This. Im sick and tired of it. Im all for making sure he is physically able to peform to start the year for say the first month or so. After that he needs to be playing at least 30-35 minutes a game. Granted part of it was injuries and part of it was foul trouble but another part of it was the team just be way too overprotective. Its time ... as Ed O said, lets see what we've got and go from there. FWIW I think that once he is in full game shape he will thrive and easily play 30-35 minutes a game at a high level but at some point the team has to trust him to do so.
If 100% healthy it's obvious Oden should be the starter. The big question for me is do you start Aldridge or have him come off the bench as the offensive spark and have Camby start. Then your first unit has 3 of the teams 5 best defenders (Camby, Batum and Oden). That is never going to happen but I think it's actually a more reasonable question.
yup. If he's good to go then they should start and play him a lot. Dude has the talent to be the best player on the club and it's time to show it. Any combination of their 3 main Bigs should blend well so each should pull 30ish MPG barring excessive garbage time. Donte probably gets the scraps STOMP
This is how I would distribute the minutes on nights all 3 are fit to play and there's no foul trouble: Aldridge - 35 minutes Oden - 34 minutes Camby - 27 minutes
The better question is who should start: Camby or LMA? Oden vs. Camby is a no-brainer from day one. Gotta get Oden acclimated to the starting unit and Roy sooner rather than later. Don't delay the chemistry by doing something stupid like bringing G.O. off the bench for a few weeks. This is like receiving phone calls from Jessica Alba and Jane Fonda saying they'd like to hook up with you tonight to begin a long term relationship. Do you call back Jessica or Jane for this first date? The choice isn't too hard. If we're talking about 10 years ago, you might have some choice there, just like we we're discussing a Camby of 08/09 vs. an Oden of 08/09 playing overweight and at 70% speed on a knee he's not confident on. Or if we're talking a Camby of 09/10 vs. an Oden of 09/10 playing still a little heavy on a weakened patella from a previous collision. To now comparing a 10/11 Camby vs. a 10/11 Oden 20lbs lighter and finally at full speed and 100% healthy ready to hit the ground running. Come on guys, step it up a bit, this isn't even a consideration.
10 years ago Jane was 63 years old and Jessica was 19... would you really be conflicted on which booty call to act on? Choosing whether to start LA or Camby is about the same dilemma. While both may have somewhat comparable impact on the floor, because of their ages LA is far more likely to make it through a season healthy. Camby has also been a bench/rotation player before so he's likely not going to have ego issues coming off the pine. I'm for limiting MC's minutes when possible, saving his best for when the games really count. STOMP
Did nobody else notice that while Oden had some nice games early last season, the TEAM wasn't playing all that well over that same stretch?
did you notice that Batum was out, Rudy playing through a back injury that required surgery shortly thereafter, and Miller was playing spot minutes behind Steve Blake? It should be a better team when the better players are on the court. I'm very excited to see Greg and Andre paired STOMP
Yes. It's called an adjustment period. Did nobody else notice that while Mo Lucas had some nice games early in the 76-77 season, the TEAM wasn't playing all that well over that same stretch? It took some time to figure it out.
Hmm, I noticed the TEAM other then Roy were playing just fine. He and LMA both had double doubles one night and the next day Brandon started talking about going away from LeBron and what not after he took the summer off.
I noticed that. It was a blessing in disguise that Oden got hurt again. I'm not sure Portland would have made the playoffs without that injury.
Did you notice that there was only one player on the team, last year, with a better win% than Oden? It was (ironically) Camby - but I am willing to bet that if Oden had some protection on the perimeter in the form of Batum (he did not have it last year, Camby did) - his win% would have been the best on the team. The team won 61% of the games that Oden played - and when he actually was on the floor - the team won at a 66.7% clip.
I believe I read somewhere that Oden had a higher Win % per 48 minutes than Camby and was in fact the best Win % per 48 of all of the Blazers last year.
It's only considered bad since we thought the first 20 games would be a cakewalk. 13-8 is a 62% winning percentage; not horrible -- such a winning percentage would net you 51 wins.
