I have watched the Thunder play about ten times this year. Tonight (versus Phoenix) is the first time I have seen Serge Ibaka get extended minutes. He looked great. He more than held his own against Stoudemire. On offense he had a very nice turn-around jumper, and on defense he played great position defense, helping out on the pick and roll and just being an inside presence.

He looked a hell of a lot better than Greg Oden, Hasheem Thabeet, or Marc Gasol. He kind of reminded me of Emeka Okafor, except for not as stiff and a lot quicker off of his feet.

I am wondering why he doesn't play more. He obviously will make more mistakes than Collison, but at the same time, his upside is so much greater that if he develops between now and the playoffs, it could make a huge difference. Also, even though I like Jeff Green, no team will ever advance far in the playoffs with Jeff Green as their starting power forward.

For those of you watch all the games, what are your thoughts? (By the way, from the time I started writing this until now, the Thunder took out Ibaka and Maynor, inserted Jeff Green and Nick Collison, and the Suns went on a 16-4 run and won the game on a Jason Richardson floater. Correlation is not necessarily causation, but still, it happened).