He also was a 23 year-old rookie... he was named to the 1980 Olympic team, four years before he was drafted, for crying out loud! Of course he's going to be more advanced than GO at age 21. Let's compare Oden in two seasons to Bowie as a rookie to make a more realistic and fair comparison. Ed O.
Lack of Passion? Im sure you've met him and seen him practice, and rehabilitate. Just because his facial expressions are subdued doesn't mean squat. You Don't Know Him, and you don't know SHIT.
I've been following the NBA since before the Blazers existed, and I'm getting called out by some teenager with an attitude. Gawd, I love this board!
None of Shaq, Robinson, Duncan, Ewing, Mourning dominated in college as a freshman. I don't know why that has any bearing on whether he's a once-per-decade big man.
C'mon, OMG. Someone finally pointed out that you don't know SHIT. Just man up and admit that you don't know SHIT! Ed O. P.S. Also "You Don't Know Him". Notice the caps so you can use it as the title of the book you've been wanting to write about your NBA ignorance.
I like the blind assumption that OMG doesn't know Greg Oden. That would usually be a safe bet for most fans, but I know of at least two or three posters here that do.
Edit - wow, its amazing how some people here flip-flop every week on Oden. Can't really take 'em seriously.
The argument about age/experience is valid - up to a point. Keep in mind that Oden has been compared to Shaq (or whoever), while as far back as high-school Bowie was being compared to Bill Walton. I'm not sure he had the brain of Walton ....but I would at least compare him to Sabonis. Oden may have worked his butt off on his physical rehab - but I'll make you a friendly wager he didn't spend any of that year watching games films! He just isn't a student of the game like Roy, Duncan, etc.
Just for the record, I HOPE I am wrong about the kid. With hard work, he should improve physically. He may never be Walton/Russell, but his court smarts can also improve with experience. Will his intensity improve? He has a great role-model in Joel. Pryz doesn't know the meaning of "cruise control!" In the meantime, people need to be less defensive about critical comments.
Obviously his talent is raw. They knew it when they drafted him. I'm not saying you don't know anything about basketball just GO. The Kid has heart, and with some good influences he is getting in Portland, the sky is the limit. GO is no Kwame Brown can't you see the difference old man?
Oden's passing has surprise me and that's not because he doesn't have 'court smarts'. I think he's a lot smarter than you give him credit for. In a way it seems Oden has taken a step back and that is because of fouls. I think other teams are attempting to foul him out because he does make a difference when he's in the game. That's something you would try to do against Shaq too. He'll get use to it and adapt to it.
Kingspeed doesn't understand college seasoning for the aforementioned players and how that assisted them.
Okay, point (sort of) well taken. There's some truth to what you are saying. But one could make an arguement, for example, that Ewing played in a different era (pre shot clock, pre 3 point line) G-Town used to win a lot of games 51-47, or 49-44. There was no penalty for packing in a 2-3 zone w/o a 3 point line. Trust me, Ewing was more impressive as a Frosh than Oden. Robinson had been in the Navy and hadn't touched a basketball in 2 years. His average went from 7/4 as a fresh to 23/11 in his soph year. I'm not banging on Greg, but . . . do you really think he'll be mentioned in the same breath as those guys above when he's done playing? All I'm saying is that I'm not expecting that at this point.
I saw Ewing in college. I saw all the players I mentioned. I think you greatly underestimate how good Oden looked at a freshman. I watched all his games and was extremely impressed...and this was long before the Blazers won the draft lottery, so I had no emotional investment in him. I didn't for a moment think he'd be a Blazer. I would never set "one of the 6-7 greatest players ever at his position" as a reasonable expected result. I wouldn't have set that as an expectation for Robinson or Duncan or Shaq, as rookies. Where we seem to differ is that you seem to feel that he doesn't really seem to have that reasonable ceiling, whereas I do. So far, I've seen this: without the explosiveness he showed prior to his injury, he's shown the clear (if currently inconsistent) ability to be a defensive game-changer and a rebounding machine. He's also drawing double-teams from the opposition before he's even put up big offensive games, and his passing has been very good. And he's only 30 games into his career. To me, that still places his ceiling at Hall of Famer. He clearly needs to work on his footwork, but there are three main things holding him back, all of which I think are more likely than not to be resolved (positively) with time: he needs his old explosive athleticism back, he needs to adjust to NBA speed such that he's reading and reacting without the visible "thinking lag" and he needs to learn how to play defense without fouling. None of those are monumental things like "needs to learn to shoot" or "needs to get better at rebounding." If he were playing his sophomore year (or junior year had he not been hurt) at Ohio State, I think he'd be dominating at a pretty high level.
I'm with you on most of the thread, OMG, but I think you're a little off on the friendly wager (frosty beverage at the next L*ker game, perhaps?)... In the NBA Roundtable earlier this year (with Oden, Russell, Walton, Ewing, Robinson, Lanier---and I'm missing someone) Oden talked about how he spent a lot of time watching old-time film. Knew about Russell's moves, Ewing in college and the NBA, etc.
The only difference I notice between Oden and Shaq/Robinson/Hakeem/Howard at this point is intensity and focus while one the court. But that is subjective, so it doesn't matter, unlike "Basketball IQ".
I'll cheerfully admit those things are subjective. I'll also admit that it can be tough for an observer to tell the difference between a player who is physically gassed, mentally lost, or just unfocused. I wish I could just blindly accept that Oden's problems are all physical....but that isn't what my eyes are telling me.
