Alperen Sengun from the 4 Players Rockets can make a leap forward in the current NBA rankings

The Houston Rockets have a rising star in Alperen Sengun.

He has enormous potential. Sengun has gaps in his game. He has a hard time defending the pick-and-roll and isn’t a particularly good floor protector.

He’s such a talented inside scorer that it might not matter anyway.

Action Network agrees. They just released their list of the NBA’s top 100 players and named Sengun the 40th best player in the league.

We are not here to challenge them. Sengun’s placement seems fair to us. Still, he is one of the younger players in the top 40. Sengun has every opportunity to climb this ranking in 2024-25.

Here are four players we think he can overtake.

The start with the former Rockets franchise player is pure coincidence. We work in chronological order.

Sengun has probably already overtaken Harden. The Beard posted a Box Plus/Minus (BPM) of 4.1 in 2024-25. Sengun scored 4.9. Case closed?

No. One could argue that Harden can still find a higher gear when needed. In a sense, he becomes a grandfather, and rightly so. This is a relatively new MVP winner – Harden deserves some benefit of the doubt.

Still, Sengun has the opportunity to eclipse him in 2024/25. They are simply opposite trajectories. Harden should soon be out of star production while Sengun is still on the rise.

Here’s another player Sengun may have already surpassed.

Interestingly, Sabonis is one of the players Sengun is most often compared to. It’s an obvious comparison. Sengun and Sabonis are both big men who would prefer to operate closer to the basket offensively. They are both also problematic at times when it comes to defending elite guards.

Here’s where they differ: Sabonis has a system based on his strengths. He and De’Aaron Fox work to the point of exhaustion on dribble handoffs, and it’s an optimal system for both of them. Unlike the Kings, the Rockets are still developing. This squad is not (yet) tailored to Sengun’s strengths.

Until that happens, it could be difficult for him to overtake Sabonis. However, the Kings added DeMar DeRozan this summer. If he can’t find his way in Sabonis and Fox’s system, Sengun could post more impressive stats than his counterpart in 2024-25.

This will be a harder sell for some fans.

Siakam is a true two-way player. He is a 1.95 meter tall winger who can defend 2:5 in an emergency. For some, this will prevent Sengun from topping this ranking.

That’s a fair position. However, it’s worth noting that Siakam posted a BPM of 2.5 last year. That’s far behind Sengun. While we argue between Harden and Sengun, there is a rift between the Rockets star and Siakam.

BPM is not the be-all and end-all. However, Sengun is a far more dynamic offensive player than Siakam. If he can continue to make progress in this regard, his overall impact could easily surpass Siakam’s despite the defensive gap.

This will be the easiest sell for other fans. The placement of white will be ridiculous to some.

Do not expect endorsement in this article.

White is fantastic. Its main selling point is its portability. White is a knockdown shooter and a quality defender, and he can orchestrate your offense in a pinch. He would log heavy minutes on any team in the NBA. Action Network rated it appropriately here.

However, White is a role player. Sengun is a high-stakes offensive fulcrum. As long as he continues to improve, it should only be a matter of time before he overtakes someone like White in the player rankings.

This is what happens when you’re a rising star like Sengun.