations over the first 15-ish games. The defense has been incredible, good enough for 3rd in the league in Defensive Rating, and the offense has been good enough at actually putting the ball in the hoop when needed as it floated around the top 10 in Offensive Rating. That’s why they were still able to go 8-4 in their first 12. The eye test failed this team though. They were playing some ugly basketball when they had possession and something needed to change fast if they ever wanted to compete on any level with the likes of a healthy OKC or Golden State (i.e. defensive minded teams with a superstar) in the West.

Then Friday night’s game against the Clippers happened and we got to see what many of us have been waiting for.

The Şen-hub Offense

If you’re not familiar with the idea of a player being an offensive hub, it’s essentially what we call it when a player other than a guard (typically a big) is responsible for generating and initiating the team’s offense. Think Nicola Jokic, and then lower your expectations. This is what Ime showed us with Alperen in game one of Cup play.

Watch this beautiful basketball on display:

Probably hard to tell from this clip but the Clippers are currently 6th in DEFRTG, which makes it even more impressive just how effective Şengün as the offenses initiator throughout this NBA Cup matchup.

Alpi catches the ball at the elbow while Fred and Amen run split action on the wing, Amen draws Harden off of Tari with a cut to the basket, Porter Jr. and Jones Jr. panic in the scramble and leave Fred wide open after the fake pass to Tari in the corner. Bucket. The Rockets were able to get stuff like this all game with this action and a couple other mismatch advantages they were able to create.

Fred gets Alpi the ball at the elbow out of the short roll, Jones Jr. collapses to put pressure of him, and as soon as he feels him there he find red hot Jabari ready to bury one of his many threes of the game. Looks simple enough, but that’s the point. Şengün’s reputation as a gifted scorer in the post and midrange is garnering him a reputation that can create much easier looks than the ones that Rockets have played with most of the season.

The Rockets are in the bottom half of the league in wide open (defender 6ft+ away) 3PA and they are even worse at converting them – looking at you Jalen and Jabari – so their ability to use Şengün as a help magnet to give guys more space and find them in rhythm is essential. Their catch & shoot numbers aren’t all that great right now, but I think that has more to do with the quality of looks and a couple of shooting slumps than it does anything else.

Speaking of shooting slumps, Dillon Brooks is NOT having one, which is why this split action that leaves him wide open because the perimeter defenders had to crash the paint to compensate for Şengün drawing the center to the top of the key to initiate the action is nice. That’s a 40% 3PT shooting wide open because of one little split screen that all started with the big man being the offensive hub.

This is the way the Rockets need to play in order to maximize the product they have on the court. Instead of using Şengün as a primary scorer, rely on him as a threat to score and capitalize on the space that it creates for other players.

Room for growth

I will say, his own ability to space the floor when rim protecting bigs are on the floor can be a problem. We saw this last night against the Bucks, where they could use Lopez to patrol the paint and didn’t have to rely heavily on help to limit Şengün’s damage as a scorer. Same thing with Wemby and Chet when they faced those matchups. The sooner Alperen can start taking and making the 3 ball with confidence and regularity, the sooner they’ll be able to force every team to stay honest when defending him and create even more open opportunities for his teammates. He’s already added an effective midrange game but the 3 point stroke is an essential next step.

Will the Rockets commit to it?

This is the question that bugs me. We saw two games in a row of the Rockets running this style of offense and running the Clippers and Bulls off the floor. Then, one night later they moved away from it for long stretches of the game before eventually going back to cut into the Bucks lead… even though they went on to lose in large part because of offensive mistakes.

They are also playing with two backup centers that haven’t really proven they can be a supplement to this offensive system when Şengün isn’t on the floor. This forces the big names in the rotation to make due with isos and a clogged paint until he returns from the the bench. Maybe they make a trade for a better connective center to run with the second unit. Until thenf, there’s really no reason why they can’t play the right way for 30-35 minutes a game bare minimum.

Whether it is coach or player driven, these Rockets need to commit to playing through Şengün because it is the clearest way for everyone on the team to succeed! We know they want to win. We know they value that more than their individual numbers and accolades. It’s time they take, what is quite literally, the easiest possible path to find the success they’re looking for and give Alperen Şengün the keys to this offense. Şengün the Hub: The solution to the Rockets’ offensive struggles.