Rockets working to better integrate Alperen Sengun with starters

Rockets center Alperen Sengun struggled in Monday’s preseason loss at Miami, and John Lucas and Stephen Silas outlined the challenges in adjusting to his new role alongside starters.

Houston Rockets center Alperen Sengun clearly struggled on offense in Monday’s preseason loss at Miami. In postgame remarks, acting coach John Lucas — replacing usual head coach Stephen Silas, who has been sidelined with COVID-19 — acknowledged a stylistic challenge in integrating Sengun with the starters.

“Got to get Al-P (Sengun) going at some point,” Lucas told Houston Chronicle beat writer Jonathan Feigen after the game.

Lucas continued his remarks:

We’re asking Al-P to do something that he hasn’t done before. Right now, basically, he’s a roll guy in what we’re doing, and we don’t go through him. You can’t expect a 20-year-old to be happy about that. We have to find a common ground from him to get the most out of him, and I think we can do that.

I’m spending more time with him to help him be successful. It’s not set up for him to be a primary scorer right now.

Silas, who returned to the team in time for Wednesday’s practice at Toyota Center, offered his perspective on Sengun’s adjustments.

Among his comments:

For Al-P, it’s been hard. Al-P’s strength is having the basketball and he hasn’t had the ball much. He’s been a pick-and-roll player. As we go through training camp, which is still going on, he’ll get his post-ups and he’ll get his elbow catches, and it’ll be more comfortable for him.

He’s going to have to do both. He’s going to have to be able to be a guy we can go to, and he can make plays for himself or his teammates, but also pick, roll, take the dunker (spot), space and have guys play off him. That adjustment has been a little bit tough for him, but we’ll definitely get there.

When Sengun came off the bench last season as a rookie, he often served as the hub for Houston’s second unit. In short, the offense generally ran through him when he was on the floor, and Sengun frequently used his gifts as a savvy low-post shot creator and as an adept passer to create offense and make plays for his teammates.

But now that Sengun is expected to be a starter in 2022-23, replacing Christian Wood, giving him the same usage in a group that also features playmakers Jalen Green, Kevin Porter Jr. and Eric Gordon is more of a challenge. Thus, Sengun’s usage is likely to go down, proportionally, and he’ll need to make an impact in other ways.

Sengun did fare well, offensively, in Houston’s preseason opener versus San Antonio, scoring 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting (83.3%) in 20 minutes while also dishing out 3 assists. But he missed the next exhibition due to a dental procedure, and Monday was a struggle.

Sengun and the Rockets only have one exhibition remaining on Friday in Indiana, so it appears likely for this ongoing integration process to linger into the regular season, as well.

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