I made the 15seconds total remark to illustrate how little the ball was actually in his hands during those 5 'plays', you had made 2 posts hinting at lament that Roy wasn't involved as much as Oden, when that's clearly not the case. Roy has the ball in his hands so much he can pick and choose when and where he wants to run plays for himself, Greg doesn't have that luxury. What else I wanted them to do with him I thought I had made abundantly clear with posts in several of these threads, high PnR, baseline PnR, Backscreens, Downscreens, alley oops, or that much hyped high low game with LMA. A stationary Oden with his back to the basket is an inefficient Oden. He's not that skilled at this *yet* and he's a sitting duck for pressure, it's also incredibly predictable, as soon as the entry pass is thrown every player on the defense knows what's up. Get him the ball in motion, catch and finish, use that height and athleticism to his advantage and don't solely rely on his bulk. The plays they were running for Greg in the 1st quarter were not catch and finish plays, the creator of the scoring opportunity when Greg has his back to the basket is Greg, not Roy or anyone else. Right now Greg is still raw at that so he should only see 3-4 or so of these looks per game, more if he's firing on all cylinders and less if he looks off, but that doesn't mean that you can't run some other semblance of offense with Oden involved in it.
I did not say not as involved. I said the plays were not for him. There is a difference. And of course Greg does not have the luxury, he can not handle the ball to have this luxury. Magic Johnson played Center in the finals and he had the luxury, because he could handle the ball. I actually agree with this - but you notice that there was mentioned of Oden losing his place on some of the sets that were supposed to be for him. One wonders if these were these sets? Greg, with 6 inches height advantage and who knows how much weight advantage should do that against a smaller player. Where Greg has the advantage moving is against slower centers, not against Hayes - a smaller, faster player than him.
I really feel that if we gave the ball in to Greg to back down Hayes, and tried to do it early and often, Greg would have been on the bench with two quick fouls, because Hayes would have hit the deck after the second bump.
Nate McMillan is trying his hardest to: -Turn Rudy Fernandez into James Jones -Turn Greg Oden into Ben Wallace/Theo Ratliff
Here is the problem I have with Nate's comment, and a lot of peoples opinions. Just because we aren't NBA coaches, does not mean we don't know as much as one might. For example Nate has been a coach for 11 years, and 9 as a head coach. What makes it automatic that he would know more about coaching than someone who has coached both as an assistant and as a head coach for over twice as long? Someone who has been very successful at the highschool and Jr college level.
There is no guarantee a CFO is better with numbers than a 7-11 retail clerk. However, odds are when you are coaching in the best league in the world, and the majority of people who cover, coach, and play in the league consider you one of the better coaches in the league, you probably know your stuff. My biggest beef are with the people who say stuff like, "Nate doesn't run any post up sets." "Nate doesn't know how to defend the pick and roll." "All we run is ISO and pick and rolls." I have luxury of watching our games broken down by play type and we run more motion sets than the majority of teams in the league. We run flex that gives us two or three looks into the post. We run a basic high-low screen across play to get the ball in the post. I guess I'm overly sensitive to people who say Nate doesn't do something, when in reality, they don't understand the game well enough to be identifying plays. Assuming you have coached at the HS level, may I ask you what you think of the parents who think they know how to coach your team better than you? On average, do you assume that parent knows more than you?
If Outlaw had 7 turnovers, there wouldn't be a single poster in here coming to his defense. But so many come to Oden's defense. In here... Oden: favorite player Outlaw: least favorite player And production or lack of production doesn't matter.
Also- if people are going to discount some of Oden's turnovers, let's discount many of Oden's blocks. I can think of two separate possessions in which Oden blocked a shot but the Rockets still scored.
Production like Outlaw plays an incredibly efficient game on opening night, leading us in scoring, having the fewest turnovers, while Oden blocks 5 shots and yet still has more turnovers counteracting his effectiveness on the floor. If Oden missed the game and Joel, who was more efficient, played the whole game and maybe shared some minutes with Juwan, I think we would've still won. But if Outlaw missed the game, we would've been blown out.
and you sir are a gentleman and a scholar Greg has a world of physical ability, but dude needs to get a few things down before he has any matrix moments. Besides that, he is very effective playing off the ball just gathering loose balls and offensive boards. If only impatience was a virtue... STOMP
Greg got more offensive looks tonight, so those wanting him to get more looks regardless of the outcome should be happy. Of all his touches, he only scored one time and assisted on one other. 4pts on what I would guess to be 15+ touches just isn't going to help us win. I would prefer he continue to crash the offensive glass and get his buckets that way, which I thought he did a decent job of tonight.
It's how he gets the touches. The Blazers post him up, which is probably the least productive way to utilize Greg.
Boy, isn't that the truth. It's so frustrating to watch him get the ball knocked out of his hands over and over again. It happened again last night. What is the deal anyway? He has huge hands and he's very strong. Why can't he hang on to the ball?
I have yet to see Greg in a pick & roll. His offense is a ways away, we really should be using him like N.O. used Chandler - PICK & ROLL!!!!
