| Roy Hibbert sad face |
Background: Roy Hibbert, he of the Indiana Pacers, said to Yahoo! Sports' Marc J. Spears that he wil be the best center in the NBA one day. Apparently, this means he does not realize that Dwight Howard, Marc Gasol, Greg Monroe, Anderson Varejao, Andrew Bynum, Kevin Love, Brook Lopez, Al Horford, etc. are all centers in the NBA right now and are pretty close to him in age. Of course, this means all of them — all arguably better than Hibbert — will be standing in Roy's way on his quest to be the best center in the league right now, let along a two-time all star. So, yeah, he is probably never going to be the best center in the NBA, ever.
The Charge: Roy Hibbert has gone crazy.
The Reasoning for Hibbert (from Spears' story):
'People said I wouldn't be in the NBA,' said Hibbert, the highest-paid Pacer at $13.8 million this season. 'People said I wouldn't be a starting center, this, that and the other. I just prove people wrong. I'm having a slump right now, but in the grand scheme of things I'm going to turn it around and hopefully be the best when it's all said and done.'
Hibbert aims to top Dwight Howard as the widely accepted best center in the NBA. A fake Hibbert Instagram account took a shot at Howard recently and gained some traction on the Internet before it was debunked — 'I'm the best center in the league #[expletive]Dwight' it read.
'That wasn't me, but I will be the best center in the league one day,' Hibbert said.
The Reasoning against Hibbert: He is a good player and all, but the truth is that Hibbert just does not really produce as much on offense as those other centers in the NBA's upper tier.
He has never averaged as many as 13 points a game in his five-year career and has been dismal this season, boasting a free throw percentage around 64 percent, less than double digits in both rebounds and points per game, and a field goal percentage south of 40 percent.
Sure, the season is young and he might turn his stats around by April, but it appears that Hibbert is just slacking and possibly the rest of the NBA is catching up to his size and is learning how to play him more effectively.
Also, Hibbert's lack of consistent playing time significantly lessens how much impact he puts forth in games for the Pacers. He ranks 18th among NBA centers in minutes per game, an indicator of both the foul trouble he normally gets into (averages 3.5 per game, ranks him tied for fifth-most in the NBA) and the poor play he has exhibited so far in the 2012-13 season.
If he cannot even stay on the floor for much more than half of the game, then there is no way Roy could ever be viewed in the same atmosphere as other centers (like Horford, Varejao, and Howard) who play around seven to eight more minutes per game than Hibbert does.
Conclusion
Unless he radically shifts the way — and how well — he plays, Roy Hibbert will never be close to being the best center in the NBA. He is in fact crazy as the evidence couldn't be more clear.
