Well, the Blazers play Milwaukee (Bogut), Cleveland (Wallace), and Washington (Blatche???) at home for their next threee games. I'd expect a decent performance against the Wiz, and the other two games are wild cards at this point.
I'll say it again, I don't criticize players who aren't old enought to drink ... the gloves are coming off when he turns 21 next week!!
No shit, you beat me to the punch. I'm actually very surprised I didn't see a "trade Roy" thread already by Fez after tonight's game. Maybe if Roy doesn't go for a triple-double on Monday then he'll start pushing getting rid of Roy.
almost 8 and 7 is not that great and he's getting worse. he doesn't rebound. he doesn't block shots. he doesn't really do much of anything; Dwight was WAY better his rookie year. I know Greg just had surgery, but that was well over a year ago and he has said his knee is fine for about 6 months now. He just doesn't look like a guy who wants to play out there. He doesn't compete. He doesn't play with a will to win. He just gets pushed around and does nothing about it. Will Oden get better in a couple years? I would hope so! But he's not looking like the Hall of Famer we thought we'd won back in 2007. When we won that lotto, we thought we'd have a 2nd year pro who was averaging at least a double double and 3 blocks by now. But it's not happening. Now people have resorted to hoping that he'll one day be as good as Bynum or Chandler. And JO only got off to a slow start because he played behind Brian Grant and Rasheed Wallace. When JO got a chance to play from to time if Sheed was out, he played pretty well. I'm bummed.
My stance on Oden this year was that (EVEN IF HE DIDN'T HAVE MF SURGERY) he would take most of the year to adjust to the NBA game. And, like many, I suspected that he would be foul prone and that's exactly what's happening. He didn't come into the league with polished offensive skills and anyone who didn't know this doesn't know anything about Oden or basketball in general. So if anyone wants to give up on the guy not even half way through his first season (and before he even turns 21), well, that's your perogative . . . but I'd say that's just a stupid thing to do when you look at the overall picture. If you want to hit the EJECT button now, you should lose your seat on the bandwagon in the next year or two.
Do you think part of the reason he doesn't do as much is he's worried about fouls? People are not hoping he'll be as good as Bynum or Chandler, they are just using them as examples of plays that didn't do well their first year, but came on later. Actually people really got on JO's play whenever he played as a Blazers. I remember defending him some to a friend and suddenly he was 'my boy' just because I seen some positive rather than all neg, but most didn't feel he did very well when he did get playing time.
did you really expect him to average a double double and 3 blocks not even half way through his rookie season?
oden earned this money by his performance in high school and college and his genetic attributes. his performance now will be reflected in his next contract. it's not subjective that he hasn't performed well against good frontcourts. if your memory fails you, look back on his game log. most of his good games came against players like johan petro, with only a few good games versus competent frontcourts and good teams. taking account the players he was compared to, such as david robinson and patrick ewing, he is a disappointment. but, it's not his fault people were making the wrong comparisons. he could still develop into a robert parish type down the road. he is very much a project. the foul rate is astonishing, and even a full missed season (or four) is not an excuse for it.
Greg will come around. You can tell the game is too fast for him right now. He still needs to lose a little weight and needs time to regain the speed and quickness he had before the injury. He's lost most nights out there but you can see alot of promise in his play. He needs time and he will be a very good if not great NBA center.
Read my post. When we won the lotto in 2007, I believed the 2008-09 season would be his SECOND season and he'd be averaging a double double and 3 blocks. Didn't you? Or when we got the first pick in the draft, were expecting 8 pts, 7 rebs, and 1 block almost two years later? So far, we've gotten a bum deal for a #1 pick.
Um ... sorta, but not really. I thought there was a good chance he'd average something like 10/10/2 his rookie year and by year two might be puttting up 14/12/2.5. But after he had the surgery all bets were off as far as I was concerned, especially after the struggles I saw Amare go through in his first year back from surgery -- the guy looked flat out done. Frankly, at this point I barely even think about Greg this year, it's almost a given that he's going to struggle mightily to stay out of foul trouble and stay on the court. Clearly the fouls have gotten into his head and are making him second guess what he's supposed to do out there, so I just try to chalk it all up to learning the pro game and him trying to get his explosiveness and quickness back (which was bound to take time). My advice would be to just expect the struggles and then be surprised (and happy) when he has a really good game like he did against Chicago, Boston, etc.
Maybe if we gave him the damn ball more it would be the other team in foul trouble and not our guy. If anyone thinks the five million dollar salary is a waste maybe they should ask the coach why he isn't using the expensive and talented asset the team has provided. Is there another coach in the league who would have a player like that and not run any freakin plays for him? What is Nate doing, trying to turn him into the next Kwame Brown?
Greg has not lived up to the expectations set out by scouts, media and the Blazer organization . . . I don't know why posters get so offended when some question GO . . . it's not like he is lighting it up every night and posters are making these comments. GO was sold (and is being sold) as a cornerstone of this team . . . fair enough to question if he will live up to the expectations. Yes we can all wait and find out the exact answer 3 yrs from now . . . but that's no fun.
