{"id":73339,"date":"2025-08-16T19:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T19:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/73339\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T19:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T19:09:09","slug":"senguns-prep-before-the-eurobasket-djordje-dont-plan-anything-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/73339\/","title":{"rendered":"Sengun’s prep before the Eurobasket: “Djordje, don’t plan anything this summer”"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eurohoops team\/ info@eurohoops.net<\/a><\/p>\n

The name Djordje Sijan may not ring a bell, especially to Houston Rockets<\/a> fans, but if there\u2019s one coach that Alperen Sengun trusts 100% then it\u2019s him.<\/p>\n

As Meridian Sports reports<\/a>, the Serbian coach received a text message back in March from the Houston Rockets<\/a> star, asking him to keep his summer open: \u201cDjordje, don\u2019t plan anything this summer, we have a lot to do !\u201d<\/p>\n

Alperen Sengun, like he did almost every summer, wanted to work with the coach who practically raised him basketball-wise. Sijan, a former assistant coach at Partizan, has worked in Turkey since 2016, being instrumental in grooming local talents like Do\u011fu\u015f \u00d6zdemiro\u011flu, Okben Ulubay, Ercan Osmani,\u00a0\u015eehmus Hazer, and, of course, Sengun.<\/p>\n

As Sijan says, \u201cI have been with Sengun since the 2020-2021 season every summer when he comes from the NBA. Last summer, we worked with the Houston staff because it was a critical year for the contract, but now I was alone with him for a month, then one month with the Rockets. I worked for two months with Alperen, but also with Hazer, Dogus\u2026 Those are my children .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sijan met Sengun when he was still playing in Banvit and, considering the Turkish star was part of the club\u2019s developement system since he was 12, leaving alone away from his family, the Serbian technician believes that this gave him valuable experience, beyond his years: \u201cAlperen is much older in his head than his age tells him. He is 23, but he looks like he is 57. As if he has 30 years of life experience. He has unbelievable judgment, makes good life decisions .\u201d<\/p>\n

And this summer, Sengun worked with Sijan on his shooting: \u201cWe mostly worked on shooting\u2026 I went through Partizan\u2019s school with centers, and I can say that Sengun is the best player with his back to the basket in Europe. In the NBA, they focused on where he is dominant, and he developed to perfection. But creativity was forbidden to him. I was asked in an interview, \u2018What did you do with him?\u2019 Nothing, I let him get off the shots from all possible positions. Some coaches don\u2019t like it. But this year we worked mostly on the three-point shot. That shot was forbidden to him\u201d.<\/p>\n

Of course, now Houston also wants their starting center to shoot the three: \u201cThere is a lot of pressure on him to shoot more. In the NBA, the way modern basketball is played, he wants to be a center or a power forward who opens up the floor. We worked from the first day to the last, and he brought the mechanics of the shot to perfection. Now we need internal stability, self-confidence to apply. Mentally, that\u2019s the pressure.\u00a0I tell him that basketball is like a cake, made of layers. And the layer he lacks is the three-point shot. In the NBA, the whole game is about speed, shooting, reaction, and reading\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Eurohoops team\/ info@eurohoops.net The name Djordje Sijan may not ring a bell, especially to Houston Rockets fans,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-73339","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\/73339","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=73339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}