This was an article of young players who are good candidates to have breakout campaigns this season, from Empty The Bench (linked from Kelly Dwyer's Ball Don't Lie blog). This was one candidate: http://www.emptythebench.com/2009/07/29/improved-nba-players-2010/
A very fair analysis and prediction for Oden. The key for him is staying on the court. I think the ppg may be a bit low, but other than that, I'll take that season from Oden and call it a complete success.
Yup, same, especially if his defense continues to be excellent when he's avoiding fouls. The block numbers don't necessarily have to be high, but I'd like to see him changing shots in the paint.
Finally a reasonable article. Well spotted Minstrel! I think he is about a board and 2 points shy of what I expect but is pretty much right on. I expect about 15.5pts 12 boards 2 Blocks a game with around .600 FG%. I can't wait to see Oden next season.
They're almost identical to his per-36 numbers from last year. So he'd need to improve from last year, but not by a huge amount. The main area of improvement would need to be defending without fouling. From reports about the Team USA mini-camp, it sounds like he had made solid strides in that respect.
Not only do Per-36 often fail to translate for multiple reasons, I don't think he'll play 36mpg. Do you?
I'm hoping he plays at least 30+MPG if he isn't that would be worrying in and of itself. I definitely expect him to be playing heavy minutes unless he has foul trouble. I expect him to improve markedly in that area.
Cool. I expect him to play 28-30 minutes a game. I think he'll improve in most areas of his game, but I think part of playing smarter will cause his offensive rebounding totals to drop. In turn, that might reduce a few put-backs he got last season that attributed to that PER-36 being so high. I honestly think if he has the numbers minstrel listed, we're a 60 win team. I hope that's the case! I love GO!
They generally do translate, actually, unless one is extrapolating from tiny minutes, like a 5 MPG player. Oden played about 20 MPG, which is enough minutes that it's unlikely that his per-minute efficiency was a small-minutes fluke. I don't think he'll play 36 minutes, no, but I expect that he'll play closer to 30 minutes per game. In my post I stipulated that he'd need to improve, in order to reach last year's per-36 numbers in around 30 MPG. He just doesn't need to improve massively, so I don't think that line is particularly unlikely.
Not a bad analysis for an English teacher from Clackamas High... http://www.emptythebench.com/2009/07/29/improved-nba-players-2010/
