{"id":140275,"date":"2025-09-13T13:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T13:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/140275\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T13:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T13:51:07","slug":"the-rise-of-a-new-giant-alperen-sengun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/140275\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of a New Giant: Alperen Sengun"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

The official EuroBasket app<\/p>\n

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RIGA (Latvia) – Every significant statistical moment at FIBA EuroBasket 2025 is flagged through live notifications. <\/p>\n

Nearly three weeks into the tournament, Alperen Sengun has dominated these updates to the extent that they could simply be renamed the Alperen Sengun Alert System.<\/p>\n

Here are a few excerpts from Friday night’s win over Greece:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcca<\/p>\n

Opta Facts<\/p>\n

He is the first player to get 150+ points, 50+ rebounds and 50+ assists in a single EuroBasket tournament over the last 30 years.<\/p>\n

He has six EuroBasket double-doubles, tied with Mirsad Turkcan for most among all Turkish players in the last 30 years.<\/p>\n

He leads FIBA EuroBasket 2025 with 114 points in the paint, Giannis Antetokounmpo is his closest follower there with 100.<\/p>\n

He picked up 57 offensive rebounds since the start of EuroBasket 2022, which is 23 more than anybody else.<\/p>\n

He is up to five games with 10+ points, 5+ rebounds and 5+ assists, tied with Luka Doncic for most.<\/p>\n

He is up to five games with 10+ points, 10+ rebounds and 5+ assists, no other player has more than three over the last 30 years of EuroBasket action.<\/p>\n

Simply put, he’s conquering this event. The latest Turkish emperor, taking over the continent at 23 years of age.<\/p>\n

“Give me Alperen Sengun from the Houston Rockets to Panathinaikos, 100 percent we would beat the Houston Rockets,” his coach Ergin Ataman joked after one of the games in Riga.<\/p>\n

“He’s good, he’s talented. How he spins around off the body, he’s really good at this. He’s one of the best. He’s like a baby Jokic. His passing ability, how he makes his teammates better, all credit to him,” Latvia’s Kristaps Porzingis was also full of praise after facing him on the court.<\/p>\n

“He’s a really smart guy. He loves playing basketball, he’s enjoying it, and he’s helping us a lot. But we’re using him really well, it’s not like we’re giving him the ball and just waiting for him to do something. When we’re feeding him like this, we really can go all the way,” teammate Kenan Sipahi said.<\/p>\n

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Dangerous smile if you’re on the other side<\/p>\n

Even against Greece, when he missed his first eight field goal attempts, Sengun found ways to change the game and point the Turkish ship towards another win.<\/p>\n

“Sengun, he was not having a good day, he missed a lot of his shots in the low post, a lot of open shots. But in his character, he always scores and he has assists. He had a triple-double, he was close to another one in the other game, he likes to pass, and he’s a very good passer,” coach Ataman explained.<\/p>\n

Then, he went all-in: “Sengun maybe is the best passer in the NBA for a big man.”<\/p>\n

Okay, Nikola Jokic’s fans would have a thing or two to say about this, but it’s not far from the truth. <\/p>\n

“I’m a team player. I’m going to do whatever it takes to win,” Sengun’s mindset was evident in Riga any time he was asked about his performances.<\/p>\n

Even after getting that triple-double against Poland in the Quarter-Finals.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n

\"\"Sengun becomes youngest player to post EuroBasket triple-double<\/p>\n

“It wouldn’t mean anything if we would’ve lost today. I’m happy we won, I give my everything on defense and offense, and I’m just happy. What more can I say?” <\/p>\n

You try guarding him one-on-one? He’ll use his big body to push you deep under the rim, like he did against Giannis Antetokounmpo on back-to-back possessions to start the second half of the Semi-Finals.<\/p>\n

You try double-teaming him? He’ll find the right passes and get the team rolling.<\/p>\n

You try sagging off and daring him to shoot? He’s capable of hitting four threes, like he did against Serbia.<\/p>\n

“Well, they just left me open. So (I could shoot) confidently. You know\u2026 We have to make the open shots, too, otherwise we wouldn’t have had any chances against this Serbia team. So they left me open and I shot with confidence.”<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

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Alperen Sengun through the years<\/p>\n

Sengun is a true leader, a vocal one, too.<\/p>\n

Sure, media, fans, scouts and recruiters had him in their notebooks since he first showed up at the FIBA U16 EuroBasket in Novi Sad, Serbia in 2018, leading T\u00fcrkiye to a third-place finish with 14.4 points, 9.4 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game.<\/p>\n

He had his moments with Bandirma and Besiktas, too, before moving to the NBA. But nobody expected him to be this dominant, this confident, this early in his career.<\/p>\n

It feels like the confidence part always goes up a notch when he spends summers with Ergin Ataman.<\/p>\n

“(Coach Ataman) is using me really well. He puts me everywhere, and that’s who I am. I’m a team player. I’m gonna do whatever it takes to win. If it’s defense, it’s defense. If it’s offense, it’s offense, I don’t care. Whatever he tells me, I’ll do it.”<\/p>\n

T\u00fcrkiye’s winning formula<\/p>\n

\"\"Master at work: Ataman’s winning recipe for T\u00fcrkiye<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old from Giresun is living his best life in Latvia. Not only is he winning on the court, he’s having fun doing it, singing along to Athena’s On Iki Dev Adam, the 12 Giant Men mid-game.<\/p>\n

“That’s a legendary song, we still listen to it before the game, it’s part of our pre-game routine. I was just so happy, so I was just singing.”<\/p>\n

The lyrics are somewhat foreshadowing, too. The song gets to its highest point when the beat drops and everybody sings: \u015eampiyon olaca\u011f\u0131z!<\/p>\n

We will be champions.<\/p>\n

Just one game away from making it a reality now.<\/p>\n

FIBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The official EuroBasket app Download Now RIGA (Latvia) – Every significant statistical moment at FIBA EuroBasket 2025 is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-140275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}