Simmons actually said he'd pick Durant before that draft. I posted a thread about it a year or so ago with the Simmons column linked in the post. Simmons has his faults, but you lying about his opinion doesn't help your case.
You can't fault people for being disappointed. After being touted as one of the next great centers, he has been a huge disappointment. The injuries are a big part of that (not his fault but still disappointing.). But what's really been disappointing is his play WHILE healthy. Yes, his production ticked up right before the injury, but his career numbers after 82 games are 9/7/1. No matter how you cut that, it's a huge disappointment for a #1 pick. All of that said, I'm ready to start anew this year. As many have said, a healthy dominant Oden is our key to winning a championship. Healthy should happen in a couple months. After that, we'll be waiting on dominance.
Wow. I wish I could share your optimism. I'm afraid that Oden will suffer a couple of more major injuries and retire within 3 years.
The biggest problem with Oden is that Durant has been so damn good! I don't think the frustration level would be nearly as high if Durant was just a "good" player. The fact that he's playing like a top 5 player in the league makes the Oden situation very painful.
Correct, and if Oden played in college last year, he'd have basically missed 2 out of the last 3 years due to injury, just like Bowie at KY.
Yeah, the difference is that between injuries, Oden was playing great basketball at the NBA level while Bowie was playing well, but not amazingly so, at the college level. So at least we know Oden is a far, far better player than Bowie was. Now we have to see if he can be a more durable player than Bowie was. Hopefully!
Oden is potentially somewhat better than Bowie, not far far better. It's like comparing Olajuwon to Ewing. Bowie without injuries was Ewing-level. Give Oden 3-5 years of injury-free coaching much better than he'll ever get from McMillan, and he'd be Hakeem-level.
I don't really disagree with your evaluation of Oden's ability, but I think you're overestimating Bowie a bit. Ewing dominated at the collegiate level. Bowie didn't. Ewing was seen as an all-time great level prospect at draft time and didn't really disappoint, rationally (though Knicks fans are rarely rational as a group ). Bowie was seen as a bit of a reach because he was big. Almost everyone knew Jordan was more talented...people thought Bowie was an acceptable choice because they placed too great a premium on size. By contrast, most people, at draft time, felt Oden was both the most talented and had the size, which is why the Oden-over-Durant decision doesn't really bear much resemblance to the Bowie-over-Jordan decision. I think Bowie was a fine talent and probably would have been a Brad Daugherty level player had he remained healthy (at least as long as Daugherty remained healthy, heh).
Except for the 21 year-old Durant, who was 2nd in the MVP race last season. He won't ever be more than a "scorer", which is the only thing he does "well". Ed's logical pretzels continually amuse and amaze me.
