Point guard.
Some Rockets fans are already too distressed to continue reading.
The team’s challenges at the position are well-documented. It was the foremost topic in the town square for too long.
“Is Kevin Porter Jr. a point guard?”
Yet, it goes back even further. At one time, James Harden was an off-guard. It was Mike D’Antoni who came along and said, “No. A point guard is any guard who makes the team’s overall offense better if we give him the ball a lot”.
The days of Mark “They invented five-second
back to the basket for me” Jackson patiently waiting to make the right entry pass were over. Point guards were allowed to score (won’t somebody think of the children?). This led to a widespread error in thinking. Just because a point guard is allowed to score doesn’t mean a (reasonably) talented score-first guard is now a point guard.
This horse has already been beaten to death. Suffice it to say, Porter Jr. wasn’t a point guard. The Rockets went out and got Fred VanVleet, the most point guard-iest point guard of the entire point guardian. Everyone wants their point guard to be a Maserati GranTurismo, but VanVleet is the Toyota Prius your uncle is always talking about.
Reliable. Steady. Safe. VanVleet’s outrageously low turnover percentage relative to his passing volume has always been his calling card.
It’s something the Rockets won’t have in 2025-26.
VanVleet is out. The Rockets have half of the NBA’s starting-caliber wings, and little else. It seems Amen Thompson and Reed Sheppard will be splitting floor general duties.
What if there’s a third way?
Rockets’ big man has point guard skills
We can get more granular on what constitutes a point guard.
Is it pick-and-roll efficiency? If so, Alperen Sengun is a point guard. In 2024-25, the Rockets scored 1.11 Points Per Possession (PPP) when he was the ball-handler in pick-and-roll sets. That ranked in the 95.3rd percentile leaguewide.
Fine. Pick-and-roll efficiency only counts as the sole barometer of point guard viability if you worship at the Church of D’Antoni. The Rockets won’t spam those sets like a 15-year-old playing NBA 2K. Still, Sengun’s 3.5% pick-and-roll (ball-handler) frequency ought to tick substantially up in 2025-26.
Remember those inverted pick-and-rolls with KJ Martin? Why can’t Sengun run those actions with Amen Thompson? Imagine it. A point guard setting a pick and rolling for a center handling the ball. Up is down, the earth is flat, and Bret “The Hitman” Hart is the worst there is, the worst there was, and the worst there ever will be.
Still, that’s not precisely what it means to say Sengun should be the de facto point guard. He doesn’t need to spam pick-and-roll. He doesn’t even need to get the ball up the floor.
The Rockets simply need to make sure the ball is in his hands.
Alperen Sengun should run the Rockets’ offense
If Thompson, Sheppard, Aaron Holiday, or whoever else needs to bring the ball up, that’s fine. If Sengun is on the floor, the Rockets should be looking to get the ball in his hands as a primary option.
In 2024-25, Alperen Sengun had a 25.9% usage rate, ranking 54th in the NBA. Ime Udoka should be nudging him into the top 30 next year. Nobody wants another heliocentric offense – Rockets fans have had their fill – but Sengun needs the ball more often with VanVleet on the sidelines.
Does that qualify him as a “point guard”? It’s a boring, tedious semantic debate. VanVleet has been Houston’s primary decision maker, and that’s the capacity Sengun should be replacing him in.
It may not be a seamless transition. It will look different. Sengun will turn the ball over more often, and his riskier passing style will pay off, too. The bottom line is that he’s the best-equipped player for the job on this roster. Sengun can create shots for both himself and his teammates. The fact that he’s not a conventional point guard is immaterial:
And since when has it mattered to the Rockets?
