By the time of his third season in the NBA, Serge Ibaka had become one of the best defensive players in the NBA. Ibaka led the league in blocked shots four seasons in a row while also proving to be one of the better offensive rebounding big men in the game, asserting himself as an emerging frontcourt star with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
But with Ibaka heading closer to free agency and OKC general manager Sam Presti looking to preserve cap space in order to re-sign Kevin Durant, Ibaka was sent to the Orlando Magic for Victor Oladipo, Ersan Ilyasova and Domantas Sabonis prior to the start of the 2016-17 season.
The Magic quickly realized that Ibaka alone could not help them return to the playoffs, and with Ibaka set to become a free agent after the season, they traded him to the Toronto Raptors in February of 2017 in order to try to recoup some of the value that was lost in the pursuit to acquire him in the first place.
Fast forward two years, and Ibaka and the Raptors will take on the seventh-seeded Magic in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Despite a very short-lived (and rather tumultuous) stint in Orlando, Ibaka has made it clear that there are no hard feelings against his former employer:
I asked Serge Ibaka the other day in Minny if playing the Magic in Round 1 would mean anything extra to him because they traded him: "No. It doesn’t matter. Nothing, nothing of that," Ibaka said.
— Ryan Wolstat (@WolstatSun) April 13, 2019
Ibaka is having another solid year in Toronto, averaging 15.0 points and 8.1 rebounds per game while shooting close to 53 percent from the field.
The Magic, meanwhile, will make their first playoff appearance since the end of the Dwight Howard era in 2012.
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