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Don’t ever tell Serge Ibaka he can’t do something. His story is borderline ridiculous. One of 18 children, Ibaka grew up in a country battling itself in a nasty war. He used basketball to escape a war torn country, now speaks five languages and after not playing organized basketball until his late teens, is one of the best defensive enforcers in the league. Heck, I’m sure someone even told him dunking with a foot behind the free throw line wasn’t happening, but he didn’t care.
But that’s just the beginning for Ibaka. As you might imagine for someone that’s as driven and persistent as him, he wants more. He wants to be an All-Star. And he thinks he can do it sooner than later. He told HoopsHype.com, “Yes, I see it happening in one or two years.”
I can see it happening too. Ibaka led the league in total blocks, was eighth in field goal percentage (54.3 percent) finished averaging 9.9 points and 7.3 rebounds and in the games he started after Jeff Green was dealt, nearly averaging a double-double. And this is with him being just 21 years old and not at all completely developed.
Ibaka made a giant leap this past season adding in a consistent mid-range jumper that made him a new pick-and-pop threat for Russell Westbrook to dish to. Last season Ibaka walked into every game with the potential to go for 15, but against the Nuggets showcased that he could be a primary threat in any given game. In Game 3, he went for 22 points, 16 rebounds and added four blocks for good measure. He was easily the best player on the floor that night.
And that’s the type of player that indeed could blossom into an All-Star. Because of the roster he’s on, he’s not really going to be a focus. I would guess that Scott Brooks has maybe two plays in the whole playbook actually drawn up for Ibaka and I bet they’re both alley-oops. But he finds points because he works tirelessly on the glass. And you never have to worry about his effort defensively.
Where he needs to improve a little to really take that next step is simply in consistency. You can’t have one night of 13 points, 14 rebounds and then the next get in foul trouble and go for four and two. That was an issue sometimes for Ibaka. Last season he got the minutes he needed to be productive though and now this season, he’ll be Oklahoma City’s starting 4 from day one. That’s big for him.
On top of that he needs to improve as a man-to-man post defender. Dirk Nowitzki kind of torched him in the Western Finals and he struggled against Zach Randolph in the Semis. He’s an all-world help defender, but he’s got to figure out how to use his body to lean, push and maintain position against a good offensive player. Good news for Ibaka: Nick Collison is one of the best in game at that stuff and I’m sure he’s happy to give a lesson or two.
Is he All-Star material right now? Probably not. He has some of the hype needed with news fans getting an introduction to him in the dunk contest and then in the postseason where he had a number of really impressive games. But power forward in the West is pretty stacked. Last season’s All-Star power forwards in the West were Pau Gasol, Blake Griffin and Kevin Love. And maybe Dirk depending on how you want to classify him. Topping those guys, especially with young players like Griffin and Love in the mix for a while, could be tough. Not to mention Luis Scola, LaMarcus Aldridge, David West (depending on where he goes), Randolph and Paul Millsap.
But don’t give up on Ibaka. Because he’s keen on proving people wrong.
@Crow
Dude your a mastermind, now remind me why your not working for a news stations sport section or for an internet site?
Thanks for the compliment okc baby. My stat analysis here is just in spare moments. Could do a lot more and be more organized if a team was interested enough.
If anything Crow could work in the stats department crunching numbers. Would be a great asset to the team.
Ozarkhick :Crow, you are awesome. How many SB/truehoop sites have a guy like this, really? Without Crow, we’d be halfway to DenverStiffs. OK, so that last part was hyperbole.Also, I suppose the takeaway from the original question is that while Harden and Collison run a mean pick and roll, they are just two awesome but underrated players, and pairing them isn’t so much a magic lineup recipe as it is having two winning basketball players without eye popping box score numbers on the court, amirite?
Of course thats all you would get out of it:)
Presti probably realizes well that playing with and against 4+ starters is somewhat different than playing against 3+ bench players. Against the first talent and athleticism may be of heightened need / advantage. Plug in Westbrook and Durant. Against the latter, bb iq might also have a lot of traction, maybe much more than it might against starters who are probably smarter on average than typical bench players. Plug in Maynor, Harden and Collison. If Harden moves to starter he will probably have to showcase his athleticism and talent to get and make shots even more than he has to date against more bench opponents.
Thanks Ozarkhick. The site has many good contributors with different styles. You do your things, I do mine, they do theirs.
I found the raw team +/- data this morning. Harden=Collison was one of the top 10 best bigger minute pairs by raw +/- per minute at a bit over +10 per 48. That seems to match up with their Adjusted +/- and maybe easier bench opponents. "Two winning basketball players without eye popping box score numbers on the court" sounds like a good description.
11 of the 14 top bigger minute pairs by raw +/- per minute had Collison and / or Maynor. Harden was in the other 3. Westbrook and Durant were only in 1 each. Perhaps a lot because of usually facing starters but this is still a surprising and big endorsement of the edge producing bench.
Ibaka passed the exam and he is a Spanish now.I really want to have half of his language talent
Crow, you are awesome. How many SB/truehoop sites have a guy like this, really? Without Crow, we'd be halfway to DenverStiffs. OK, so that last part was hyperbole.
Also, I suppose the takeaway from the original question is that while Harden and Collison run a mean pick and roll, they are just two awesome but underrated players, and pairing them isn't so much a magic lineup recipe as it is having two winning basketball players without eye popping box score numbers on the court, amirite?
Ask me a question and I may do my best to answer it and see what else comes to mind along the way.
Hahaha...Crow, you haven't had a stat-attack in about a month. Haha, go for a walk.
With a group of bigger lineups without Green that worked well last season, it may be that Brooks tendency to stick with known things will help the team more next season than it did the last two. I might not push for experimentation as much, if the patterns continue.
I guess there was also one bad one with just Westbrook / no Durant but also Green. But that issue is gone.
Westbrook and Durant played pretty few minutes without the other. But the fear of doing so may be greater than it deserves to be. I only saw one bad lineup with just Durant and it was small minute and relatively small ball and with Green.
9 of the 10 estimated negative lineups on traditional Adjusted +/- also had Westbrook on them last season. Simply play a lot and that could happen. Perhaps not play as well as he did with other lineups in those 10 lineups / 40% of his minutes and that could also happen.
Durant was on all but 2. Westbrook-Durant were therefore on all but 2 of the bad ones. The pairing doesn't always work. On a lot of good ones as well of course.
Collison was on just 2 of the bad 10. Thabo just 4. Ibaka 5. Harden 6.
Every single bigger minute bad lineup in 2009-10 also had Green on it. Took awhile longer for that message to sink in or at least to result in action.
Of course while there are best estimates there is room for error or noise and the exact order of pair ranks on the team is not certain.
The biggest minute 5 man lineups with Harden with the starters and with the main bench guys were both quite good. They only get about half the time that the original starting lineup with Green & Krstic in 2/3rds of the season. The new starting lineup isn't estimated quite as good a performer as either of these Harden lineups but it was also still pretty good. Really there are no known really bad bigger minute lineups now that G & K have moved on, just a few near neutral.
If Harden plays big minutes he can play a lot with both the starters and the main bench guys.
There might be situations / matchups where each performs better / less well. With more time one could try to finetune it. Whether one could recommend a better management plan than what Brooks actually did is an open question. The numbers might suggest an affirmative or negative answer but ultimately he made the choices and you can't entirely and perfectly simulate what would have actually happened with a different rotation.
Ozarkhick,
The language on this is a bit tricky for me. I am not sure how to simplify it quickly. So I'll just lay what I find out and you can analyze and summarize it the way that works for you.
I can't access nba.com's raw pair data right now but I have Adjusted +/- data.
Collison-Harden was the 2nd best Thunder pair on Adjusted +/- on offense and 4th best on defense and pretty high up there across the entire league full of pairs.
I am not sure I'd use the exact term "multiplier effect" because the sum of the individual player ratings for Collison and Harden appear to have bigger values than the pair (perhaps because the player ratings might have more noise).
Compared to other combination of 2 player values the Collison-Harden pair outperformed the average for pairs of similar sum of individual Adjusted +/- strength.
Collison-Maynor was best pair on the team for both offense and defense.
Maynor-Harden-Collison is the 4th best But 2 of 3 do well and having all 3 doesn't really multiply it up further, they just maintain being very good.
Westbrook-Harden-Durant is the best team triplet on offense. Values for triplets on defense are not yet available.
I think the bottomline is that bench lineups with 2 or 3 of Maynor-Harden-Collison make sense by the numbers.
Westbrook-Harden-Durant makes sense on offense. Harden-Durant is moderately good on defense. Westbrook-Harden is just barely above neutral on defense. As I said before I don't have an estimate for the triplet of Westbrook-Harden-Durant on defense to know if it slips more or stay about as expected according to the pair data. That is a fairly important detail. It could make starting this trio good or not quite so good.
I like Ibaka's block much more than his dunk,but I think no one wants to see a block machine to stop those dunks in all star game.
I really hope he can learn some offense skill from Pau Gasol,it will help him much if he wants to be an all star.
@ james1
I think that's really well said and sums it up perfectly.
A question for Crow, if he would be kind enough to indulge my laziness :
Could you come up with a few quick statistical comparisons to show whether Harden and Collison have a "multiplier effect" on each other - ie each is significantly better if they are on the floor with each other vs. other lineups, perhaps explaining the reticence to start Harden.
The more consistent he gets the more opportunities he gets. He's still building the foundation. He needs to get better defensively and more consistent all around. He's capable of both but both are far from a given. There are a ton of guys in the league with a ton of upside but there arent that many that are great every night. The potential is there but he's definitely still got some work to do.
I doubt that the Thunder can catapult Serge to All-Star status in the next few seasons--a team can only support so many "stars," and Harden's set of skills (and the relative lack of SG talent in the West) has him slated as the team's next All Star.
Still, I think that Serge can make it, but it will occur after the Thunder compete in a finals series (or two).
We all know that Serge is a handsome and likable guy, and he has a really good story. He has a good name. He can produce several "highlight" plays each game. He's marketable.
But as the team's 4th scoring option, the NBA-world will never regard him as a "scorer," even if he does begin to produce baskets consistently and efficiently. And that's a problem (as justin noted).
Still, when OKC plays for a title, fans will remember the hard-working kid from the Congo who had several massive dunks and sent the ball into the crowd every-other defensive possession. He'll get a rep as an enforcer, and people will vote for him. I bet he'll make the roster eventually.
Plus the dude might just be inanely good at basketball in a few years.
@ justin
We just can't lose sight of how raw he really still is. Stuff like court awareness and handling double teams, which he handles very poorly right now, are exactly the sorts of issues which will improve dramatically with more experience. He's not going to have that deer in the headlights looks in those situations forever.
@ Thomas
I don't think he has much promise as a one on one player, no. His awareness is what will hurt him. Even if he could score reliably in the post, the other team would just have to hedge a defender and Serge will not know what to do. Plus, he doesn't have the mass to back a defender down and has been made to look silly a bunch of times because of this.
I agree with Mark on this one. Serge's offensive potential from here, IMO, would be the PnR game. Or any kind of play where he's finishing it and not creating it. Serge actually did very well on his PnR possessions last season, it's something that should be explored more. He also has to set better screens. But I'm not sure that's going to be the direction we go in, because it doesn't seem to be Westbrook's game.
@ justin
That isn't the full extent of his skills. They dude has shown flashes of legitimate post moves. Do you seriously think he's done developing that part of his game? I don't.
This is one of the areas where having a PG like Westbrook impacts the team the most.
Without making a judgement on whether or not a hypothetical team is better or worse with a PG like Russ, players like Ibaka simply won't have many opportunities to get in a groove, get started, get rolling, find their stroke, etc. etc. from one game to the next.
Ibaka will have good games where he fills up the box score, but he's also going to have games where he doesn't do much offensively.
Westbrook takes a lot of shots and IMO he doesn't quite have that feel for when he should and shouldn't be taking over. Sometimes I get the impression that he's passing because it's what he's "supposed to do." I'm not saying he's being selfish; rather I'm saying I'm not sure he has that innate feeling of why he should be passing and to whom in the same sense that PG's like Nash or Kidd do in order to get their teammates going.
Russ has always looked more comfortable sussing out when and how he should be scoring, not so much his teammates.
Westbrook is an all-star and rightfully so. I don't love our offensive system, but part of it's lack of structure is probably required to allow Westbrook the freedom to do what he does best. That style won't be beneficial to players like Ibaka finding a consistent offensive game and making All Star teams.
Maybe Russ will develop some in that respect, maybe not. I'm not convinced he has to be one way or the other for us to win (so long as he improves in general), but this particular issue hinges a lot on Westbrook IMO.
"Ibaka made a giant leap" literally;)
Yeah, as much as I love Serge, he's going to have to make quite a jump in production to make an All-Star game. That would be cool, but only after we've extended his contract.
It's very hard to make an All Star game when you're primarily a defensive player. Marcus Camby never made an All Star game and he dominated defensive boxscore statistics about as much as you can for a few seasons. Only the all time greats like Ben Wallace or Rodman made any.
Serge's scoring efficiency plummeted after the trade. Can he muster enough offense on 15 footers and put backs to make an ASG? I doubt it...
I honestly didn't expect Ibaka to be as good as he is. For every Serge Ibaka, there are 25 Saer Senes. Give him a better understanding of how to move the ball in an offense, something he could pick up over the course of this next season, and he could really be something special.
Harden will do it before Serge.
I can't wait for the day when we cane see KD, Russ, Beard, and Serge in the All-Star game together.