I was on AIM with gambitnut (know him? Blazers poster...) on draft night suggesting Durant over Oden. Ask and you shall receive: http://sportstwo.com/threads/558-Sf-options
Nowhere therein do you suggest that Oden is likely to be "the next Bowie" (a giant bust). In fact, you barely say anything at all. Saying Portland "might want to consider" Durant is about as close to lacking a position as possible while still typing something...you double-hedge ("might" and "consider"). Everyone felt the Blazers "might" want to "consider" Durant. And the Blazers certainly did consider Durant.
http://sportstwo.com/threads/98875-Oden-is-not-Sam-Bowie?p=1343018&viewfull=1#post1343018 http://sportstwo.com/threads/98810-...-MF-recovery?p=1340612&viewfull=1#post1340612 Nice try minstrel. I wasn't hedging, I was being polite. I knew blazers fans were in fan love with Bowie... I mean Oden. I wish gambitnut were around to vouch for our AIM conversation.
Again, that has nothing to do with draft night. Both of those, one just a link to a wojnawoski article, are from September. Sure, the comparisons were going to pop up AFTER he had mf and was out for the year.
You're not wrong to compare Oden to Bowie. Both were injured centers. One had franchise impacting talent, and that was Greg Oden. So yes, they're alike in that both of their bodies broke down. They're different in that Oden's potential was so much more than Bowie's. Bill Walton's body also failed him.
I wrote BEFORE THE Draft about those comparisons. I've been suggesting LMA as C consistently since before the draft, when I saw him play live at the summer league games. Even now, I like a front court of Batum, Wallace, and LMA.
Sure you were. In any case, even if you believed Durant was the better choice (not that you have any evidence that you did), that still wouldn't be all that impressive. As I said before, it's not like Oden was considered a far better prospect, just a bit better. Randomly selecting one of two phenoms and then saying it validates your selection process when one phenom gets injured doesn't have much logical validity. Bowie wasn't considered a phenom at the time of the draft. Oden was. So trying to compare the two (in terms of draft selection process, not results) is a little silly.
Gerald has said he doesn't want to be a 4 Aldridge has said he doesn't want to be a 5 People just refuse to get over that fact for some reason
Pretty much. Both were looked at as HoF talents coming out. "Once in a generation" was used for both These guys were rated about as equal as it gets, with Oden getting the edge because players like him are even more rarer than great scoring players
Bowie had as huge a hype surrounding him as Oden did. I never got the Bowie hype, either. I saw him in street clothes with a cast and on crutches when he was with Kentucky. I had no idea that Jordan would turn out so great, though.
In that same thread, MikeDC made the exact argument I made to gambitnut. I saw Durant as the next Kobe, with even more upside. And you don't build championships around centers, it's the superduperstar wing players that win most of the time. Bowie WAS considered a phenom at the time of he draft. Enough for Portland to take a flier on his upside, post recovery, with the #2 pick.
Are you sure? I feel like I've read different about Bowie, and I think Minstrel has said many times that Bowie was never looked at as a franchise changing talent coming out of college.
No, he wasn't. He was selected by Portland because he was a big man, the Blazers already had a star shooting guard and "you couldn't build a team around a shooting guard" (a sentiment expressed by, I believe, Rod Thorn on the night the Bulls drafted Jordan). It wasn't really a talent appraisal that caused Bowie to go ahead of Jordan, which was the problem with that pick. It was a talent appraisal (shared by many, almost everyone) that caused Oden to go ahead of Durant. Which is why I don't consider choosing Oden a terrible selection, just a terrible result.
Well, if there was indeed some serious red flags then yes, it would be a terrible selection. I get you're arguing talent vs talent, but when you look at everything involved, if they ignored serious red flags, then it would definitely be a terrible selection.
I remember being extremely pleased with the Oden pick, but I also vaguely recall a few pre-draft stories trickling out at the time of the combine talking about his knees and his legs being different lengths ... I also remember thinking that these stories were just a ploy by other teams to drive down Oden's stock and make the Blazers pass on him ... I guess not.
He was on the cover of sports illustrated and the sporting news a lot while at Kentucky. They picked a lot of televised games to show him play. The announcers raved about him, even though he was on crutches.
As I said earlier, I'm only evaluating based on the information available to us, or me, which is the only way that I, as a fan, can evaluate something like this. I've all along agreed that it is well within the realm of possibility that the medical reports, analyzed properly, could have warned Portland to stay away. Based on the injury history up to that point and what medical issues were publicly reported, it didn't seem to be enough of a risk to pass on his talent. So, I'll never claim 100% certainty.
