For crying out lout, he's a rookie! With only one year of college. At a position that often takes a little seasoning. With an entire season missed to injury. And, he's still likely not fully recovered. Personally, I'd love to see him come off the bench, have success and slowly but surely gain confidence. Maybe have him really focus on defense and rebounding. Those are the two things he brings to the table that we really need. Offense, we have plenty of. No need to rush him, other than an attempt to appease idiots who thought he'd be a 20/10 guy out of the gate. Those idiots aren't worth appeasing and 20/10 ain't gonna happen for a while anyway. Rebounding and defense are his easy strengths and if he gets that down solidly, the offense will come.
Did you guys see the coaches corner with Mo Lucas? He was at the practice facility!! Is he back?!?!! I think that will makea HUGE difference. I think by the all-star break, you will see a new Oden... he will imrpve greatly with someone dedicated to improving his game. Lucas will be awesome! Man, that pumped me up when I saw him.
Ain't that the truth. I told myself this morning that I wasn't going to look on the board because people would be overreacting to the loss but I caved. I just want to point out that before the season who would've guessed we'd be 15-8 in the first 23 games? The schedule has been brutal. 23 games in 43 nights with 15 on the road. I know the box score makes it look like the Blazers played well last night but it was obvious during the game that the guys are not just physically but mentally fatigued. They almost never fold at winning time like that and you have to give Orlando credit for making the defensive stops at crunch time. If the guys didn't learn this from the Celtics game they should know now - you can't take a night off in the league and expect to win. There is no shame in losing to Orlando, they're clearly a very good team. Guys come on! This team is no where near the level of LA or Boston and should not be expected to win every night. All I've wanted for them is to get into the play offs this season. It's all gravy for me after that. This is a 3, 4, 5 year plan... we're not winning the championship this year! Get over it and let's just enjoy watching the young guys learn, improve, and grow together. To quote KP - Let's just let the cake bake for now. Once we get through the last game against the Jazz they're going get to spend some time at home. They'll be able to practice (seriously, with that schedule they really haven't been able to practice and it's hard to correct things on the fly during a game). They'll get some home cookin' and love from the fans and they'll be just fine. Even if we lose tomorrow I'm still thrilled that we could be 15-9 over the first 24 games, I never would've predicted it.
If that's what you want from Greg, you're never going to get it. He's never been like that his entire life. He's the quiet type even when he's dominating.
You're such a drama queen. Amare and Zach had NBA experience to fall back on, even if their athletic ability wasn't there. Oden doesn't. He's recovering from a year away from the game AND he's adjusting to life in the NBA. On top of that, he's completely out of shape. It's unprecedented and absolutetely dissimilar to the situation for Zach and Amare when they were coming back from microfracture. By the end of the season, Oden will be confident about his knee, he'll be in shape and he'll know a lot more about how to play in the NBA and he'll be dropping monster numbers on teams.
Did anyone here collect Topps baseball cards in the late 80's? Remember how they had a positive comment for every player no matter how crappy they were? Ex: "Joe Schmoe lead his teams in triples in the month of May(1)"
Who knows what's going on in Greg's head, but I have a feeling the combination of personal expectations, his body betraying him somewhat, and being out of competitive basketball for a year and a half have all collided with Greg's somewhat melancholy (possibly over thinking) personality traits. I have a feeling we're going to see even more of this "good game, bad game" oscillation all season long until he's completely recovered his explosiveness -- or as much of his explosiveness as he's going to recover. I don't know about anybody else here, but I can't imagine what it must be like to being compared to a hall of fame athlete all throughout your teenage years, getting knicked up with injuries, and then taking all of that baggage as a twenty year old and trying to go and play in the world's best basketball league while your body is still not back to 100%. I think Greg is probably going to need a solid off-season of conditioning, getting his knee up to full and then hours upon hours of footwork drills and practice.
Yeah, this off-season Greg is going to need to eat right, make sure he is in GREAT SHAPE, work with a big man coach, but other than that, take it a little easier than last year and let himself recover. He will make a HUGE improvement and be EASILY a top 5 center next year, most likely top 3. This is a very important learning year for Greg... along with tryouts to see who will be in our rotation next year, and along with hopefully getting our guys some nice Playoff experience. While I hope we can make it to the WCF this year, I think we are contenders next year!
Agreed, when we were talking about the Bynum/Oden comparisons all summer that both of the guys had to get a year under their belt before we could really start comparing. Oden needs another year to show if these are his true colors or not. There is only so much you can learn by watching your teammates from the sidelines for a year. He needs to play more with them so he doesnt have to think where he should be, he just does it. Physically/conditioning there is a lot to be desired but at the same time it would be unfair to blame that on him...shit happens. I mean when was the last time that EVERYTHING in his body was 100% during a basketball season...high school? Im not saying that to call him injury prone rather that he needs to know what his body can do at 100%. Hell, if you think about it he probably came back from his ankle injury with still a little bit of tightness which Im sure has subsided by now...so what are we talking about? TWO weeks of healthy (thou out of shape) in the last 3-4 years of his bball career??? The guy needs some time regardless of what his ceiling is.
Well, he looks like he doesn't really enjoy it. Its tough to judge if he loves it or not. But he used to look like he enjoyed it... He was interviewed and someone asked him why is he always down and serious, and he said that he is just concentrating on business right now, not anything else. So IDK, it seems like its turned more into a job he HAS to do then something he enjoys to do, ya know?
i will wait until season 3 to really get pissed about Oden if he still is a wuss. tim duncan doesnt look like he's having fun either.
I'm not worried. I'm also not at all interested in whether he has fire. Or whether he looks like he's having fun. Or whether he looks scared or intimidated. He'll either play well or he won't. Whether he gets there by screaming like Rasheed Wallace or being quiet like Robert Parish, if he plays well that's ALL that matters. Clearly he's not playing well consistently, but (as we all know and have read and/or typed a million times) he's young, he's a rookie, and he's coming off of significant time off following surgery. I'm 100% willing to give him time and while I won't praise his play because of his potential, I also won't damn his facial expressions because of it, either. Ed O.
I agree with the comment that Nate should just let Oden play and foul out late. When he got his 4th foul last nite why not let him play? So what if he fouls out. The only reason I could come up with is that Joel might play less aggressive knowing that Oden wasn't there to come in. I see Oden getting criticize for trying to fit in? For not demanding the ball? For doing exactly what his coach is asking him to do? This makes no sense to me. As to emotion I know he certainly shows no emotion when he dunks. He softly puts it through the hoop and yawns. Remember that one game when Oden just threw players off of him? Loved the aggressiveness, but what happen? He was called for the foul. If he fouls he doesn't play. Is it a big surprise he's toned it down a little?
I can't believe some of you guys. Your opinions are based on what? A couple shots of him on the bench with a stoic look on his face? Nobody on here knows whats going on in his head. He doesn't seem to show his emotions, so what? Back off and let him play. I hope we all remember some of these reactions about him once he starts playing like we know he is capable of.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2008/12/blazers_give_it_up_for_oden.html This link is posted in another thread, but the title of that thread is misleading and I just wanted all you "fans" to see how ridiculous your impatient and ignorant views of Oden are. Some of you truely come across as clinically insane.
