The Orlando Magic’s frontcourt experiment seemed doomed to fail from the very beginning, and Serge Ibaka has his theory as to why it did.
In an interview with Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel that ran on Monday, Ibaka said that he wanted to play as a small-ball center more often and even spoke with head coach Frank Vogel about the possibility of doing so.
“At some point, I spoke with Coach about playing small ball,” said Ibaka. “At some point, he agreed with me. But we never did it. We never did it.”
While Ibaka does have his weaknesses playing in the post and on the glass, his jump-shooting and his rim protection make him a potent small-ball 5 as proven during the Oklahoma City Thunder’s playoff run last year. But the Magic were just never able to make it work with their big man trio of Ibaka, Nikola Vucevic, and Bismack Biyombo.
Ibaka was dealt to the Toronto Raptors at the trade deadline for Terrence Ross and a future first-rounder after just 56 games in an Orlando uniform, putting Magic GM Rob Hennigan on the hot seat and leaving the rest of us to shake our heads at their ill-fated experiment.
