The Houston Rockets are gearing up for a momentous campaign in 2025-26. Despite blockbuster new additions, a lot will be resting on the shoulders of their 2024-25 All-Star, the young Turk, Alperen Sengun. Informally christened “Baby Jokic” for his similarities to three-time MVP Nikola Jokic, Sengun will be looking to put the baby talk to bed.
Time For Rockets Center To Put Baby Jokic Talk To Bed
The primary basis for the Jokic and Sengun comparison relates to their play styles. They’re both cerebral, post-scoring bigs with a fondness for passing. The younger Sengun has even professed to using Jokic as an inspiration. That isn’t where the conversation ends, however.
Jokic and Sengun – the Numbers
Sengun’s early seasons were noted for a statistical similarity to Jokic’s formative years in the league. Their year-four box score season averages weren’t worlds apart either. Sengun averaged 19.1 points, 10.3 rebounds, 4.9 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.8 blocks in 2024-25. In 2018-19, Jokic averaged 20.1 points, 10.8 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 1.4 steals, and 0.7 blocks.
The advanced stats paint a very different picture. Sengun had a fourth year VORP (value over replacement player) of 3.9 to Jokic‘s 7.0. Sengun had a BPM (box plus/minus) of 4.4 to Jokic’s 9.1. PER (player efficiency rating), 21.4 to 26.3. Win shares, 8.3 to 11.8. True shooting – the one Sengun is criticized for the most – 54.5 to 58.9.
Like Jokic, Sengun made his first All-Star team in his fourth season. That’s effectively where their year-four similarities end. Besides making the All-Star team in 2018-19, Jokic was first team All-NBA and fourth in MVP voting.
So, it would seem Sengun started to fall behind the Jokic comparison in year four. Nobody should really be surprised. For starters, Jokic is convincingly a top-20 player in NBA history. He got to that level despite being a second-round pick. That’s not a career arc anybody is likely to follow anytime soon.
Age Is Just a Number
However, there is a caveat to Jokic and Sengun’s year-four comparisons. Sengun is still only 22 years old. Technically, Jokic’s age-22 season was actually his third year. In Jokic’s age-22 season, 2017-18, he averaged 18.5 points, 10.7 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 1.2 steals, and 0.8 blocks. Basically, a little lower across the board. A little lower and a little closer to Sengun’s age-22 averages.
The advanced stats still paint Jokic as a more impactful player at that point in his career. The numbers are closer, though. In 2017-18, Jokic had a VORP of 5.5, a BPM of 6.9, a PER of 24.4, 10.7 win shares… and his true shooting was actually better than it was the following year at 60.3%.
That an age-based Jokic and Sengun timeline is still alive is a trap, though. Because at the age of 22 going on 23, it’s time to stop calling Sengun “baby” anything.
Sengun’s Chance To Forge His Own Path
The discourse around Sengun is contentious. The Jokic comparisons don’t help. Comparisons with any all-time great will always draw ire from one quarter or another. It’s far from just that, though.
To some people, Sengun is an inefficient post-scoring big with subpar rim protection. In 2024-25, that’s essentially what he was. The irony is that he was still the best part of Houston’s offense, and Houston’s defense with Sengun was still very, very good. A more realistic ceiling for Sengun might be a coachable DeMarcus Cousins rather than Jokic 2.0. A coachable Boogie Cousins is still one heck of a player, but nobody really knows what Sengun’s ceiling is yet, or whether he’ll ever get there. 2025-26 will be a good opportunity to start finding out.
With Kevin Durant on board in Houston, Sengun will have no excuse to be inefficient. Of course, it’s not as if Sengun’s previous co-star, Jalen Green, did nothing at all to help Sengun’s efficiency. Green did attract defensive attention, and opponents’ game plans tended to be constructed around denying him lanes to the basket. But the difference is that a base-level game plan won’t completely cut off all of Durant’s offense.
If absolutely nothing else, Sengun should at least average more assists simply from being able to pass the ball to Durant. Will Sengun’s 4.9 assists per game shoot all the way up to Jokic’s age-23 average of 7.3? Probably not. But they don’t have to. Sengun won’t be measuring himself by how close he gets to Jokic. He’ll measure himself by how much closer he gets his jumbo-sized team to contending for an NBA championship.
The Last Word
The most important thing for Rockets fans to remember is that they have an incredibly talented young player on their hands. He isn’t the second coming of Jokic. He’s the first coming of Sengun. Sengun is very unlikely to make first-team All-NBA in his age-23 season, but that doesn’t make him any kind of a disappointment (for one thing, 23-year-old Jokic wasn’t competing with 30-year-old Jokic). On a team considered a dark horse contender, playing every night alongside an all-time great, 2025-26 will be Sengun’s chance to boogie down and show what he can do. No more baby stuff, it’s Turk Diggler’s NBA now.
Photo credit: © Troy Taormina-Imagn Images
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