lekitsune

Alperen Sengun scored 43 points for the Houston Rockets tonight, on 17 of 24 from the floor, with 12 rebounds and 5 assists. He was 12 years old when he left home. Sengun grew up in Giresun, on Turkey's Black Sea coast. His father Kemal was a fisherman who had played point guard in Turkey's first division in the late 1980s. His mother is Ayse. They wanted him to swim. He picked up basketball at eight after watching his older brother play. A coach named Ahmet Gurgen spotted him at a youth sports festival. On August 19, 2014, Sengun signed a youth contract with Banvit, a club on the other side of the country. He was 12. His family did not have money. He told the New York Times this year that there were nights he cried and wanted to go home. He said he understood what he had to do it for. To give his family and himself a better life. He did not go home. At 18 he averaged 19.2 points for Besiktas and was named MVP of the Turkish league, the youngest ever to win it. Oklahoma City took him 16th overall in 2021 and traded him to Houston that night for two future first-round picks. He is the youngest center in NBA history to reach 1,000 points and 200 assists. He took a Shaquille O'Neal record for the youngest center with a 30 point, 15 rebound, 5 assist game. In March 2024 he became the first center ever to put up 23 points, 19 rebounds and 14 assists in one game. He is a two-time All-Star, the first Turkish player to manage that. Houston beat the Utah Jazz 125-118 and sit at 10-3. Kevin Durant added 22. Utah has lost 11 in a row. The honest counterpoint is that 43 was not even his best night. He put up 45 on San Antonio in March 2024. He left home at 12 so his family would stop being poor. In 2024 he signed a contract worth $185 million.