Rockets star Alperen Sengun earns West Player of the Week honors

Alperen Sengun is the first Rockets player since James Harden in 2019 to win Player of the Week honors, and he’s the youngest in team history to ever do it.

The NBA announced Monday that Houston center Alperen Sengun had been named Western Conference Player of the Week for games played from Jan. 1-7.

Sengun is the first Rockets player to win the award since James Harden in November 2019. At 21 years old, he is the youngest to have done so in franchise history.

The Rockets went 3-1 last week. Sengun averaged a team-high 24 points, 7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.5 steals per game.

Sengun had 26 points and 9 assists in a win against Detroit on Jan. 1. He added 30 points and 8 rebounds in a win against Brooklyn on Jan. 3. He closed the week by recording his 11th double-double of the season: 21 points and 11 boards in a win against Milwaukee on Jan. 6.

Sengun had 19 points in a loss to Minnesota on Jan. 5, snapping a career-best seven-game streak of scoring 20 or more. He did not have a streak beyond two games during his first two seasons.

This season, Sengun is averaging 21.4 points, 9 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 53.7% from the floor. This season, recent MVP winners Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokić are the only other NBA players averaging that many points, rebounds and assists per game.

Entering the 2023-24 season, only four players had ever averaged at least 21 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists while shooting 53.0% or better in a single season (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar twice, Antetokounmpo five times, Wilt Chamberlain three times and Jokić three times).

Sengun has scored 30 or more points in three of the past eight games after doing so three times in the first 173 games of his career. He has scored at least 20 points in 21 games this season after doing so a total of 17 times over his first two seasons.

Sengun has an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.05 this season, up from 1.51 in 2022-23. According to NBA.com, he has a defensive field goal percentage of .471 this season, down from .504 in 2023-24.

Over the past 14 games Sengun is shooting 83% on free throws, up from 63.7% over the first 20 games. He has hit 21 3-pointers in 34 games this season after having 19 in 75 games played last season.

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