Hello lazy unsupported statement.
it's not really unsupported, i've made my a case against ibaka across a few posts now. very good but not a great defender. limited on offense, basically just a floor spacer. a valuable player no doubt, but not someone you want making 15+ imo. right now he plays around 3 other terrific players who allow him only to do the things he is good at. run the floor, defend the rim, hit open shots/finish easy baskets. ibaka currently having a narrow range of responsibilities isn't reason alone not to max him-- harden would also have to do more if he were "maxed", but i would be fine w/ maxing him. the difference i see b/t the two is that harden has the skillset to be more involved and his responsibilities are limited b/c of durant/rwb (one can argue he against maxing such a weak defender, and that def has merit). i don't think ibaka has the skillset to expand his role and generate the level of production needed to justify his contract. his role is dictated far more by his skills than it is by his teammates'. there's also the issue of whether he could sustain his defensive intensity if he actually had to expend some energy on offense. i chuckled when he said lebron can only play d for 2-3 min per game. besides being laughably wrong, it ignored how much energy lebron, and other high volume offensive players, expend playing offense. it's hard to find guys who can/will go hard on both ends. an example is rondo, whose defense has fallen off quite a bit. . .as his offensive role has increased. don't think this is a coincidence.
wrt offense helping defense-- i agree, they aren't distinct. losing a guy like harden would negatively affect the thunder's defense in some ways despite harden being a weak defender individually; however, the affect on d is a gain.(net overall will ofc be a loss b/c whoever replaces him is just a worse player). the #'s do not support ibaka being a better defender than thabo unless we are sorting by blocked shots. the guys who are generating baskets/scoring with volume are the ones helping the defense with their offense. while i do buy the idea that ibaka's offense helps the thunder defense more than thabo's offense, i still think thabo's defensive impact is more beneficial overall. ibaka is a better player than thabo despite (imo) being a weaker defensive player, b/c he's a lot better on offense. the reason i point out that i think ibaka is a worse defender despite being a better overall player is that it fits into why i think maxing him would be a big mistake. don't feel that his defensive impact is scarce enough to justify that kind of money and i think he is basically at his offensive ceiling
wrt rondo, not sure i believe that he is a respectable shooter yet. shot fine this year, but that's a volatile range and it's a small # of attempts*. concern i have with him when they retool the roster is that he is reluctant to shoot. he looks for someone to pass to even when he is 2 feet from the rim and trades good shoots in the paint for jumpers. prob not too big a deal with their team as constructed-- allen, pierce, kg are great jumpshooters, won't be easy to find three shooters, or offensive players period of that caliber. they'd do well to get one. i'm sure he'll adjust somewhat. also, there have are stories about rondo being a problem child (locker room thing with paul, getting kicked out of practices, beef w/doc etc), so i wonder how long he will last there (there were reports here that the celtics offered the woyas rondo for curry). if rondo can only sorta play nice on a very good/great team, how is he going to cope during a rebuilding process. esp when it's during his prime. don't think i'd want to put up w/him
*although now that i look at it that's 2 years in a row at this %. prob legit improvement. still, have to wonder whether it will hold once the band gets broken up. teams won't need to play off him the way they do now, esp w/pierce a year older
