Houston Rockets Star Alperen Sengun Avoids Serious Injury, Recovery Timeline, Rotation Impact & More

Houston Rockets Star Alperen Sengun Avoids Serious Injury, Recovery Timeline, Rotation Impact & More

On today’s show we got a great alperin shingon injury update hey hon fans I am so happy what it means for his recovery timeline and the team going forward it’s all coming up right here at locked on Rockets this is Mission Control Houston ignition sequence start 6 5 4 3 2

1 praise be to the basketball gods for taking it easy on alrin shenon what’s up and welcome to another edition of locked on Rockets your daily podcast home for everything Houston Rockets basketball as always I’m your host Jackson Gatlin native houstonian and credential media member I’m also the host of locked on

NBA Mondays be sure to follow along on Twitter at JT Gatlin the show of course at lockon Rockets free and available wherever you listen to your podcast including YouTube now today’s episode is brought to you by Nissan are you the kind of driver that likes to push things

A little further ever wondered what Adventure could be around the very next Corner take the Nissan Rogue Nissan Pathfinder or Nissan Armada and go find your next big adventure check them all out today at nissanusa.com and as always thank you so much for making locked on Rockets part

Of your day every single day thank you for being in every day or whether it’s on your way to work on your lunch break in the gym thank you for making the show part of your day every single day joining us now is none other than your weekly co-host the Pod father himself

Rockets wire editor and host of the logger line podcast Ben Duos he can track down on Twitter at Ben Duos and Ben we are having a it feels weird to be joyous about finding out the extent of an injury for Alper and shingon but based on how bad things looked when we

First witnessed the injury the reporting surrounding it per A W narowski uh is is such amazing news that we’re going to get into and kind of discuss on today’s show so so w reporting that Houston Rocket Center Alin shinon has escaped major injury on his lower right leg

Suffering a severely sprained ankle and a bone bruise on his knee um this is about as good of an outcome as we could have hoped for based on how bad that injury looked we we we had all the Twitter doctors trying to analyze the the tape and and trying to you know it

Really was almost reminiscent of like the Paul George injury from you know way back when and it looked you know you could see the body language from shingun it was just awful so to get this incredible news where yes he’s still hurt yes he’s still going to have to

Rehab but a sprained ankle is nowhere near as bad as some of what we thought it could have been right like a hyperextended knee with some ACL or MCL damage that kind of stuff so I this is honestly a complete gods in right the the the basketball Gods the sports Gods

Sometimes they giveth and sometimes they taketh and they they did take Alper and Shan away from us but at least the Silver Lining here is that the injury is not nearly as bad as what we thought it was going to be yeah this could have been devast stating because let’s be

Honest ALR and shenon is a tough guy we know the last couple of months he’s played through back pain we’ve seen the WRA we know he’s turned his ankle a few times this year and he’s been out there 63 of 64 games he is an Iron Man he is a

Guy the Rockets lean so heavily upon offensively and for him to stay down for the amount of time that he did and except going off on a wheelchair you know a lot of these guys will try to at least walk and Limp their way backstage if they can for further evaluation for

Him to stay down as long as he did to yell out in pain in the final seconds of honestly what should have been the Feelgood win of the Season that looked pretty dire so for the Rockets to escape impact Beyond this season is massive and

It is for shenon as well let’s be honest this is a guy who’s put himself in the conversation for up to a Max contract as soon as this off season and yet he has not gotten paid a dime yet Beyond his original deal so for shingun in particular to have such a brilliant

Brant season and then have something like this potentially factor in in a significant way because how could it not into his contract conversations would have been devastating he deserves better and now he’s going to get paid based on his production be it this offseason or a year from now and restricted free agency

Whenever the Rockets think it’s best for them to do a deal this is just again it’s so huge for shenon he needs to be able to gear up for next season and sounds like this is the kind of injury while he won’t be full go at the start

Of the offseason I think think by the middle of it he certainly should be I think by July August he’ll be able to start ramping up for camp and then as far as the rockets look next year is a big year for this franchise that’s really the Pivot Point you need to see

And year four for Jaylen and Alp year three for uh tar and Jabari you’re getting close to contract inflection points and all of those guys what can this team be internally it’s the last year for Fred Van Fleet they took a step this year can they take another step

Next year hopefully they do and if not then there’s going to be some hard decisions to be made well if you didn’t have shenon for all or part of next season then how could you even really take stock of where you’re at when you’re trying to make this big

Evaluation and yet your best player isn’t even out there so for the Rockets organizationally they need shenon to be a part of the picture for next season and let’s be honest when there’s an injury that happens this late in the NBA year it’s like when guys tear an ACL in

The playoffs they’re typically not themselves until the year after The Following Season simply because of the calendar training camp is only a little over months away so when you’re talking about what looked like potentially a serious injury to both a knee and an ankle there were so many bullets that

Had to be dodged in that MRI and somehow shenon and the rockets appear to have done that again it’s not nothing a severe ankle sprain the bone bruise to his knee not trying to minimize that it probably is going to end his season but

My guess is that is if he gives it three or four months to heal he should be able to start ramping up and that’s huge for Alp it’s huge for the Rockets now what did follow up his initial tweet with a follow-up tweet saying that shingun

Hasn’t yet been ruled out for the season but let’s be completely honest here there’s you know the Rockets competing for that final playin spot in the Western Conference was a long shot anyways they are currently behind the Golden State where is I believe six or

Six and a half games uh factoring in the tiebreaker that the Warriors unfortunately hold over the Rockets it would have been a long shot you would have needed not only to close out the season on a very strong note you would have also needed a lot of luck from you

Know one of if not both of the Lakers and Warriors to kind of stumble towards the Finish Line to be able to secure one of those final play in spots it was a long shot anyways so now the focus needs to be on Alin shingun and you know rehabilitating getting his body right

And I do think that when we look at the way this injury kind of played out we have to give complete props to alpie for being one of if not Mo maybe the most flexible big man in the entire NBA right we see all the pictures and the jokes

About alpie being flexible we know he can do the splits we know he he does like the you know the stretch where his leg is above his head and everything but I really genuinely believe that his flexibility is is what probably allowed him to sustain a fall like this and be

Able to you know not walk away with such a you know a debilitating injury again not trying to minimize like you already said not trying to minimize the injuries that he is going to have to progress through because I you know if this is anything similar to say I don’t know

Like the Christian Wood ankle sprain from you know a few years back during the the initial stages of the Rockets rebuild that ankle spring kept Christian Wood out for six weeks right so we’re talking go ahead and one perfect parallel that I think will help shenon having seen this experience up close and

Personal look at ja landale from last August when he suffered a severe ankle sprain in I believe it was mid to late August and of course he reported to Camp he was available by the time the Rockets open the season in late October and he was terrible he just was not ready and

He since admitted to Jonathan Fagen of the chronicle that his ankle was still really messed up when the Rockets opened the season it’s why he wasn’t himself and it’s taken until now thankfully because of this ankle for a now it’s going to present an opportunity to Jack

Landelle who has been playing better but the point is landelle tried to rush it he came back within about two months because there was some game pressure and he paid the price and shenon watched that shenon knows Jac landel is a better player and he’s a better player now so

Hopefully that experience is something shenon can draw upon this offseason not to try and push the envelope hey let this take two three months whatever it takes you have the benefit of time in the off season it’s sort of a back stop wait until it’s ready and then you can

Be closer to you know the flexibility that ch has now as opposed to the flexibility that Jo landel had in October and November which was still pretty bad yeah I mean we are you know currently about 6 months away from what would what from what would be the start

Of you know training camp or thereabouts you know somewhere September is so hopefully it’s something that you know is going to be able to be you know healed and 100% by then or at least if not completely 100% close to as you know as you know 100% as possible but it

Doesn’t look like at least right now that this is going to be something that is going to you know impact shenon next season force him to Miss time next year all that stuff which is some of the major concerns from when we originally saw the injury take place and one other

Parallel right to draw from is Shang gun was recently on the Paul George podcast right and the question the closing question that he had for PG was how did you make it back right how did you make it back from that injury and so we can

Rest assure that PG who’s been one of the most vocal supporters of you know established stars in the NBA landscape that has had nothing but High Praise for Alper and shingon I am absolutely certain that P that PG is going to reach out to shingon if he hasn’t already and

That those two are going to you know discuss this and and shingun is going to have the right mentality towards getting his body back where it needs to be so that he can come back new and improved and even better than he previously was on the other side we’re going to get

Into some of the other ramifications now that we know the results of Alper and shun’s injury uh status we’re going to get into that as well as we’re going to talk about the Rockets rotation changes without alpie and so much more we’re going to get there in just one

Moment first today’s episode is brought to You by better help sometimes we all need the opportunity to get something off our chest big or small certain things can really start to get to you it’s important to let that stuff out especially to someone who’s unbiased when it comes to your life look maybe

It’s a maybe you got in trouble at work or disagreement with a cooworker or something maybe it’s something in your personal life right could be with a spouse or a sibling or a parent any of that kind of stuff right if you bottle up those issues then it can you know

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Me walk through some of my own issues and look most of us have bigger problems than what’s going on with our favorite sports teams although uh as of 24 hours ago this show was really depressing when we didn’t know what was going to happen to Alper and shingu but things are

Looking a lot brighter now so if you’re thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it’s entirely online designed to be flexible maybe as flexible as alperin shenon is and suited to your schedule visit betterhelp.com lockon MBA to get 10% off of your first month that’s betterhelp hp.com lockon

MBA and continuing on here at lockon Rockets your daily podcast home for everything Houston Rockets basketball now Ben one thing to consider here when we look at the timetable for shenon recovery and we’re going to talk about some you know Silver Lining some positives and some unfortunate negatives

Just kind of the overall ramifications now that we know you know the full extent of the injury and I think one major downside unfortunately is even though Al Brun had this phenomenal year three leap right it is unfortunate that he’s probably going to be robbed of the

Majority of of an off season where you would have liked shingun to have the opportunity to get back in the lab to really develop and work on his game to focus on his body to do all the things that he did coming into year three when

He was you know locked in a gym in Santa Barbara and was working you know tirelessly to get up to speed to get his body to where he wanted it to be to be in preparation for this this year three and that’s why I think he started the

Season so strongly as he really was dedicated to his craft in the off season and so you know if he’s going to be sidelined for two to three months while the ankle heals and then another you know month or two to kind of ramp up and get back up to speed for basketball

Activities that is a really unfortunate side effect of of just you know the the timeline of recovery for him but he can largely shoot I would think and that’s I I think was something that was going to be a focal point for him this offseason anyway I mean we’ve seen the free throws

Tail off a little bit now three-point shooting might be a little trickier because you have to use your legs a little bit more for that but I just think that that’s something that was always going to be an emphasis for him and thankfully that’s something that’s

Not too ankle dependent so at least to some degree he can work on that during his rehab I also think this was probably going to be more of a video heavy offseason for shenon to begin with because unlike the last two years this was a season in which the workload was

Really really high for allp so my guess is that even had this not happened he was probably already going to take some time off early in the offseason just to let his body recover because he’s been asked to do way more this season again we’ve seen it you know he’s had a few

Ankle issues here or there obviously the back is something that’s sort of plagued him the last few weeks so my guess is that he was already going to shut it down at least for a small amount of time no matter what so I think that’s the silver linting we should also point out

That um you know as far as the game totals if he doesn’t play again this year he’s at 63 games that’ll fall just below the NBA’s threshold for uh Awards voting so most improved player was probably a long shot anyway now unless he comes back he probably won’t be

Eligible for that but the other way to look at that while we should acknowledge and you know it sucks for him on an individual level sure we would lik to see him be an All-Star we want the best for him we’d love to see him when most

Improved player at the same time that 65 game Mark the NBA sets that as it threshold because that’s representative of basically a full season enough to be considered a valid sample and in the big picture when we talk about not just shinon but the Rockets it’s important to

Remember that this injury occurred in March it did not occur in December so even if he does not come back we have 63 games worth of data from alpra and shenon basically 75% of a season that tells you that yes he is as good as the numbers suggest so that’s one little bit

Of piece of mind this is not like an injury that happens early in the year and if it knocks him out you say well you know he was a really great player but is he going to be able to get back to that form no we have a large enough

Sample now I mean selfishly I would have loved to have seen it go two more games just for Awards voting but at the same time you take a step back 63 games is still a big big sample so in terms of projecting shenon into next season and

Beyond it is enough to where to where I think it’s a lot better off you know you have a lot fewer questions that had this injury happened a couple of months ago you know one other thing that I’m that I’m thinking about here just trying to

Trying to wrap my head around all the different Ram ramifications from this injury is you mentioned it earlier right it does open up you know potential opportunity more so now for uh jock landale who’s play as of late right finally playing like The Jock landale the Rockets thought they were getting

Earlier in the off season now the Rockets did make a move ahead of the NBA trade deadline to go acquire Steven Adams um and let’s face facts right you know assuming Albert and shingun has you know zero issues with his recovery timeline and is able to be ready to go

For the start of next season you realistically don’t have a pathway for all three of those guys to get minutes at the five spot and I think probably in a vacuum you probably like Stephen assuming Health permitting right you probably like Steven Adams more so of as

A contrast to Alper and shingun as the backup five for this team next year so what I think this does do is it opens up an opportunity for jock landale to kind of showcase himself right because he his value was probably you know the lowest it’s ever been earlier this season so

Much so to the point where he was basically just you know expiring salary that’s basically all the value he had as a player whereas now depending on what the Rockets do whether he starts whether he comes off the bench in a larger role which we’re going to discuss kind of the

Rotation changes here in just a moment in in our final segment but what I do think it does is it allows an opportunity for the Rockets to kind of you know pump up jock lal’s value a little bit by giving him that extra burn those extra minutes and then you might

Be able to swing a deal where you can actually recoup some value for him this off season to where you don’t walk into next year with three centers on the roster and only two of them are going to be the guys getting playing time you might actually be able to get you know

Some kind of value but like I don’t know late first or a few seconds or something for jock landale to a team that needs a serviceable center who can you know potentially be a starter in a pinch and honestly on top of that uh really team-friendly contract right effectively

It’s an expiring $8 million contract every single year with the team option to be able to pick it up every subsequent season yeah I mean that provides a really powerful incentive for Jack landel to go out there and play well because when he was terrible earlier this season season I looked at

Him purely as an expiring salary and that they try to move him in this window right around the draft before you have to pick up the guarantee and use him as filler and then if it doesn’t work out because at that point the filler is literally for zero dollars and that his

Salary for this season has already been paid and the guarantee for next year hasn’t uh come into play yet and then if you can’t move him with the right deal isn’t there then you might just have to cut him because you know you just don’t

Want to pay the guy $8 million if his play does not warrant it even if theoretically he could be filler with that said the bar is really low as long as he shows any value at all 8 million for one year is really not that much in

The modern NBA so be it with the Rockets or for a trade with another team the point is on that that year-to-year contract it doesn’t take a lot for landale to pass the bar in which it makes sense for the Rockets or any other team that has him to say hey you know

What let’s keep this guy he’s a functional player he can help us at the end of our bench and worst case scenario he’s salary filler or maybe best case scenario let’s be honest because you know there is some some limit to Land’s upside as a player but the point is

That’s a pretty powerful incentive for a guy who earlier this year looked like I didn’t even know if he could land a minimum deal based on what he was showing in November and December and now he can potentially earn his way into another year at 8 million so that’s a

Pretty powerful incentive so not going to say the Rockets drew it up with exactly this scenario in mind but it does provide a pretty clear incentive for him to go out and play hard and he’s been playing well the last few weeks now he’s going to get bit bigger sample and

Then as far as Stephen Adams I’m just so relieved that we don’t have to see Stephen Adams stretched into a true starters role I was a little perturbed at how many people last night in the aftermath of how bad things looked with shenon said something along the lines of

Well thank God they traded for Stephen Adams whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa Stephen Adams was traded to be a backup to fill a certain role now in his 30s and after 12 years in the NBA Stephen Adams is not going to replace Alper and shenon I don’t care how good he is defensively

How tough the workload the playmaking responsibility that shinon has not just for himself but to set the table for this entire offense Stephen Adams is not going to come close to that Stephen Adams was always meant to be a compliment and this scenario it may help if for some reason shenon is still

Building back strength going into training camp then yeah the presence of a guy like Adams maybe allows you to keep shenon at 25 30 minutes per game early in the year while he’s still working his way back into form I could see that scenario but I was a little

Surprised how many people were acting like well the shenon thing might not be so bad because you have Stephen Adams no no no no no Stephen Adams is nice as a dep piece you do not want Stephen Adams replacing alpr and shenon as your starting sitter that would be a massive

Hit to the way this team is constructed thank goodness we don’t have to see that yeah and and the the final thing that I’ll say in here is just you know now that we know the severity of the of the recovery timeline and that it’s not

Nearly as bad as we thought it was going to be you know one of the fears that I had was just you know especially after such a Monumental year three here really proving himself as kind of a franchise Cornerstone type player clearly the best of the young core six so far there has

Been a little bit of you know resistance towards you know Alper and shingon his first couple years with this Rockets team right it’s just there’s been you know he was we can we can highlight the commentary right he was benched for Bruno Fernando last year in favor of you

Know a piece better yeah lob threat where’s I have the page here where is it lob threat there it is right so look you know this is this is a guy that that’s had to overcome a lot his career and and the rockets front office absolutely still deserves credit for swinging the

Trade to get him in the first place but had this been an injury that was going to sideline him and have him you know miss you know half of next season and and even then potentially further than that to get up to speed to get back to

Where his body was originally then it might have spelled the end of alperin shenon in Houston despite how good he was in that year three because in a V you know in the uh intermediary you would have had to find a replacement for him and it’s really hard to find a guy

That can do what alining can do so I the team probably would have had to shift to a completely different Dynamic at the five spot right leaning into maybe more of a defensive Presence at the five or or swinging a trade for a a starting caliber kind of filler type player

Because like you said right Stephen Adams is not that guy you can’t just throw Stephen Adams into the deep end and say go do what shingon does right the team would not function that way and so I’m just I’m very glad that it’s not going to be something more severe that’s

Going to have him out you know an extended period of time hopefully he’s good to go for the start of training camp next year there are you know as far as other silver Lin though we’re going to get a very good look at some different Rockets lineups to close out

This season that’s what we’re going to talk about coming up here in just a moment how do we expect the Rockets rotation how do we expect the starters to change moving forward without alperin shenon we’re going to get there in just one moment first today’s episode is brought

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Houston Rockets basketball now Ben when I look at where the Rock stand now post alpar shingon injury I I think there’s two very clear Pathways forward to you know mend the starting lineup if you will uh the first of which is very simple cut and dry throw Jo landale into

The starting lineup right he’s your backup big he’s actually been playing really well as of late throw him in there and there’s really not a drop I mean there’s a drop off obviously he’s not Alper and shingon but you still have a big in the lineup it doesn’t change

You know anything drastically the way that you kind of play um he’s even a bit of a serviceable passer right when he has the ball in the middle of the floor again he’s not Alper and shenon but we’ve seen some flashes from him so that’s one option the other

Option is to insert am Min Thompson into the starting lineup and potentially slide Jabari Smith Jr down to the five and just kind of see what you know it’s not quite small ball per se but just a very switchy fiveman lineup where you know yeah Jabar Smith Jr might not have

Enough sand in his pants to deal with some of the bigs you know in the NBA landscape over these final you know 20 some odd games or whatever but it gives you a different look right it gives you a deeper look at what Al at what Jabar

Jr at the five could look like you know not necessarily full-time but over massive stretches of a game which we really haven’t seen much of this season because of how good Alper and shingun has been and then even Jeff Green dominating a lot of minutes of the

Backup small ball five um and I think you can maybe get away with it because of how potent am Min Thompson has been as a Defender as well as a rebounder so between those two starting lineups which way do you think the team ultimately goes and why so I think probably landale

Simply because it buys you some lower leverage minutes early in the first and third quarters and that way look you’ve got to fill 240 minutes over a game and the odds are Jack LEL is not going to be getting DMP CDs anymore so if you view

Him as being lower upside which I think is generally the case then it probably makes sense to buy some of those minutes early in halves so that you have the option if the higher upside guys like your lineups with Jabari at the five a men at the four or however you want to

Put it together on paper so that you have more options later on that you’re not having to use those landale minutes so gun to my head that’s the way I would predict they go small chance that it’s Chef green instead of landale but I think landel is probably the front

Runner however one thing we should note is that the next seven games are pretty easy so and I guess that we’ll throw the asterisk on Easy by the fact that the Rockets without shenon are not the rockets that we’re used to but look of your next seven games five are at home

Two are against the Wizards who are terrible uh you got a home and home against them Wizards are 11 and 53 one’s against the Spurs you’ve got Utah and Portland in there we know how good the Rockets are at home and the only Road games Spurs and Wizards the this is a

Pretty friendly stretch and so because of that this might be the period where you experiment with something like Jabari at the five like I don’t think like that stretch out of the ultra break where you had the Pelicans with Valen chunes you had the Suns with nkit you

Had the Thunder with all of their guys I don’t think you would have done it then had shenon not been available that would have been terrible however this is a weaker point in the schedule where you could if you squint hard enough you could make the case for it and there is

More upside to this path it’s just my guess is that because you’re going to play landale anyway and I do think they want to reward him for playing well of late my guess is you at least start the halves with him just so that you sort of buy some lower leverage minutes there

You see how he’s playing and you know if he plays well of course you can exceed his minutes uh increase them even more but then if not you can follow up with those more creative lineups later on yeah and I I do think I I fully agree I

Think landale is kind of the the more so obvious choice or the conventional choice if you will to just throw him into at the start lineup cuz then you kind of go back to okay well Jeff Green becomes your your your true backup five again you know for the closing remainder

Of the season and then you can run Jabar SM Jr at the five situationally uh as long as the matchups kind of matchups permitting um I do it would also be so much easier by the way if you had tar een if you had t e to help with the

Length and the rebounding then I think it’d be so much easier to put Jabari at the five one of the problems now is that you put jar at the five yeah you can theoretically slide a men to the four but you’re running out out of bodies in

H now Kim Whitmore is out for Tuesday in San Antonio he has a knee sprain that’s typically not a one game injury although we have to wait for more information from E Oka so Cam’s availability is in question I guess you can throw J Shante

In the mix but there’s a reason he fell out of the rotation in the first place there’s no Chari so it’s like normally one of the appeals to putting Jabari at the five is that you have all these other playmakers that you can turn to well now that you have all these

Injuries the question is just how much uh basically depth do you have is it it worth it to you know get more scoring more playmaking more creation at these other spots when you’re running out of depth at these other spots no absolutely and you’re you’re completely right so

First off we’re definitely going to see J Shante back in the rotation I think that’s probably a really obvious you know move here at this point is you’re going to need you’re going to need you know kind of innings eaters right you’re going to need guys to just eat up some

Of the minutes like you already said there there’s 240 minutes uh across you know one basketball game and the rockets just don’t have enough bodies now that they have completely lost you know a starting caliber player who played 35 40 minutes a night in in Alper and shenon

So now is it a guarantee it’s you know J Shante maybe it’s you know some Reggie Bullock minutes here and there maybe ideally right we see you know an increase to the minutes for you know am men Thompson and cam Whitmer although their minutes have already been trending

Upwards as of late with you know the continued trust and growth that they’ve shown the trust from the coaching staff to you know shoulder a bigger you know burden and to to you know do more on the basketball floor but at the same time you’re just going to need bodies to

Throw out there and my one thing with the whole Jabar thing at the five is I I know that that was an idea in the past that e odoko was incredibly excited about right with just you know the the versatility that Jabari provides defensively we know that eeme loves his

Switching defense schemes and for the most part he hasn’t been he’s only been switching one through four when shingun is on the court and even you know when ja landale is out there he only switches one through four and the five usually stays home um now if you go the Jabari

Route then you might it might be a nice little kind of stretch of the season to just see hey what would the defensive scheme look like if we can switch everything one through four right what if we really lean into that identity and you know does that make us look like an

Even better defensive team so and being able to do it at the start of a game rather than like going to it six to eight minutes into you know the first quarter or whatever I do wonder you know especially for a guy like Jabari if you

Know if there’s a drain on him because do you pull Jabari out of the game early and then bring him back in to be the backup five like it gets a little weird when you get into kind of trying to stagger the minutes and make things work

I think my number one thing now is now that the plan is is clearly going to be Out Of Reach uh with no Alper and Shun in the mix to to close out the season is I just want to see as much of the rest of the young guys as possible to close

This season and for me what that means is you know at some point I I wouldn’t be shocked or surprised if they do shut down Fred Van vet and or Dylan Brooks for any stretch of games to close the season you know because once the play in

Tournament is it’s already Out Of Reach they’re still Gathering data points they’re still collecting you know as much useful information as possible and those guys love to compete right Fred Dylan those guys are competitors through and through they don’t want to be shut down they want to play but the last

Thing you want to do is risk a severe injury to one of those two key pieces you know your two of your veterans um on the roster and I do think you can kind of get away with the excuse of hey let’s let’s throw a in into the starting

Lineup let’s throw cam into the starting lineup and just let them go on a tear for the final you know five games 10 games whatever it is and just go full youth movement to close out the season you call up some of the Vipers guys right bring up Nate Hinton Germaine

Samuels and just go complete youth movement to close out the year and just really let them kind of run the show yeah it’s possible we should also note that there is a small incentive not a big one but there is some incentive to maximize the top four odds uh kicking in

To protect that pick that would otherwise be going to Oklahoma City so if it’s very late in the season and if you’ve been eliminated I know the odds are far less than 50/50 based on where the Rockets are in the standings now they’ve passed Utah for number 11 in the

West but look as long as it’s not zero it’s not like you can totally dismiss it any little bit helps so between the reasons you laid out and the fact that that pick going to OKC is top four protected I don’t see how you can at

Least consider it in the final few games of the year and I I would just say that for me the reason I think they’ll look into that I do think these upcoming games are important I’ve referenced and this is sort of piggybacking off of E oka’s comments coming out of the allstar

Break you know he broke this season down into thirds the first third going into Christmas they were 15 and 12 everything looked great way ahead of expectations middle third going into the allstar break you had all the injuries Fred Dyan tari Jabari you went N9 and 18 largely

Off the rails that’s where the play in dream largely died and now you’ve got these final 28 the last third coming out of the allstar break and we’ve talked about that being important for a Baseline and one of the things I worried about you know immediately after um

Shinon went down last night are we going to get that because what I do want to what I do want to know coming out of the season are the Rockets closer to that first third or to the second third and over the last games they’re they’re five

And five out of the break but it’s been a hard schedule we talk the next seven being easy look the the past 10 eight of them have come against the Suns the Thunder the Clippers on night two of a back toback the Pelicans the Kings on the road these are all likely West

Playoff teams so it has been a tough go for the Rockets they’re five and five they’re four- one in their last five and now you’ve got seven in a row um you do have one home game against the Cavs in there but other other than that I mean

You’re going to be favored in most of these games even without Alper and shenon so if the Rockets are closer to that first third team rather than the second third then that’s important to me because you know yeah I want to feel like that just based on how they are

That this is a 500ish team and then you factor in adding in Stephen Adams whatever other trades or Sig about making the off season then we can talk about taking a you know a jump into actually being a winning team and you know maybe even the playoffs next season

That’s definitely the ambition but the question is of course do you have enough to make that judgment about the final third and that’s where I think you take a step back and you realize hey they’ve already played 10 games it’s good competition gone five and five the veterans have gotten their second win

Some of the young guys are increasingly figuring it out more and then these next seven games no disrespect to aler and shenon but if you go one and six against the teams they have coming up I don’t think it’d be reasonable to say oh they

They would have gone six and one if they had all P he’s a very good player he is not at that level yet so because of that I feel like at the end of this upcoming you know let’s call it a 17 game Run they’ played 10 and you’ve got the seven

Coming up that are fairly easy you’re going to have an idea by the end of that stretch as to whether this Rockets team is closer to the pre-Christmas version the first third or that second third and so at that point I think you will have

Your data points and so as you go into the final 10 games and you you’re either eliminated or close to it then at that point I think that’s when you’ll see them make you know the more strategic long-term decisions like hey uh there’s no reason to play out the string with a

Guy like Fred or Dylan let’s evaluate the young guys more maximize you know it may be a small probability but it’s not nothing the odds of your top four protection kicking in so I think it’s just worth noting that the way the schedule sort of lines up yes you’re

Going to be injury depleted the next week or two but your schedule is also weaker so because of that you are still going to be able to sort of get the data you need need about the group as a whole and then I think going into the last 10

Games when the schedule at least on paper gets tougher now you never know because other teams maybe resting their guys in advance of the playoffs as well the NBA is always sort of wonky the last couple of weeks of the year but I just think the way the schedule lays out

Combined with these injuries makes it sort of a natural Point heading into the final 10 games where I think that’s sort of the pivot point for the Rockets to think a little bit uh bigger picture with their decision making and final Point here to make is you know Alper and

Shingun was such an important focal point of this rockets off he was their go-to guy he was you know irrefutably their number one option um leading scorer all that you’re going to have to make up those points somewhere you’re going to have to make up those field goal attempts somewhere so that means

Bigger offensive roles for ideally right guys like Jaylen green guys like Jabari Smith Jr maybe we see a bigger role for cam Whitmore offensively right you’re GNA have to distribute those shots somewhere if he’s healthy right you know Health permitting for for cam Whitmore um basketball Gods just they weren’t

Done with him right look look if it meant if Cam Whitmore sacrificed his knee for for a handful of games so that Al and shinon didn’t miss half of next season so be it basketball guys as long as it’s not an ACL as long as it’s not

An ACL but yeah I I think you hit the nail on the head you’re going to have to find more offense from the from the creators and the good news is that since the allstar break look Fred seems to have gotten his juice back he seems to be moving better Jaylen has increasingly

Played well of late you’re not going to drop in jooc landale or Jeff Green into the offense as it was constructed you’re going to need those perimeter guys to take on bigger workloads and the analogy I made on Twitter and I’m going to stand by it losing aler and shenon it’s like

Taking the training wheels off your bike for those other guys they have faed a lot better in recent games but aler and shenon draws so much attention that many times those other four guys they’re basically playing four on three because I help Defender has already committed to

Shenon now the training wheels are off you’re going to need to see Fred and Jaylen and I guess Jabari now jabari’s not a downhill guy but he can create his own offense at times you’re going to need to see those guys just go out and win some one-on-one battles go out and

You know the guards go downhill and create drive and kick Jabari rise and fire more from mid-range and I think the the real way that it’s going to change relative to shenon when you have shenon a lot of those other guys of course they’ll take their shots early in a game

But if they’re not if they’re not hitting on a given night you’ll see the field goal attempts go down because especially if it’s a high leverage spot the Rockets know look Al PE is where their bread is buttered and so he’s the guy that you’re going to run through we

Even saw that in Sacramento where before the injury Alp had a couple of big buckets late in that game to sort of unlock what had been a pretty stagnant offense as opposed to now that there’s no security blanket of alp you don’t have that guy then if you’re Fred if

You’re Jaylen if you’re Jabari I don’t care if you start you know one of 10 you’ve got to keep firing because there’s not going to be a clearly better option that’s what’s going to change and so beyond the the difference is on that point though I I I don’t want to see it

Turn into the end of jaylen’s rookie year right where where jayen andj were just given full reain and it was your turn my turn for the final seven eight games and yeah they were scoring you know 30 plus a night and everything but they were you know it was it was it was

Clunky it didn’t feel I still want to see it done within the flow of an offense right you do need to run the offense yeah it doesn’t need to be just chucking but what I’m saying is you can’t sort of rely on having that one guy which shinon

Was as a bailout as a security blanket you can’t lose confidence which at times has been a thing for Jaylen green this year you’ve got to realize that look you are playing short-handed You’ve Lost Your H so to speak so those other guys yeah I mean there’s a fine line you don’t want

It to deviate into chucking to where you’re just throwing up shots no matter what but you can’t get discouraged and say this isn’t my night no I mean if the shots there you need to take it now it needs to be within the flow of the offense all those caveats but yeah

You’ve got to play disciplined system ball it’s just now the training wheels are off you can’t just go back to allp or rely on him to generate huge advantage Elsewhere on the floor you’ve got to win those battles you got to keep attacking and you’ve got to keep doing

It because you don’t have that much else the way you typically do when you have a young star like Alper and shanon on your roster who do you want to see inserted into the Houston Rockets starting lineup in place of Alin shenon do you want to

See it be jock landale do you want to see a Min Thompson get a crack at it and move Jabari Smith Jr down to the Five Spot let us know in the YouTube comments give us your thoughts on everything we discussed in today’s episode always looking out for those comments on

YouTube but Ben you know the drill let everybody know where they can track you down at yep Ben toose on Twitter the logger line on Twitter and the rockets on Twitter or X I guess but uh yeah for all your daily Houston Rockets news coverage and of course rockets. usa.com

For the website that’s going to do it for another edition of lockdown Rockets as always thank you so much for checking out the show if you haven’t done so yet please consider subscribing whether you’re listen to your podcast or on YouTube just search lockon Rockets be sure to like comment subscribe and if

You’re listening to the podcast seeds leave a festar review that would help us out a ton but as as always thank you so much for watching thank you so much for listening and we look forward to having you back right here at lockon Rockets your daily podcast home for everything Houston Rockets Basketball

Houston Rockets Star Alperen Sengun Avoids Serious Injury, Recovery Timeline, Rotation Impact & More

Host Jackson Gatlin (@JTGatlin) is joined by weekly cohost Rockets Wire Editor Ben DuBose (@BenDuBose) to discuss the incredible news that Houston Rockets star Alperen Sengun has avoided any serious injuries after his scary fall against the Sacramento Kings, his current recovery timeline, immediate and long-term ramifications from this injury, impact to the Rockets starting lineup, rotations, and more.

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