As the Houston Rockets traded for superstar Kevin Durant from the Phoenix Suns, shipping both Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks back seemed like a necessary sacrifice to make to bring in the go-to scorer that the team had been missing all of last season.
Yet, in doing so, they also compromised on the defensive identity they had worked so hard to cultivate, and, now, head coach Ime Udoka teased what role center Alperen Sengun's defense might play in allowing the team to maintain a similar level of staunchness on that side of the ball.
In the course of Turkiye's run to the EuroBasket semifinals, Sengun has played a massive role on both ends of the court, and his performance on both offense and defense have turned heads around the NBA, including in his own organization.