Ivica Zubac
Los Angeles Clippers

Player Facts

Height: 7'0"
Weight: 240lbs.

Wingspan: 7'4"

Date of Birth: Mar. 18, 1997
College Experience: N/A

Selections

All Star: 0
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0

Player Grades

Speed/Explosiveness: 4
Physical Strength: 9
Positional Size: 10
Positional Wingspan: 10
Paint Scoring: 9
Midrange Scoring: 3
Three-Point Scoring: 1
Dribbling: 3
Passing: 5
Perimeter Defense: 5
Interior Defense: 9
Rebounding: 10

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JUMP TO SECTION

> Intro

> High Motor Five-Man

> Cleaning Up Misses

> Doing His Job with Screens

> Diving Deftness

> FT Shooting + Passing Flashes

> Dunker's Spot Scoring

> Protecting the Key

> Isolation Defense + Defensive Boards

> Nonstretchability

> Deep-Dropper

> Beacon Bacon

>Link to Player Contract & Salary Info

*All short clips courtesy of ZH Highlights (YouTube)

*All statistical data courtesy of NBA Advanced Stats

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STRENGTHS

Intro

Zubac is a genuine seven-footer at pivot with more of a throwback center build. He provides strong plus-contributions on both ends and has developed into quite the interior force. Surprisingly, Ivica has good mobility and generally moves quite fluidly for a man of his size at 240 with a 7'4" wingspan.

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High Motor Five-Man

Ivica chugs down the floor and makes himself available for transition deliveries. He can start at the same point as the opposing big then outwork them by rim-running hard. Zubac's efforts are not in vain even when he doesn't get the ball here. Rather, he achieves superb offensive rebounding position by beating the other bigs down.

Cleaning Up Misses

He uses his mass to be a physical, premier offensive rebounder in a half-court setting. Zubac obtains and maintains inside positioning with the powerful base. The icing on the cake here is Ivica's active second and third efforts.

Zubac is simply an elite offensive rebounder. From the 2020-2021 to the 2024-2025 seasons, he has pulled down right around 4.0 offensive rebounds per-36. He will finish often with soft touch on flip shots juxtaposed with empowered two-handed jams. Zu is also a member of the volleyball-spiker club to whack the ball back out to reset the offense.

He was in the NBA top ten for putback points accumulated in 2019-2020, insane given his 18.4 minutes per game. When the minutes trended up, he finished his 2023-2024 season tied with Jalen Duren and Walker Kessler for the most putback points on the year.

Doing His Job with Screens

Also in the half court, Ivica provides value through his screen setting. He carves out a clean lane for his ball-handler with wide-bodied screens. Life on teammates Kawhi Leonard, Norman Powell, and James Harden are made easier with Zubac setting the screens.

In only 18.4 minutes of average play time in 2019-2020, he recorded 3.7 screen assists per game. Karl-Anthony Towns arrived at this identical figure but needed 33.9 minutes per contest to do so. 2024-2025 saw him amass up over 260 screen assists for the full regular season.

Diving Deftness

Ivica has nimble and sound footwork that he employs as a worthy dive man. Zubac has soft hands as well, nabbing difficult low passes. He can score against multiple bodies once he has that head of steam down the lane. Also, he uses his height and nice hands to be an attractive lob target.

He scored 1.19 points per possession as the roll man in 2019-2020. This earned Ivica a spot in the 69th percentile, besting that foothold most recently in 2024-2025 on much higher volume.

FT Shooting + Passing Flashes

When he gets hacked, Ivica is a dependable free-throw shooter at center. His FT-volume is also lofty given his rough-and-tumble playstyle and increased usage. He hit over 72% of his 166 attempts in 2023-2024 age-26 season.

Zubac is a decent passer and a good decision-maker catching on the roll. He sends it back out to a shooter if he witnesses an opponent rotating to defend his role. Ivica's low assist numbers are more so a product of limited playmaking opportunity rather than incompetence.

Dunker's Spot Scoring

The remainder of his offense derives mostly from finishes in the dunker's spot. He likes to take a power dribble before rising into a baby hook. A chunk of his point production comes from these dump-off receivals.

2023-2024 saw him convert 66.9% of his restricted area shot attempts. He dunks a lot too (112 that year) which helps that field goal percentage remain nice and high.

2024-2025 saw an almost-shocking 70%+ and 50%+ combo on paint finishing. Specifically, this is referencing his at-rim finishing and then his non-restricted area paint shots respectively. This was done on massive volume to boot.

He'll also access these further-in looks down on the block via post-ups. This began with posting smalls on cross-matches but he has worked into a genuine all-around post boss with that size and touch combination. Zu can flip up soft hooks with either hand and over either shoulder.

Protecting the Key

Zubac is used as a dropped, rim-protecting type of big. He blocks and alters multiple shots a night just off his length alone. He isn't completely paint-bound either, mobile enough to put forth a contest on pull-up midrangers and floaters.

Ivica is also able to flip his hips and chase small drivers that beat him initially. The deceptively spry Zubac surprises these perimeter players with a swat or contest from behind. Alternatively, he makes himself big to deter both drives and passes alike as the drop big.

Ivica puts up monstrous rim protection numbers. He collected 1.8 blocks per 36 minutes in 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. More impressively, he held opponents to 12.1% below their normal average on two-pointers and -17.8% within six feet of the rim in 2019-2020. Rudy Gobert, regarded by many as the gold standard for rim protectors, had a negative 11.0% mark compared to Ivica's -12.1%. All of this great success has continued into his higher-minute, higher-role years in his later 20's.

Isolation Defense + Defensive Boards

Zubac is a strong post defender as his size and build suggest. His 7'4" reach is a major factor here. Ivica can provide meaningful contests without having to jump much. 2024-2025 saw him land north of the 80th percentile for post-defense.

Zu can defend some stretchier bigs in space. He gets in a low defensive stance so that the blow-by probability is cut down. He can struggle against zippy guards but rangier forwards and bigs can at times be contained by Zubac.

He polishes the defensive glass proficiently. He keeps even the biggest players at bay with firm box-outs. Zubac snagged just under 9 defensive rebounds per night in 2024-2025.

WEAKNESSES

Nonstretchability

Zubac does not provide any in-game jump-shooting value. This means that he essentially must take up that sole non-shooter slot in a modern five-man lineup every time. This can limit lineup machinations. A pleasant surprise given his archetype is the fact that he is a pretty consistently solid free-throw shooter.

Big Zu is also not the bounciest roll man out there. This can put a cap on the vertical spacing potential he provides. Ivica would have a far broader catch radius given his size if above-average bounce was there, however, that is not the case, and therefore he's not quite as threatening rumbling down the lane.

Deep-Dropper

Zubac is an all-around great defensive center. If we were to zero in on a main blemish though, it would surely be his lack of versatility both schematically and positionally on this end.

Ivica is and likely will always be a drop-center in the stylistic ilk of Brook Lopez. That is fine however arguably can limit the ceiling of the team's defense come playoff time. It puts pressure on him to be dominant in this role, which he usually can be, or else the pressure to go small-ball can rise.

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bacon
Beacon Bacon

Ivica Zubac was flipped from one LA team to the other on trade deadline day 2019, correctly viewed by the Clippers as an untapped young big