Nate must go or Greg Oden will be a bust

I'm talking about what has happened not some pretend world. When they've cleared out a side for him to go he hasn't converted at nearly the rate that he travels/charges/gets blocked/misses. I like him going one on one on the offensive boards as he's really effective there. He seems to play a lot more tentatively on the road as he's probably a bit gun shy from all the rookie whistles

STOMP

 

Calling me childish is uncalled for.

 

I'm with you. I absolutely see glimpses of very good play. How can one not? He had 24 & 15 in a game. But like you said, you're disappointed. So am I. Isn't everyone? Did anyone expect a bunch of 3 pt 2 reb games? It's disappointing. It's ridiculous that I get bashed for expressing that.

 

I did. I expected plenty of big games and plenty of awful games. I've seen rookies (even extremely talented ones) play before.

But I understand the mania. Lots of people are desperate for Oden to safely establish himself as a superstar, even though it won't happen this season and wasn't at all likely to.

 

I'm only disappointed in Greg insofar as he hasn't surprised me by exceeding my expectations. My feelings pretty much mirror Minstrel's, 20 year old rookie bigs with half a year of college and in Greg's case further exacerbated by sitting out for a full year can't be expected to dominate from the jump.

The only thing I see really holding Greg back are the silly fouls, once he gets that taken care of I see the rest of it taking care of itself.

 

I don't need him to dominate every game or be a superstar this year. I just want him to be active every game. Grab some rebounds. Block a shot or two. Affect a couple shots. I won't be upset if he does that. But when he does absolutely nothing, it's frustrating.

 

Oden turned the ball over two times in the first few minutes of the game by traveling when fed the ball in the post. This must be Nate's fault as well.

 

He's also the team's third leading scorer in this game and is seventh in minutes played in the game. Despite 0 fouls.

I think that's Nate's fault.

 

Greg has come back in with a focus and some energy. Love it! He's alive, he's alive!!! Look at what he's doing in spite of his coach killing his career!

 

I don't agree with the thread title, but I'd rather Nate gave Oden more playing time when fouls aren't an issue. Oden's per-minute efficiency, for the season, is good. Oden does sometimes limit his own minutes with fouls...no need for Nate to limit them further, IMO.

 

When Oden shows energy, there is no reason to keep him on the bench. The problem has been he just doesn't seem to try at times, while at other times he dominates. He's seems a bit more complicated and hard to gauge than the average player. Also, I pointed out the subject of the thread because that is what I was responding to in my post.

 

I agree, but I don't think it's a question of effort. He's been praised by his coaches at each level as very hard working. I think it's simply inexperience...when he becomes confused or ineffective, he doesn't assert himself as much. Or when he picks up fouls, he becomes tentative for fear of picking up more fouls. I think he just needs to play through it; rather than treating him as up and down in effort, I think he should be treated as up and down in effectiveness like most rookies. And, like most rookies, I think the solution is to let him play as much as possible to overcome the inconsistency. If he were a generally bad/ineffective player, I'd say plant him on the bench. But his per-minute efficiency doesn't suggest that to me.