We don't need KD and Oden is our guy but if we had to pick a different player it wouldn't be KD but Horford.
it takes two years to come back from microfracture surgery, AND he has never played in the NBA, AND he only played 1 year of college. What a lame thread this is. Sorry, you'll have to wait two years to see glimpses of the real G.O.
Yup,that's on Nate. I was shocked when he started calling plays to LMA to actually get Dirk into foul trouble and continued to attack him when we thought of it, but we didn't do it enough. Then Dirk comes back in the game with 4 fouls and he was just letting guys score when they came at him, but we kept on settling for jumpers.
I said this at the beginning of the season and it's obvious some people's expectations are just unrealistic. What sucks is that Greg needs playing time to get some experience and it's hurting the team. We are sacrificing some games this year to make us better for the future. Greg's learning curve is steep, and I wonder how much of his development was stunted with Mo Lucas out for a couple months.
I'm sure it didn't help, but Greg was still due to take his lumps. I thought Kevin Harlan and Reggie Miller had some very astute observations from last night on Greg, that he tries to play guys the same way regardless of who it is, and in talking to Mo Lucas they learned that he is trying to instill in Greg that he needs to play each guy according to his individual strengths and weaknesses (like forcing Dirk to the baseline, not letting him take that fall away jumper at the top of the key, etc.) The only way he's going to learn is by matching up against these guys and playing through it. Everyone wants to jump on Nate, Dean, Monty and Lucas' nuts about the team's issues being coaching related (and no, they aren't 100% perfect in their schemes or rotations) but so much of what we are seeing is directly related to these young guys struggling to internalize the lessons and scouting reports that the coaches give them; the team just lacks the collective experience to do all of the little things intuitively (properly rotating, how to play guys, when to jump out on shooters and when to pack it in, etc.) all of these things are correctable in one of two ways: 1) seasoning through experience, or 2) trading for experienced players. It's that fucking simple.
I'd trade everything on the Bulls except Derrick Rose and Ben Gordon for Greg Oden. You guys should quit whining.
He needs a PG that can deliver the ball consistently off the pick and roll. This team isn't doing the rookie a lot of favors right now in terms of putting him in a position to be successful on the offensive end. Oden is looking gassed right now, watch him huff and puff only after being in the game for a couple minutes. He needs work his way into better shape and get past the rookie wall he's hitting.
I'm not sure what exactly you expected from the guy. He's incredibly young and was able to dominate amateur competition because of his size. He played his only college season hurt, and missed his rookie season in the NBA with another injury. The wins are suffering from playing the guy, which is what is needed for him to learn the pro game. The Blazers sure are lucky to have Joel so the transition is smoother than it otherwise would be. And the real lesson in all this just may be that a team might look great on paper, talent-wise, but may not play together that well on the actual court.
I think there is a small vocal minority that are pissed off or let down by G.O., but that's because some were expecting the second coming of Bill Russell by game 5 of his career. Instead he looks about like you'd expect a 20 year old guy coming off of MF surgery. As for the team looking good on paper but not playing all that well, you would think from all the whining that goes on around here the blazers were 12-18 and not 18-12. The fact is they have been playing pretty well together, but they are still very much a green and unfinished product and have yet to fully gel (not all that surprising considering there are 3 rookies getting major minutes). The reality is that they could probably use a "star" level vet to help shoulder some of the load and demonstrate how to perform at a high level (Steve Blake and Przybilla are both vets, but more of the yeoman class of NBA player).
Actually, I don't see that 4-6 in their last 10 games is particularly playing well together. They may have actually played better as a team when Oden was missing games. This is not to say the future with him would be like that at all.
Losses to Orlando, Denver, Utah, Dallas, Clippers (ugh), and Boston. Hardly anything to get worked up about (OK, maybe the Clips).
Let me just say this... I saw Joel shove someone with two hands out of bounds to grab a rebound last night. No foul. I saw Greg Oden breath on someone. Foul. Seems a bit weird to me. Joel is clearly the better of the two right now, but I can't tell how much that has to do with the calls.
Oden is going to be fine, I promise you. Let the guy play and learn a little bit. He's a god damn rookie. The whole Oden coming right in and dominating went out the window when he had MF surgery and missed a whole year of playing basketball. It would have been tough coming back to play in college, let alone the NBA. Leave him alone and let him play.
Durrant could put up good numbers on a good team - don't kid yourself. The same principle applies to KD as Oden in that he's only 20 - so if you're saying give GO time to develop, doesn't Durrant deserve that too? Maybe his defense isn't great at this point, but it's flat out scary the kid is 20 and he's averaging 23 ppg. He's still going to get better too. You know what Miami's record was last year with D-Wade? 10-42. One guy can't do it all, even a finals MVP/Stud like Wade. Durrant plays with a bunch of garbage. It's not like he's jacking up a ton of shots to get his 23 ppg either on an team who's 2nd/3rd options are Jeff Green and Russell Westbrook. He's shooting a respectable 46% and gets to the line 6 times/game. The guy is special, and the only reason not to pick him was b/c this generations Bill Russell was available. If GO is to be anything close to that, he's got about as long a haul as I've ever seen. I can't think of another player who has improved more than that. That said, you can't call him a bust if he only pans out to a better than average center in the league.
I said Oden is our guy and I think the right pick. What I was trying to say if we didn't pick Oden we should have taken Horford over KD but not over Oden. We don't need anymore jump shooting SF's that don't play defense.
