Breaking down Freddy Ibrahim's dime-dropping in Asian Qualifiers

BEIRUT (Lebanon) - Freddy Ibrahim is expected to be playing in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 later this year from 25 August to 10 September in the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia.

It was a historic Asian Qualifiers campaign for Ibrahim, one which deserves a deeper dive into the details.

If all goes as planned for Ibrahim, it will be his second World Cup appearance after making his FIBA debut at the global meet in China back in 2019. Since then, he’s been the lead guard for Jordan whether it’s been through the Asia Cup Qualifiers, Asia Cup 2022, or the entire World Cup 2023 Asian Qualifiers.

Ibrahim had big shoes to fill in as well, assuming that lead guard role that was previously occupied by the legendary Sam Daghles and the talented Mahmoud Abdeen. Nonetheless, Ibrahim has done a fantastic job of taking up the position, too, with plenty of evidence to back up his performance.

You can go check out his Final Phase run through the Asia Cup that saw Jordan reach the Semi-Finals, propelled by Ibrahim’s last-second half-court heave to beat Chinese Taipei in the Qualification to the Quarter-Finals.

Or better yet, look at Ibrahim’s play through the World Cup Qualifiers.

The 26-year-old dished out 88 dimes across 12 games, a total that bests all players across all regions in the World Cup Qualifiers. As a matter of fact, those 88 assists are the most ever recorded in one World Cup Qualifiers cycle across all regions. Only two other players, in total, have recorded over 60 assists in an entire World Cup Qualifiers run and none of them surpassed 70.

Ibrahim had four different games where he passed out double-digit assists in a single game in the World Cup 2023 Qualifiers, again the most by any player in a World Cup Qualifiers cycle. In one of those games against New Zealand, Ibrahim dished out 14 assists which is tied for the most in a single game in the World Cup 2023 Asian Qualifiers among all regions.

Long story short, it was a historic Asian Qualifiers campaign for Ibrahim, one which deserves a deeper dive into the details. Here are some fun facts about the dimes dropped by the Jordanian guard:

36.1 percent
of teams’ total assists

As the starting point guard for Jordan, Ibrahim accounted for more than one-third of all the team’s assists made (244 team assists). This should come as no surprise considering how much coach Wesam Al Sous trusts Ibrahim with the ball and the tempo at which he pushes.

21.6 percent
of teams’ total points

Ibrahim’s assists contributed to a total of 204 points, which accounts for just over one-fifth of the total points scored by the team. As Ibrahim scored 131 points of his own, he directly contributed a total of 35.4 percent of Jordan’s total points.

37.5 percent
of Ibrahim's assists were on made three-pointers

A large part of the modern game is spacing and finding those open three-point shooters. Ibrahim made sure that was a big part of his distribution plan as nearly 40 percent of his assists led to three-pointers (33 three-pointers assisted).

54
Points scored by Dar Tucker assisted by Ibrahim

Dar Tucker is the World Cup Qualifiers scoring king with the most compiled all-time. He also scored the most among all players in the World Cup 2023 Asian Qualifiers, just two points shy of scoring 200 points in a second straight World Cup Qualifiers. Of all those points, 54 were assisted by Ibrahim accounting for 27.3 percent of his total (198 points).

33.8 percent
of Sami Bzai’s points assisted by Ibrahim

Tucker wasn’t the only major beneficiary of Ibrahim’s dime-dropping. As a matter of fact, among players that played over 10 minutes per game, it was actually Sami Bzai who had the largest ratio of his points assisted by the point guard at just over one-third of his total points. Ibrahim assisted Bzai on 8 of his 19 made three-pointers which were second-most on the team.

FIBA