Durant offended that Portland didn't pick him?

LINK​

 

Can we have a 2007 draft rewind/do-over.

 

"Kevin will win scoring titles, Greg is going to win championships"

Those words will haunt me for years.

 

No, you guys don't get it: what made him the way he is, was not getting picked by Portland. If he'd been the #1 pick, he'd still be a lazy chucker just like everyone thought he was his rookie year. He and Roy would have fought over captainship, and it'd be a huge mess right now. Just one big jumpshooting team that can't make it past the first round.

Oden, on the other hand, would never have played DDR that evening, never bumped knees with that fuckwad with the knee brace made of kryptonite, and would be leading OKC to a smashing of Memphis right now. And he'd be saying how his motivation was being picked #2.

It's not Portland, necessarily, but the #1 pick that's often cursed.

 

What really saved Durant was two things: First, they fired PJ Carlesimo as soon as humanly possible. Second, he never played for Nate.

 

Durant would have been awesome setting up in the corner and waiting for Brandon to kick the ball out to him as the shot clock wound down

 

As much as I respect your posts, I really disagree with this statement. During the draft I agreed with you. I was heavily a pro Oden camp and thought we made the right decision. Hindsight is 20/20 so we can't really say that it wasn't a wrong choice. I mean everyone and their mother wanted Oden. The once in a decade franchise center was clearly the right choice.

I really thought Durant would be a "ball hog" type player; but watching him now and having to play with arguably one of the biggest ball hogs. He has proven that he can still get his; and doesn't complain when his point guard is taking 5-10 more shots than he is. I would love to have Durant right now.

 

I don't blame Durant for being offended. Who doesn't want to be the number one pick.

 

I still believe that the Sonics would still exist if they got Oden. The reason being he would have been such a "shoo in" for multiple championships (which he was at the time) that the seattle-ites would have never let the team leave.

 

It just sucks because I remember one of the first things I thought when we won the lottery was that this seemed strangely like the Bowie/Jordan scenario, and that I was scared we might end up making the same mistake... but I also saw Oden as being a possible Shaq and how could we turn that down?

 

Fortunately, Portland didn't make the same mistake. The mistake Portland made in the Bowie/Jordan draft was taking the less talented player to try to fill a need. That's a very bad philosophy in drafting. You maximize talent and either try to get that talent to work together or else make trades to balance out the roster.

In the Oden/Durant draft, Portland took the best talent. They've just been unlucky with injury.

As for Durant being "offended" that Portland didn't pick him, my reaction is: Standard operating procedure. Most great players try to find some way to feel slighted or insulted to fuel them. Durant was in no way slighted, as he was a strong consideration for the top pick and went second in an extremely top-heavy draft. However, it's smart of him to convince himself that he was, in fact, shown disrespect...that seems to be a pretty good motivating tool to athletes. Jordan used it throughout his career.

 

Durant would have broke out last year with us.

 

I disagree. I think there was more than one mistake to make. Was Oden the more talented player? I think that's debatable. Oden might have had the more freakish athleticism, but did he have a more polished game than Durant? I'm not so sure. Also, there was no question that Durant had more drive than Oden did at that point, and that's where the comparison comes in. Jordan was extremely driven and determined to be great, and Durant has those same qualities. It's not like it was a secret before the draft. Even KP acknowledged that Durant was an "assassin" and was a "gym rat". We knew he was going to be great, we just figured Oden was going to be able to help us more. We were wrong.

 

Those would be great points if Oden had failed due to lack of desire or effort. His failure to be a superstar, so far, is nothing to do with that. In fact, all reports are that he's worked extremely hard all along...unfortunately, most of it has been rehab.

Whether Oden was the most talented is debatable, sure. It was not debatable that Jordan was more talented than Bowie, and that was the mistake made: taking the clearly less talented guy. Portland didn't do that with Oden. Most scouts tabbed Oden as a once-in-a-generation talent. Even if you considered Durant one, also, it's clear Portland didn't take a clearly less talented prospect.

The comparison to the Bowie/Jordan decision is easy, but extremely lazy. The facts of the two cases are completely different.

 

You forget that before the draft, this same thought was across message boards and in some national articles.

Unless there's a really big difference between the two choices when it's time to pick, or no difference in which positions are needed, GMs disagree.

Not now, but it was very debatable then.

 

No, it wasn't even debatable then. No one knew Jordan would be one of the greatest players ever, if not the greatest, but he was seen as probably the best player in college basketball and a phenomenal talent. Only Olajuwon was remotely in his class, talent-wise, for that draft. Bowie was a classic reach for a big man. He was a very good college player, but not in Jordan's class. The only reason the Bowie selection wasn't seen as stunning was because back then people still believed you couldn't build around a perimeter player. Even Thorn, the guy who drafted Jordan, said it after drafting him.

 

Hindsight. I saw various articles about Bowie and none about Jordan. If what you say is true, it was known only among insiders, because that opinion didn't make it to the media. What is your source?

There WAS doubt about Bowie due to his injury history, but the doubt wasn't due to Jordan being a sure thing to become the better player.

 

Greg might be working hard to rehab, but there's been much said about his lack of desire or killer instinct, even before we drafted him. He's just kind of a big, goofy, happy go lucky kind of guy. That's not the kind of attitude you want from your big man.