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I come not to fight, but to talk

Wonder how OKC fans view the trade, now that we are towards the end of the season.

for Magic fans, we were told Ibaka was declining, lost athleticism, people (not OKC fans) questioning his true age, his one on one defense not as good as people believe, no inside game.

The good - Ibaka has been a great leader in the locker room and probably our most consistent player, has shot the ball from 3 very well. He brought what was asked for by many Magic fans, a 3 pt shooting, help shot blocking PF. after a slow start has rebounded well for the season

the bad - as was mentioned, his athleticism has slowed him down a bit and he cant cover defensively anywhere near like he used to. He still has no inside game and he is hasnt provided the shot blocking we had hoped for.

What did i think of the trade? fit wise on paper, it should have worked. Shot blocking PF next to Vuc, AG with his athleticism staying at SF to provide his defense and develop his offense more.

Why it didnt work - to be honest, i dont believe it was Ibaka's fault. Elf and AG havent taken the jump forward the way fans and the FO thought they would. Ibaka should be no more than the 3rd option, but had to be a 2nd option behind Fournier, another player that should be a 2nd option at best, 3rd option ideally. And then the FO signs Biyombo to provide exactly what they wanted to get from Ibaka. I truly thought AG was going to develop at least an average offensive game watching his summer play for 2 years. But now, even if moved to PF, i dont see him more than an average starting PF, nothing elite or special.

I do wonder what would have happened with Vogel and Forcier coaching with Elf/Dipo/Fournier/AG/Vuc, with Biyombo subbing in for defense. I dont believe Ibaka is going to stay (who would right now), so now Orlando has to get whatever value they can for him in a trade.

i dunno, just some rambling due to a slow day at work, and watching the team have to tank to still find our future star with a bunch of role players currently on it. i truly hope Westbrook is able to finish the season averaging a triple double, would be great to see.

Personally, I know a lot of people are down on Dipo, but I'm not. He's been forced into a role he wasn't originally planned for and overall he's still been by far the best wing OKC's had in years (since Harden honestly). He's been a solid defender and his shooting mostly a plus. You guys were spot on his finishing is bad, and it stinks he's been forced into backup PG minutes because they've got so few good ball handlers.

As for Sabonis, he's hit a little rookie wall but overall we can see the tools there for sure. His defense has also been stellar, but the last few games or so he's just not been able to do a thing offensively. Apparently the kid's really tough on himself and I sorta feel bad because I think they'd be better off moving him to the bench for a few games until Kanter is back.

Overall I'm still thrilled with the trade, because even with an imperfect fit VO's been solid enough to me and I like what I've seen from Sabonis. Plus I really wasn't sure if I'd feel good paying Serge what he's going to demand next offseason, and it removed that. That said he'd have been a better win now option.

I'm a very recent OKC fan but I questioned Ibaka's real age since the first day I started watching OKC's games. Maybe former fans were so attached to him emotionally and were blinded by that but it was very obvious to me. Come on, he's from a war-torn country and arrived France as a refugee. Also his father was a basketball player and he possibly had known the value of perceived youth for the basketball teams in France. Possibly Ibaka was 19 years old in Congo and magically became 17 when he arrived in France.

People around here know my ideas about Vic. I believe he is a good guy but he needs to get better at nearly everything he does so I believe Sabonis will be the real gem of this trade in the long term.

I agree with what was said above, both Vic and ibaka aren't capable of carrying a team. Vic is younger so I guess that's a plus. I would like to see him moved. I think Sabonis will be very good. It's important to remember that some guys don't develop until their third year. I wish we had kept Ilyasova. That's the part of the trade that gets overlooked.

I thought it was a great trade on draft day and it has worked out about as expected for OKC. Oladipo was the player they needed. Sabonis has been a solid rookie and should be a good player. I'd give up one year of Ibaka for 5 of Dipo and 8+ of Sabonis every chance I got. The issue for OKC was what happened after that trade during FA which changed the role Oladipo was supposed to be in and some fans can't accept that he's not fit for the role they need him to be to be a contender with the current roster. OKC just can't contend with the current roster, but that isn't because of Oladipo. Dipo was supposed to be the 3rd scoring option and 6th man not a starter and the #2 guy on the team.

Basically Vic = serge so getting ily and domas was great. Then trading ily and a first for grant was colossally stupid.

spearsy23 wrote:Basically Vic = serge so getting ily and domas was great. Then trading ily and a first for grant was colossally stupid.

I was very angry at the time when Presti pulled the trigger for the Grant-Ilyasova trade after only 3 games but now I am rather happy for Ersan. He is much respected by players in Philly (esp. Embiid), the team can play pass-pass-pass-find the perimeter guy style if necessary and he had the chance to both mentor Saric (his younger clone) and be the vet in a team full of youngsters. Even Philly commentators call him "the pro" as he sometimes looks like the only guy who knows what he is doing in a roster filled with likes of Nik Stauskas, Gerald "supposedly vet" Henderson, Sergio "oh come on.." Rodriguez and Noel/Okafor jam.

Also as with the Abrines issue there is something fundamentally wrong with OKC's approach to 3-pt play. I can't exactly put my finger on it but I believe that:
- Donovan is a bit of old-school coach that still believes guaranteed 2-pt play is better than 3-pts. Altough even if he came from college, he punishes young players a bit too much by keeping them in doghouse for too long. He may be suffering from stress to be successful which leads to overplaying the guaranteed scorers.
- Team has drafted and traded for quality bigs and the way OKC plays is perceived as "better suited for bigs" as Lauvergne stated to a magazine after his trade. OKC Thunder has the best tools for old Utah Jazz style pick&roll team so meshing a 3-pt threat is not easy.
- Russ hesitates to pass to shooters on perimeter if he is not 100% sure about them (he trusts Abrines&Morrow but rarely passes to Vic)
- Presti does not believe in vets or expiring contracts.
- Management is so traumatized by the KD case that they will be willing to trade away any expiring deal with early trigger for even a bag of chips.

oken wrote:- Russ hesitates to pass to shooters on perimeter if he is not 100% sure about them (he trusts Abrines&Morrow but rarely passes to Vic).

He has more passes to Vic than anyone else on the team, and only has more assists to Steven.

If Oladipo could make a lay up, I would be more happy about the trade.

Seriously speaking, I still think it's the best trade OKC made for a long time. Just don't like so much the extension offered to Oladipo ( could be cheaper with the way he was (and is ) playing ) but that's another debate.

Dadouv47 wrote:If Oladipo could make a lay up, I would be more happy about the trade.

He's only shooting 60% at the rim. He clearly needs to step it up. He needs to get on Russ' level of 57% at the rim.

Kizz Fastfists wrote:

Dadouv47 wrote:If Oladipo could make a lay up, I would be more happy about the trade.

He's only shooting 60% at the rim. He clearly needs to step it up. He needs to get on Russ' level of 57% at the rim.

Yeah 57% with 2 opponents AT LEAST guarding him, while Oladipo misses lay up with at best one opponent ...

I mean, I get annoyed with the finishing too, but he's been fantastic defensively and still been a very good shooter for the most part. It's kinda nice to complain about smaller things than we have in the past with the SG position.

Kizz Fastfists wrote:

Dadouv47 wrote:If Oladipo could make a lay up, I would be more happy about the trade.

He's only shooting 60% at the rim. He clearly needs to step it up. He needs to get on Russ' level of 57% at the rim.

Out of the 95 guys with at least 150 drives this season, he's 80th in FG% (two spots above Dion).
Out of the 86 guys with at least 130 attempted layups this season, he's 61st in FG% (22 spots above Dion).
Additionally, out of the 80 guys with at least 500 FGA this season, he's 69th in FTr.

He has to get better at going to the rim and finishing, period. He's too athletic to be this 'meh'. Add his shooting struggles over the past weeks, and you're in trouble.