Keeping the Oden angst in perspective.

Greg also suffered a pretty serious knee injury just before the all-star break ... a month off obviously didn't do him any favors with regards to conditioning, rhythm and comfort level. I mean, the injuries are worrisome, and he's got to own that, but pre-post all-star break splits are not exactly a legitimate comparison.

Wasn't the general consensus that in the months of January and February Greg was starting to show signs of getting comfortable?

 

I recall thinking that myself.

 

Landry or Hayes?

Oden is our backup who routinely got outplayed by the Rockets backup bigs... all 6'7 of them.

 

Bynum managed 1 ast and 1 rebound in 9 minutes (0 pts, 3 fouls) against those same Rocket backup bigs last night.

So, really, if one is going to bitch about Oden's lack of production, they should join the Kingspeed bandwagon and rag on Bynum, too.

 

Both Bynum and Oden are projects - the difference is that one was taken with the 10th pick in a relatively weak draft and Oden was taken as the # 1 overall pick - and was taken ahead of a player who had the greatest Freshman Season in the history of college basketball.

 

1 had microfracture surgery and the other is suppose to "Have Arrived". What you are talking about is basically ancient history.

 

Absolutely right.

The amazing thing is that OKC won at a .280 clip - but amazing enough - they only won 23.6% of the time when Durant is on the court. They lose more when he plays... (Not s surprise when you consider that they were 5-3 without him in the line-up.

What we do know about Oden is that we win more with him on the court than we do when Joel plays - the problem we have with Oden is that he can not stay on the court long enough. The problem OKC has with Durant is that they can not win when he plays.

Interesting problem...

 

ridiculous argument - get back to me when you have a greater sample size of games.

Durant is a great basketball player - only a fool would argue that Oden is better right now.

 

Try not to take things out of perspective. Yao Ming is one of the top 2 centers in the league right now. If he could run the floor better, he would be #1 for sure.

A lot of folks seem to forget the fact that guys that undergo Microfracture surgery do not get their explosiveness back until the year following the "return" year. Most of them go through a period of adjustment where they not only have to rehab the knee, but most of them undergo some weight reduction to lower the stress as well.

I know Zbo isn't the "King of explosiveness", but you could tell there was a huge difference in his lift and speed of being able to jump the year following surgery. The same with Amare Stoudemire, who also said it took a long time to be able to trust his knee again. The whole fact that GO was rim checked a few times this season should wake you up to that fact alone. I remember watching Greg in the first game of summer league his rookie year, and on one of the first plays, some guy tried to launch a floater over the top of him. He damn near touched the top of the backboard to block that shot and got called for goaltending just to show the guy he couldn't get it over the top of him. That is the Greg Oden I am waiting for to come back.

 

Do you remember the 10 fouls he had that game?

 

2 years of basketball is not a large enough sample size? Durant is a fantastic offensive talent - but he is far from a great basketball player yet - because he does one thing only - score. He does not create for others, he does not defend well, he does not dictate the pace of the game.

In Durant's NBA career he had been on a 20 win team and on a 23 win team. I can't remember his stats from the first year - but he was actually a part of only 18 wins in his 2nd year. This means that if he had been present for all 20 wins last year - he has 38 wins under his belt as an NBA player - which is less than Oden has in 65 games or so.

Look at their rookie years - Oden - who made his living on the defense - actually had a higher PER than Durant had during his rookie year.

They both have a long way to go - but it is time to start paying attention to the impact these guys have on the win/loss columns of their teams. One of them is a scoring machine that does nothing else well. The other is raw, efficient and has a big impact on the team's defense - but can not stay on the court long.

Given what we have seen so far - and their impact on the all important W/L column - it is still clear that you go for the guy that will have a higher impact on wins/losses - and so far it is Oden by a land-slide - even if his individual stats are low - while Durant is the poster-child for the "hollow stats" society.

 

Yep I do! But he sure as hell could jump a lot higher than he can now. Period.

 

Oden will be a decent player - I've said that from Day one.

His ceiling is Dekembe Mutombo - his floor is Dampier.


Durant is going to be an elite player.

 

I don't see how people can have these conclusive opinions about a player after one season. Most rookies struggle to adjust to the NBA. Our rookie was coming off a major injury, so it's reasonable to expect his struggles would be greater than most.

Some people need to temper their expectations. The important thing is that Oden continues to improve. Oden is doing that. He's became a much better player than the one that started the season. As long as he continues an upward trend of improvement I'll continue to believe in him.

Damn I hate how some fans have unfair expectations and literally are incapable of putting things in context.

 

Thus the argument that KP made when drafting Oden...

"One player will win scoring titles, the other championships"

You're right, Durant is a tremendous individual talent, wasted because his team wasn't any better with him on the court.

While Oden is a disapointing individual talent so far, but his team plays far better when he's on the court.

So are stats, or wins the most important to you?

 

Durant on the Blazers instead of Oden and we are a better team.

This is not up for debate.