Age is a major factor when giving out a contract to a player. Being a player from a part of the world where athletes routinely lie about their age, why shouldn't it factor into a team's projection? Unless there's hard evidence otherwise (and maybe there is, I don't really know), it would be irrational not to consider it as a possibility and downgrade his projected performance accordingly.
Sir Ibaka wants to stop rumors about his age 'till he sign a new contract ,then you can speculate as much you want
Yeah. Not sure how this is racist at all. It's a fact that a lot of people in third world countries don't know the actual date they were born. Sometimes they lie about their age for various political reasons. Sometimes their age gets misrepresented because of some sort of bs mistake while getting identity paperwork. And then they just stick with it. It's completely a fact that this happens all the time in the third world. Most of the time there's no malicious intent behind it. It's just a common thing. No reason to get in a tizzy about it.
Maybe its just me but nowhere in his statement did he say his age is not deflated. I'm not being racist but its kinda ridiculous if he is really 27 yrs old because he gets gassed so easily in games despite him being cut and looking extremely fit. Look at Harden, Ariza, Chris Paul, Lebron etc. all these guys didn't get tired when they were 27 yrs old, Ibaka looks like he has less stamina than Nene. I personally think he is at least 30 yrs old.
ibaka added, "how come it's just africans and not african-americans that get asked these questions? back when I played with bill russell they never asked him about it."
Kind of like how conservatives swear that obama was born in kenya. when there's several documents proving he wasn't.
If his own cousin did it maybe it's not as uncommon as you think? He comes from a country where it's easy to falsify your age and there is incentive to do so for a basketball prospect. An basketball player in their early 20s has a physical advantage over a teenagers, which would help them stand out to scouts. Scouts take age into consideration and front offices do to when handing out contracts. NBA careers are very short, teams are wary about handing big contracts to older players The younger you are on paper the better. I like you classify this as racist when most of the players in the NBA do not face this scrutiny. Are we not allowed to use ours eyes and notice that Ibaka doesn't look 27? Or that he's declined athletically? Don't tell me it's due to significant injury, he had one arthroscopic knee surgery.That's a clean up procedure. The other injuries were minor. Westbrook and Durant are supposed to be older than him and have had serious knee and foot injuries (season ending) and they've kept their athleticism much better than him. You're like one of those people that insist Barry Bonds was totally clean despite his trainer being linked to Balco, him being huge in his late 30s, and his head becoming shaped like a melon. And again, how is this racist when it's focused on countries where it is easy to falsify age? That's like saying it's racist to notice that Chinese Olympic female gymnasts that are supposed to be minimum 16 years old look like they're 12. And just because China has been caught using underage gymnasts in the Olympics before doesn't mean they'd do it again, right? Their 16 year old athletes missing baby teeth is totally normal. I'm Chinese btw, so spare me the accusations of racism. And Lebron never had an age scandal. Could you please link us to that? He has an older looking face, but no one has doubted his age or Oden's. They just have older looking faces. If that's what you call scrutiny then I guess Sam Cassell has seriously been accused of being an alien.
I honestly don't have enough energy to go through everything point by point, please don't take it to be disregard. I'll try to be brief. If someone comes from a city ridden with terrorists, that city is still typically less than 9 out of 10 people are terrorists. The incidence of people intentionally bribing an official to change their birth certificate in the continent of Africa or in Congo is less than 1%. Even among basketball players, again less than 9 out of 10 people. Back to terrorism example. If I'm from that war torn city and I'm planning to go somewhere maybe as a refugee, the people who are hosting me have the right to reasonably vet me as coming from a high risk area. If the vetting results in there being no evidence that I'm not who I say I am, that's it. You don't get to put me in a state of constant fear and having to prove myself because people back home did something. More relevant to this example. if 10 years later my business is suffering and my life is a constant swamp of people associating me with the criminals back home that I left and whom I distinguished myself from by not participating in criminal activity, now it's a problem. Now, you can believe anything you want and you can say anything you want, but at this point you are impacting my livelihood and my credibility for what? Because you are incapable in your mind of separating me from those people, and the only link between me and those people is I - without choice - was born in a place with corrupt people. Ibaka's parents were both basketball players. Does it even make sense to you that he would delay becoming a basketball player when he left his family and his loved ones and everything he knows to play shitty second division spanish basketball? He could have left 3 years earlier, if he is indeed 3 years older than he claims. He could have spend more of his prime years playing a sport which him and his parents knew he would be doing professionally since he was 6 years old. Again, think what you will, but the garbage reasons people pile on as evidence have been debunked. All that is left now as non-debunked evidence is that he is from there. Maybe you want to call it stereotyping or discrimination or racism. Call it what you want, but at this point in time in 2017, it is based solely on where he is from and no other evidence has come to fruition over 10 years with billion dollar organizations who have every reason to turn every stone to inspect these claims. If you were in his place, you would write that letter too. Give the guy a ****ing break, what more can he do? I do not see any signs of aging from this guy. He looks between 25 and 35, I have no idea how to tell the difference without tests, and neither do you. Lebron James looks 40. Isaiah Thomas looks 20 to me. You can guess for fun, but just as we are often wrong when doing it as a game with people we meet, we are likely to be wrong here too. I can see that on the court he is simply lazy. I felt from his OKC career that he was not a hard worker. He has had 4 lower body injuries. He has tremendous mileage on those legs having played since he was a child, becoming professional at the age of 16 and never stopping since. I think it sucks and I think he needs to consult a better training staff, but I don't find this unusual. I don't know why Steve Francis fell off the face of the earth in his late 20's either. I'm not even necessarily denying that it could be true. Maybe. Who knows? Maybe. Anything is possible. But right now, people are just making **** up. There is no non-debunked evidence left to take seriously. Our brains have a way of aligning our mind to recognize patterns that suit our biases. And we all have biases. But if you look closely, there's nothing reasonable left. Time to leave this thing alone bro. If these rumors were going to cost you $20-$30m after you've done what you can to dispel him, you would be upset just like him. In truth, he is not worth the money he thinks because his performance has not been up to standard. He benefitted tremendously from playing with WB and Durant, and he's not living up to taking more responsibility on court. Tough for him. I'm sure he'll be fine taking just tens of millions of dollars home. For THAT, I don't feel bad for him lol.
