Serge Ibaka

[bchaikin]

ibaka is now blocking shots at a rate of 7.9% BS (approximately 7.9 blocks per 100 opposing team FGAs), the highest rate by a player playing at least 1500 minutes in a season since 90-91, 21 years ago...

he plays on one of the league's best offensive teams, but a team ranked just 10th in defense. wonder if he'll get DPOY consideration...

[Mike G]

ibaka is now blocking shots at a rate of 7.9% BS (approximately 7.9 blocks per 100 opposing team FGAs), the highest rate by a player playing at least 1500 minutes in a season since 90-91,..

Depends what your definition of is is. Earlier in the year he was getting about half as many as lately.

Code: Select all

mo.    min   Blk   DRb   Bk/36   DRb/36
Dec    123    11    19    3.22    5.56
Jan    396    37    61    3.36    5.55
Feb    446    64    80    5.17    6.46
Mar    436    58    84    4.79    6.94
Apr    202    43    31    7.66    5.52

I did the defensive rebounds to see if there is any change along with the blocks rates.
Oddly, his mpg are down to about 25 in 8 games this month, from almost 30 in Feb.
Fouls aren't the problem, as he's gotten 2-3 per game in every month.

He doesn't have any huge home bias in blocks counted: 5.08, vs 4.45 on the road, per36.
His DReb are noticeably better at home: 6.8 vs 5.5 per 36 min.

[Crow]

Team defensive efficiency is 102-3 with Ibaka on the court. Nice but not amazing, especially this season with average league efficiency down to 104.5, almost 3 points lower than the previous season. With Sefolosha on the court it is 93.

Ibaka without Thabo is almost 7 points weaker on defense than Thabo without Ibaka. Together they are great, but it appears to come more from Thabo. His defensive RAPM is estimated at +2.6 to +3.5 this season on prior-informed and not, many times better than Ibaka's. Ibaka's non-prior informed defensive RAPM is only +0.5, lower than the prior-informed estimate which is only +0.8. Either way, not that special.

Defensive rebounding is weak with him on the court- under 70%. League average is 73%. Team is slightly better on this without him.

His counterpart defensive stats are good but not great.

I'll say, as I did before the season on a Thunder site, that he is not a top DPOY candidate IMO. Give him a few votes and wait for improvement.

Brooks overplays Perkins, sometimes overplays small ball lineups and overall underplays Ibaka. Not sure how much that is influenced by Presti and his analysts. Perkins overall RAPM is strongly negative and has slide a lot in the last month or two. But I guess that RAPM was not a major factor to Presti before the multiple asset trade for him. Perkins has been estimated negative on RAPM for 7 of 9 seasons.

[Mike G]

Only Manute Bol, one time, has averaged 25 minutes and had a higher block% than Ibaka this year.
Manute swatted 10.6% of all opponent 2-point FGA in 1985-86.
http://bkref.com/tiny/oix5I
At 9.7, Serge is higher than the best shotblocking% years by:
9.4 Bradley '96
8.8 Mutombo '96
8.7 Eaton '85
8.6 Ratliff '04
7.9 Camby '98
7.8 Mourning '00
7.8 Rollins '83
7.4 Robinson '92
7.0 Kirilenko '06
7.0 Olajuwon '90

Ibaka has been 39% more likely to block a shot than the all-time leader Hakeem in his best year.

[Crow]

For some reason, I haven't found his block rate that amazing watching games, in spite of his leading frequency. Maybe because I don't put that high a premium on them, knowing how many go out of bounds and back to the other team and how often block attempts lead to uncovered big men getting dunks or fouls and how many lead to uncovered rebounders and then dunks or fouls. if he had a great defensive RAPM, I would be more impressed, with or without all the blocks.

[bchaikin]

"...he is not a top DPOY candidate IMO..."

ibaka finished 2nd in DPOY voting, in what looks like the closest vote for DPOY in quite some time...

not too shabby for a 22 year old that played just 27 min/g...

[tarheeljks]

was there ever any doubt he would garner votes? question is how deservingly. i agree w/crow's sentiments

[Crow]

yeah, i am not surprised he got a lot of votes at all. but i don't think he was a top 5 defensive performer all things considered, especially rapm. defense eFG% allowed only modestly lower with him on the court and partially offset by worse offensive rebounding allowed. there are stronger candidates.

taj gibson had the best non-prior informed defensive rapm,up considerably from his previous so it might be a bit suspect. but he was a big minute big on the best defense. and yet got zero votes from those voters. ibaka on a team that finished 9-11th best on defensive efficiency.

chandler way down on his non-prior informed defensive rapm estimate for just this season. he probably largely won based on what he did last season and what the voters remember of that.

[Crow]

Is style of play that emphasizes going for blocks overvalued? Yes there is the intimidation factor in addition to direct stops (and maybe other things) but there is also stuff on the other side:

goaltends (including of some shot that weren't going down);
half or more of the shots that go out of bounds and get returned to the offense;
the shots that get directly recovered by the offense for standard 2nd tries or even heightened FG% putbacks and fouls and and1s, his man or otherwise;
sometimes less defensive rebounds from not blocking out your man;
fouls committed while trying to block the ball and those foul shots immediately or later when the bonus is reached;
and there are probably more effective pumpfakes leading to better first shots that aren't blocked.

It is not all positive, as it gets treated bu many folks.

If ibaka had a better defensive RAPM, as I've said before, I would be willing to vote him high in this poll but his overall defensive impact is estimated to be only a modest, non-extraordinary positive.

Probably very few if any of the voters used defensive RAPM in their consideration to any degree. I don't give a lot of deference to many of those name voters.

[Crow]

the estimated prior informed defensive rapm for the top 10 guys on block rate who played 1000+ minutes is on average...

just about exactly neutral.

ibaka is one of the best of the bunch at +1 now (up from 0.6 a few weeks ago) but probably 50 or more players have higher estimated overall defensive rapm impacts.

blocks may not be overvalued standalone, but a style of play that emphasizes going for blocks. with all that tends to go with it, may be overvalued and not especially helpful net.

[Mike G]

Who backs up Ibaka? Nick Collison? They total 48 mpg.
Any chance that Collison's startling high plus-minus is related to Ibaka's mediocre rating?

[Bobbofitos]

Who backs up Ibaka? Nick Collison? They total 48 mpg.
Any chance that Collison's startling high plus-minus is related to Ibaka's mediocre rating?

any chance Collison's starting high plus-minus is related to his on-court performance?

[Mike G]

Who backs up Ibaka? Nick Collison? They total 48 mpg.
Any chance that Collison's startling high plus-minus is related to Ibaka's mediocre rating?

any chance Collison's starting high plus-minus is related to his on-court performance?

We would hope so. But if it's misleading in some way -- like near the low end of his error range -- wouldn't we suppose Ibaka's impact is really toward the high end of his range?

[EvanZ]

I just put up the defensive component of A4PM for this season. Seems like Ibaka had a stronger case than Chandler. Probably Iguodala and Deng are overlooked once again.

http://thecity2.com/2012/05/03/defensiv ... g-to-a4pm/

[Crow]

Gibson was the best, if you combine the two minute levels.