wiff wrote:Really? I thought you were the stat guy Slick? I emplore you Slick to look up Ibaka's stats when he plays 24 minutes or more. His numbers are just shy of a double double.
Is that really nothing?
Sure, it's something. Serge is a nice prospect, and can be productive. But 12 / 11 is serious productivity. Suggesting that Serge can get to that level after only putting up 12 / 11 once in his rookie season is too much for me. It wouldn't surprise me if he won a starting spot, and that in and of itself is amazing considering his status at this time last year.
BTW, using his #'s when he plays 24 minutes or more is misleading. Serge often earned big minutes when he played particularly well. So it's like saying if you ignore the games where he did not play well, this is what Serge did. Seeing that consistency is a big thing for a big guy like him, I don't think I like isolating that particular set of data...
wiff wrote:But really all thing considered wouldn't that be tops on the list of things you'd want a rookie player to be bad at? That's an easy fixable problem. You can't really fix Green's T-Rex arms. You can't really fix Nonads vagina soft game. Westbrook is going to have to work for hours/days/weeks/months/years to improve his shot.
Interesting Fact #1: Did you know the Thunder were a better defensive rebounding team with Nenad Krstic on the court (+1.2%), and much worse (-3.2%) with Serge Ibaka on the court?
Just because he's big, tall, and athletic doesn't mean it's an easily fixable problem. Plenty of guys like Serge (Tyrus Thomas comes to mind) rely on their hops and speed their whole career and don't really learn the fundamentals of positioning. That's something that Nenad does know (and Collison) and one of the reasons our defensive rebounding is better when he's on the court even though he does not grab a bunch of them himself.
Interesting Fact #2: Serge Ibaka played more minutes (1323) than anyone who has recorded 10 or fewer assists in an NBA season.
Maybe not a huge problem, but for a team with offensive continuity issues and a lot of ball stoppers in the front court, it's tough for me to imagine Serge accomodated in the starting lineup. Again, Krstic isn't great at this, Green isn't great at this, but they're both better than Serge by a decent amount.
wiff wrote:Effort fixes Ibaka lack of boxing out. And I'm sure the last play of the season has burned an imprint in his mind. I don't think he come back next year making the same easily correctable mistake of not boxing out.
If it was just effort, everyone would be boxing out. We've said these same words about countless big man prospects that haven't passed muster.
I think Serge will improve; he's young, seems like a hard worker, and the coaching staff is enamored with him. But I think he's got a lot of issues with his game that will take more than one offseason to correct. It's hard not to get excited about our young guys, though, because in an ideal world you can trot out Aldrich-Ibaka-Durant-Harden-Westbrook and have all your bases covered. Let's hope for the ideal world!
