Will Serge Ibaka be remembered for basketball, scarves or getting Kawhi Leonard to eat beef penis pizza? Only time will tell.
Napoleon Bonaparte carved Europe into one of the largest empires the world has ever seen. He ended the horrors of the French Revolution. He implemented a code of law that is still used in parts of the world, such as the province of Quebec in Canada. Any of those accomplishments would be good bets for what he came to represent to the public today.
But everything can go wrong. In everyday speech, Napoleon is best known for being short and kind of a dick about it. See: Napoleon Complex. All this to say, it is not always certain what we represent the whole time.
With the news that Serge Ibaka signed a one-year contract to play for Bayern Munchen, it is unlikely that the NBA champion will play again. Interrupted by injuries for several seasons, the 34-year-old not a prominent rotation player in the NBA that long.
But for years, the backbone of the ever-changing NBA ran through Ibaka-like fault lines, both on and off the court. He may have had larger-than-life (and MVP-winning) teammates Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and Kevin Durant in his early days in Oklahoma City, but none of them may have defined life. in the NBA – and changed accordingly — like Ibaka.
When Serge Ibaka first entered the NBA in 2009, he was a high-flying big who didn’t make three-pointers and blocked every shot that entered his orbit. In some ways, he represents a last gasp of a dying era dominated by such great men. The league itself only averaged 18 3-point attempts per game.
It’s hard to overstate the extent of Ibaka’s blocking prowess early in his career. Since his rookie year in 2009-10, Ibaka has registered two out of four times with the most blocks per game. His five seasons averaged 2.4 blocks or more per game led the league of such times in that period of time – and he did it all in the first six years of his career.
But Ibaka improved quickly. He blocked nearly 10 times more shots than triples he attempted in his first five seasons, but for the rest of his career he shot twice as many triples as he recorded swats. He dipped his toe in threes in his fourth season, joining a vanguard of shooting bigs led by Dirk Nowitzki. In 2014-15, he launched more than three shots per game, between 10 league leaders in average at his height or higher. Then in 2020 his career-defining moment came with a stick-the-landing 3-pointer during a championship run.
(His triple from that corner was, of course, covered by a teammate later in the game.)
Ibaka’s game improvement mirrors trends across the league. He entered the NBA as a non-shooting power forward and left it as a shooting center. League-wide in 2014-15, centers attempted 1,640 triples in the regular season, according to Second Spectrum. In 2018-19, that number nearly tripled to 4,462. Ibaka himself posted less and became more of a pick-and-roll big and floor spacer. He blocked fewer shots and rebounded more misses.
But Ibaka’s importance within the NBA may go deeper on the court than this. He is a locker-room leader and cultural promoter. For years during Toronto’s pre-game introductions, Ibaka waited on the court to greet each starter after they were announced. His importance also extends beyond the boundaries of his own teams.
When he was drafted in 2008 (he stayed a year abroad after being drafted), the NBA trend lasted in a different world from today. Pants are long and baggy, if not to the extent they were a decade ago, and draft night suits are usually reserved for muted tones like gray, black, and beige.
Ibaka helped usher in a new era. Fashion is one of her passions. He’s never been associated with terms like “muted” or “reserved,” and you’re more likely to find Ibaka in an orange or yellow suit than black or gray. As he is wont to say over and over again, Ibaka is not fashionable; he does art. And since Ibaka’s popularity of wearing perfectly tailored and custom-designed statement pieces, players across the league have expanded their outfits into new territory. Ibaka, as always, is ahead. Her dedication to fashion is also hilarious, just like when she was team-mate OG Anunoby made the scarves.
Ibaka’s art has spread beyond fashion, because he used to be a professional cook in his series How Hungry Are You. His highest achievement there was feeding Kawhi Leonard’s beef pizza while holding a fluid, revealed in an interview that made ESPN jealous.
Many NBA players view media duties as a boring and empty part of the job, like watching a parent change diapers. It has to be done, so plug your nose in and sing their favorite song. Ibaka seemed to be one such player when he first arrived in Toronto in 2017. However when he discovered the wage disparity between reporters and players, he instantly transformed into an open and eloquent speaker in scrums. He became one of the best quotes on the team.
For all his empathy and kindness to members of the media, the reverse is not always true. Members of the high-profile media helped spread the NBA’s version of birtherism about Ibaka, who questioned the validity of his birth certificate because he is from the Republic of Congo in Central Africa. Eventually Ibaka unleashed a statement scoffed at the rumours, saying he was “not born in the jungle.” But since Ibaka’s draft, many more players have entered the league from Africa, including stars like Joel Embiid and Pascal Siakam. Ibaka has long seen himself as an ambassador for African players; he engraved his championship ring on a continent silhouette.
Ibaka was by no means the first African NBA player, but he helped open the floodgates for those who followed. And there are few, if any, high-profile xenophobic criticisms of the age attached to them.
It’s impossible to know how Ibaka will be remembered years from now, what ghosts his namesake will be in the barbershop. We cannot predict what we will represent. For Ibaka, it could be scarves or beef, blocked shots or three-pointers. It could be a championship in Toronto or one short in Oklahoma City. But people will talk about him. Ibaka has been a core definer of the NBA’s zeitgeist since he entered the league, and he has done so in countless ways. The NBA will miss him, but Ibaka will continue to push the boundaries of the EuroLeague player’s life.
Those things are for sure. The only uncertainty is how Ibaka will reinvent himself next.
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