Shane Larkin and Alperen Sengun are teammates on Turkey’s EuroBasket 2025 squad, and the veteran guard is extremely bullish on Sengun’s NBA potential.
Veteran guard Shane Larkin played four NBA seasons in the mid-2010s, and he’s since become an elite player in Europe. Today, he’s 32 years old, and he’s also competing in the FIBA EuroBasket 2025 competition as a starter for Turkey.
So, Larkin has had ample experience on great teams, even dating back to his wildly successful college days at the University of Miami.
But in a conversation with BasketNews, Larkin made it clear that Houston Rockets star Alperen Sengun — now Larkin’s teammate on the Turkish EuroBasket squad — is the best center that he’s ever played with.
Among Larkin’s comments:
Alpi has grown into an All-Star, one of the best players in the NBA, and he has the talent to continue to grow. When he first came here, he was a rookie… and there were a lot of things that he needed to work on to become more efficient. And I think with his style and the way that he’s played in the NBA and the way they’ve allowed him to make mistakes in order to take those steps have been important for him. I think the sky’s the limit.
I think there are still many things that he can add to his game to make him even better, one of the top-10 players in the NBA, just because of his raw skills and everything he can do with the ball.
I think this is a great tournament for him to continue to take steps in that direction and play in a different kind of style of basketball. And I’m just excited to be able to play with him, excited to see how he continues to grow.
At just 23 years old, Sengun has already proven capable of having that production contribute to winning at a high level. That was clearly shown in his 2025 All-Star season, which came while playing for a Houston squad that finished with the second-best record (52-30) in the Western Conference.
When asked specifically how Sengun stacks up among centers that he has played with, Larkin said (via BasketNews):
I’ve been playing a long time, man. That’s a tough question. But I mean, I think he’s the only NBA center that I played with who was an All-Star. So, if you count Dirk (Nowitzki) as a fourth, obviously, can’t really go against that.
But yeah, I would say thus far he’s probably the best center that I’ve played with.
Sengun (16 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists) and Larkin (15 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists) both put up strong numbers in Turkey’s dominant win over Latvia on Wednesday, which opened Group A action at EuroBasket 2025.
Turkey will resume group-stage play Friday versus Czechia, with tipoff at 6:45 a.m. Central time. Details on how to stream are available at FIBA’s website.