Serge Ibaka flew into Oklahoma City late Friday night, then flew out. We all thought it was just a stop home for a moment. In fact, Ibaka was signing his contract extension. The terms are not known other than a 4-year agreement. This puts a lot of speculation into whether or not Oklahoma City wanted to keep Ibaka. Adrian Wojnarowski broke the news. The extension is 48 million dollars for four years.
Oklahoma City had heard questions in the past two weeks on how they’re going to keep up with the Los Angles Lakers. it was a lot of quiet from the Thunder side about that. Bloggers and journalists around the country wrote about how the Lakers this, and the Thunder that, which is fine. Oklahoma City spoke with the signing of Ibaka. People awoke to the wonderful news on Saturday morning.
It does however raise suspicion that Oklahoma City’s willingness to keep James Harden. There already has been tons of speculation of Oklahoma City tying to move Harden and his upcoming huge contract. The Thunder were linked to a couple of trades during the NBA Draft trying to move Harden. It’s going to be very interesting coming up on Harden.
Also, this is proving a bit that Clay Bennett doesn’t mind spending the money to keep the “Big 4″ together. If he’s willing to spend the money here, why not spend the money to keep Harden? I wrote a piece about that already, and you can read that here.
We’ll update this as more information comes into us.
Photo by Nate Billings, The Oklahoman
