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Miss you Serge. You were all heart. Love your game and nothing but the best.

My favorite Thunder player for a couple of years. Will miss him.

Loved Serge. He took a lot of **** and had to erase a lot of mistakes of his teammates on defense *cough*Russ*cough*

But he was central to the success we've had. Well miss him.

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Smh..

[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/BHCydszhz5S/[/instagram]

Just curious, not sure how many times you guys ran this type of lineup, how often can you get away with Serge as your 5? Could he be a starter? Seems like with the NBA the way it is, might not want him chasing other 4s out on the perimeter, especially in the east where it doesn't get too physical.

j-ragg wrote:Just curious, not sure how many times you guys ran this type of lineup, how often can you get away with Serge as your 5? Could he be a starter? Seems like with the NBA the way it is, might not want him chasing other 4s out on the perimeter, especially in the east where it doesn't get too physical.

He'll get mauled against big 4s and 5s (LMA bodied him), but he's pretty strong. Could spot start. I don't know if I'd play him there full time.

j-ragg wrote:Just curious, not sure how many times you guys ran this type of lineup, how often can you get away with Serge as your 5? Could he be a starter? Seems like with the NBA the way it is, might not want him chasing other 4s out on the perimeter, especially in the east where it doesn't get too physical.

Against most centers he'd be fine there. When you are playing a Dwight Howard or Cousins type he's not going to be very effective. He'll get pushed around some. However, if you start Ibaka at PF then pull Vucevic at the first lineup change and play him as a more small ball 5 with Gordon at the 4 you could have a fun lineup that can run other teams out of the building.

royce young already starting the gunslinging from okc media. espn article says there were issues with ibaka, on truehoop podcast today makes comment about his age. classless behavior. okc media always does this nonsense.

slick_watts wrote:royce young already starting the gunslinging from okc media. espn article says there were issues with ibaka, on truehoop podcast today makes comment about his age. classless behavior. okc media always does this nonsense.

What about his age? I'd expect better with that garbage.

I do think he was unhappy, that was Woj (who's far from a mouthpiece for Presti if you buy that).

Something was off with his game. Ibaka could be going into early career decline from the leg issues. Which OKC already went through once with Perkins. Ibaka could have been upset about his situation/role and being like Reggie. Everyone was talking about it during the playoffs. He didn't seem engaged if he wasn't getting early looks, etc. So either he had games where he was checking out or he had games where he hurt and couldn't play 100%.

Now it is also possible that Ibaka was playing hurt and will be good as new after resting through the off-season. I don't have enough information to say what the problem is, but there were stretches through the season and in the playoffs where he didn't seem to have the same elevation as he used to. The age question is something that always comes up when a player from a country that doesn't keep quality records has an off year during their "prime". Ibaka could come out next year and as a big part of the Magic offense and playing big minutes and have his best counting stat season of his career and all the talk of decline and age would be gone even if he did it with a drop in efficiency and seemed just a bit slower and didn't seem to have the same bounce as he had 3 years ago.

i agree with all that. i just don't like beat reporters hoarding anecdotes to share immediately after a player departs. especially if it's on amicable terms.