Basketball from a fan’s perspective

Rookie of the Year

The 2024 NBA Rookie of the Year is Victor Wembanyama, this is certainly not official but he is my choice. I’m making this statement despite the fact I have no vote to determine the winner. This is no slam at Thunder rookie Chet Holmgren who is having an outstanding season, I just happen to believe Wemby’s the best. There are few criticisms I’ve read about Wemby with the exception of this one, “His field goal percentage should be higher.” Remember all the talk about him being too skinny, I've not heard that mentioned in quite a while.

There is no disagreement on my part regarding his shooting. I’ve seen Wemby take his fair share of difficult shots…a number he should have considered passing to a teammate. Let’s look at the numbers the last week of January, although he lost the lead to Bucks Brook Lopez he’s moved ahead again. For the season Wemby is shooting 46.6% from the floor, the last 10 games have seen him raise it to 48.8%. He’s shooting 29.7% from 3-point range, over that same number of games he’s 31.8%. His 20.5 points a game leads all NBA rookies, the rebound number 10.1 which is interesting in another area. I will mention the weight issue once again, I’m sure with Wemby weighing 210 pounds some probably figured his count would be nowhere close to that.

Finally this topic which details for us his ability to share the ball, Wemby averages 3.2 a game. The NBA is in great shape for the future with Chet Holmgren, Jamie Jaquez Jr. plus Brandon Miller and several others. It just so happens I believe the top rookie for 2024 was born in France. Consider these facts, in 2018 Rudy Gobert was honored as NBA Defensive Player of the Year with these numbers, 44 steals and 129 blocked shots. In Wemby’s first 43 games his numbers are 49 steals and 149 blocked shots, he will not be named DPOY.

Bits n Pieces  

This is written Saturday morning ahead of the afternoon game. Kansas with a 5-3 record in Big XII conference play serves as host to Houston, the Cougars arrive in Lawrence Kanss with a 6-2 conference record. Is it too early to consider this match a pivotal game, I think that might be the case. Although the game is certainly important Kansas must travel to Texas March 9 to face the Cougars in their house. The March game might be more crucial possibly impacting the Big XII regular season champion.

I am looking at this scenario, Kansas basketball in conference play has been up and down. On the other hand Houston new to the Big XII conference likely has a desire to prove they belong in this highly competitive conference. I certainly have no intention to ignore Iowa State and Texas Tech, both schools record wise appear as good as Kansas and Houston. We can argue all day long which team is the better team, we can agree on this…the Big XII is the most competitive conference in the nation. Final score Kansas 78 Houston 65.

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There have been reports circulating that the Lakers were attempting to trade LeBron James. I didn’t read any details however the story didn’t concern me for several reasons. Although he is bound for the Hall of Fame there is not much he can accomplish at this stage for the Lakers. All throughout his illustrious career I believe he was never a dominant player but certainly one highly skilled. At age 39 despite his greatness there are aspects of his game that has slowed considerably.

You might remember recently I wrote of the youthful players the Lakers have traded. LeBron’s said on more than one occasion he wants Anthony Davis to take on that leadership role. In my eyes we have highly skilled and talented Davis, he is not a leader in the sense LeBron describes him to be. The future is actually predicated on Bronny James, if the son leaves USC given the opportunity will the Lakers draft him? On the other hand I could see them trading LeBron to whatever team drafts Bronny, what do you think?

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The NBA cannot seem to make up its mind, this is a prime example. There were complaints about low scoring games especially those of the Bad Boy Pistons day. Like anything else occurring other teams began copying the Pistons type of defense and gradually over time there was less and less scoring across the league. The NBA hierarchy said, “We’ll fix that, we’ll make changes to increase team scoring.” They did just that, with emphasis on shooting threes and other offensive changes scoring began rising over time.

Now we’ve gone to the other side, teams are scoring too many points. This is from the Saturday headline on ESPN’s NBA page. “Why scoring is up and what the NBA can do to address it.” Sorry folks that fails to compute for me especially since the league made a concentrated effort several years ago to increase scoring, figure this out if you care.

Beneath the radar

This is interesting, Alperen Sengun was projected a first round draft pick on most 2021 NBA mock drafts. Despite this fact he flew “beneath the radar” for me and maybe you as well. Sengun was drafted by the Thunder however his rights were later traded to the Rockets. His rookie year was quite unimpressive, 9.6 points and 5.5 rebounds a game, for a guy standing 6 foot 11 and 243 pounds you understand. His sophomore year was a little better as he moved into the starting lineup. Sengun raised his scoring to 14.8 points and his rebound numbers to 9 a game, his third year appears to be a breakout season.

As this is written, Sengun is 21.7 points, 9.2 rebounds along with 5.1 assists on 54% shooting from the floor. As for a portion of his bio he’s 21 years of age and was born in Giresun in northern Turkey, for Sengun it was choice between swimming and basketball although he took up basketball at 8 years of age. Just like in this country transportation back and forth competing in both sports he was given a choice by his parents. The sport of choice, just like a kid growing up here basketball became the sport. Sengun played for three professional teams in his native Turkey prior to submitting his name for the 2021 NBA draft.