Watching the Eastern Conference playoffs can be difficult. The games and the teams don’t seem as compelling as the West playoffs. But there are hidden pleasures in the East. One of them is watching Serge Ibaka.
Serge was an Oklahoma City staple. Through seven Thunder seasons, Ibaka was a bastion of toughness and rebounding, shot-blocking and shot-making. A major part of a lot of great games and a lot of great seasons.
But Sam Presti traded Ibaka on Draft Day 2016. It seems that Ibaka wanted to be a bigger part of the offense, and on a team with Kevin Durant (for 10 more days) and Russell Westbrook, that wasn’t likely to happen in OKC.