By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The name Djordje Sijan may not ring a bell, especially to Houston Rockets fans, but if there’s one coach that Alperen Sengun trusts 100% then it’s him.
As Meridian Sports reports, the Serbian coach received a text message back in March from the Houston Rockets star, asking him to keep his summer open: “Djordje, don’t plan anything this summer, we have a lot to do !”
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 Doğuş Özdemiroğlu, Okben Ulubay, Ercan Osmani, Şehmus Hazer, and, of course, Sengun.
As Sijan says, “I 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… Those are my children .”
Sijan met Sengun when he was still playing in Banvit and, considering the Turkish star was part of the club’s 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: “Alperen 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 .”
And this summer, Sengun worked with Sijan on his shooting: “We mostly worked on shooting… I went through Partizan’s 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, ‘What did you do with him?’ Nothing, I let him get off the shots from all possible positions. Some coaches don’t like it. But this year we worked mostly on the three-point shot. That shot was forbidden to him”.
Of course, now Houston also wants their starting center to shoot the three: “There 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’s the pressure. I 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”.