Toronto Raptors: Five scariest stats from the 2019-2020 season

3. Ibaka’s awful plus/minus differential per 100 possessions

Serge Ibaka had himself one his best season’s in a long time and was one of the Raptors best player against the Celtics. Everyone knows that and his great season has helped him overshadow a particularly bad statistic of his, his plus/minus differential per 100 possessions which was the worst of his career so far at -4.9.

When Ibaka was on the court, the team scored 1.3 points less and allowed 3.7 more points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning The Glass. Despite the eye test telling us Ibaka has been great, which he has been. His style of play — a lot of mid-range and not many passes — and inability to hold his own on defense shows us just how much of a liability Ibaka can be.

When you compare this to his Marc Gasol, it’s all the more fascinating considering Gasol’s rather poor year. Gasol had a plus/minus differential of 7.7. On offense, the team scores 0.8 fewer points when he’s on the court, and on defense, the team allows 8.5 fewer points when he is on the court which is the 95th percentile among all players in the NBA.

Stressing the importance of Marc Gasol’s presence even if he didn’t have all the glossy stat lines as Ibaka had comes to show how important the little things are. With Ibaka looking like the Raptors center of the future, Ibaka must be more than just a great scorer because it surely isn’t enough to see him as a net positive on the court.