That's because you don't like the changing of the tide... Last time I checked, fans have the right to talk about what they expect to happen. But, it is cool that ABM smiles at your post, given he started the topic. LOL.
Who are the middle people on this forum about Oden? Everyone either seems to be extremely optimistic or extremely pessimistic about him. I think Oden will play 60+ games but my opinion isn't any more relevant then Mullets because i'm as optimistic about Oden as he is pessimistic about him. Well i'm rambling a bit here, but I just thought i'd ask if there are even any people on this forum who take the middle ground about Oden or is he just such an emotional topic for us fans that its really hard to see any middle ground with him?
I think the problem is that Oden has been a study in "extremes." He's missed an extreme number of games, but when he's played, he's played extremely well (23 PER, great defense). This doesn't seem to lend itself to a middle ground position like "he'll play a significant number of games and be mediocre." It really boils down to whether you, as a fan, think Oden is going to play close-to-full seasons in the future or not. If you do, you'd be very optimistic due to his play when healthy. If you don't, then you'll be very pessimistic, because a player who spends most of his career on the DL is a bust.
It's not an emotional topic for me at all, I tend to think he's got one of those bodies that have a helluva time staying healthy and I think his potential is likely to be stunted through too many stops and starts which will have more of a psychological toll on him and his ability to play than than anything. So to answer your question, I'm not sure if there is any middle ground; when healthy he started to show flashes of becoming a truly dominant low post defender and rebounder with a budding offensive game, if he can stay healthy he'll be a huge difference maker, if not he's probably going to go back to Ohio State and take pre-dentistry classes and pursue a different line of work in about 3 or 4 years. Mostly though, there's not much left to talk about, he's either going to be healthy or he isn't and with or without him the Blazers will continue to be a basketball franchise and the games will still be played.
Dentistry? Really? Can you imagine the hands of a 7 foot giant inside your mouth....? good gosh! This is something that will be discussed for decades, you know that. It will still be in discussion after Durant enters the hall of fame and Oden is listed as the reincarnation of Bowie. There is A LOT to be further discussed as this unfolds over the coming years.
I think Minstrel hit it spot-on from my perspective as well. To me the extremes on Oden are so far (issues that keep him off the floor on one end and the incredible dominance you see during those minutes he is on the floor) that you either get people that take the road of his not being able to stay on the court and say everything else is irrelevant. Or you go down down the road that eventually those minutes played will normalize and you're going to see a full season of 30+ mpg at that incredible dominance level and will see something the league hasn't seen in a decade. It's like asking someone their opinion on Pete Rose (or maybe Barry Bonds for the younger generations). People don't think of those guys as, "Oh, they were so-so.", or "Just another average MLB career, like a Jay Buhner type of guy". People are either on one side of the fence saying Pete Rose (or Barry Bonds) are great baseball players and legends of the game. Or they have some opinion the other way that focuses on their personal lives outside of the game so nothing else matters - they're tainted in their eyes. I think it's just human nature to look at a the good and ignore the bad, or focus on the bad and ignore the good. You either go down one side or the other in these extremes and you don't pick a middle road.
Oden's inability to stay healthy is an on the court issue -- I don't think most of his detractors are all that focused on him taking a picture of his dong, or his Eeyore personality -- not being able to play isn't some trivial tertiary issue to judging his value as a basketball player.
What does that make Bynum? Other than apparently worth Derron Williams, Al Jefferson, and Paul Millsap.
I wasn't referencing Oden as an "on the court vs. off the court" issue. I was using the analogy of Pete Rose/Barry Bonds (whose issues just happened to be were more "on the field vs. off the field") and how human nature is to take an extreme opinion to one side or the other. In Oden's case people also can't find middle-ground, so while completely different as far as issues as my analogies, but point is still people either see past the lack of minutes for Oden and say he's still an all-star/DPOY caliber player as far as talent when he plays and he's only 21 so he'll have years and years to get his thousand games played in. Or you're the type of guy that sees 82 games in three seasons and thinks it will be a pattern for the next 15 years. Like the person who goes into a casino and sees the roulette wheel come up 0/00 three straight spins, you're either the person who thinks it won't happen again for a while since the odds have to normalize statistically, or you're the person who thinks that particular machine is rigged and Vegas is cheating and it will come up 0/00 every spin going forward and you're not going to stick around to watch, just assume it did and attempt to tell everyone you're right.
Human bodies are not roulette wheels or dice. Once a person starts breaking down -- and at 34 wiith 3 major knee injuries spread over ten years, I'm starting find this out myself -- it's sometimes very difficult to reverse that trend of declining health. You're right that in the long term random events tend to normalize, but in this case injuries have a tendency to create something of a feedback loop that makes another injury more likely to occur than the last ... Maybe more importantly there is a psychological toll that being chronically injured has on a person (increased tentativeness, lack of trust in their body, etc.) that affects a player's longevity in their career as an athlete.
That is a good point. I think with Oden, it will be very interesting to observe the mental affects that the injuries have had. Completely opposite to a player like Bynum (who had ligaments and tendons cut on and thus made that feedback loop where his body was continuing to break down from those previous cuts), Oden hasn't had the same cuts down, so he has almost no physical feedback loop to get injured again, but all of the mental feedback as you mention. I think Oden is right there in the middle span of where it could go either way. I had a baby sitter once place my 12-month old boy at the time on the kitchen counter while she was getting lunch prepared. He scooted off and broke his femur in half. I have yet to see either the mental or phyiscal feedback loop show signs that it impacted him any way what-so-ever since he was one year old and it healed to 100%. So like Oden, he's young and his body still heals like a high schooler instead of like a 34 year old who is never quite is the same after another injury. So he'll have to physical feedback loop to be injured again, just that mental aspect, and time will tell if it does come into play.
My first major knee injury (torn MCL) happened when I was 22, I bounced back OK, but I was never quite the same, I tore my ACL when I was 29 (same knee) and I've really never been the same. Regardless my only point is that being constantly injured wears people down and no matter how young you are, when the knees/feet/ankles/hips start to go there's even more of a toll.
The difference is that all of Oden's injuries that have required surgery are bone injuries. They didn't have to cut into his tendons or remove large amounts of cartilage. Even the surgery he had that kept him out of his rookie season was preemptive. He had a bone chip in his knee from Maggette, not sure exactly what happened in the first game of his secound season for the foot but he didn't have surgery on that. Then his knee cap breaking in half that was just that... a bone splitting in two that will heal back stronger then it was when it broke. I look at those injuries and I don't see anything that leads me to believe that any of these are going to be recurring or will slow him down because none of them leave anything worse then it was before after their healed. Mentally Oden will probably make Martell look like Ghandi this next season.
I could see that. That's really too bad. Both of those injuries (ACL/MCL) are the worst of the soft-tissue injuries since they are cutting on key ligaments that will never heal the same and will always be a little "off" when you use them under the same stress that caused the original injury (assuming you don't go from like weightlifting to rowing or some strange change in sports like that). But I see what you're getting at, and that is really what worries me about Roy, he's had a couple soft tissue injures like that (and like Bynum has had and has never been the same from). Luckily for the Blazers, Oden has had a microfracture cartilage and a broken patella bone. So two simple bone injuries that will never create a physical sensation or twinge to let you know they were ever injured. So we luck out "knock on wood" up until this point in Oden's career that he'll at least not have any of that history wearing on him like you had since they were just broken bones, so there is no physical reason for him to re-injure something else any more than Amare had from his micro-fracture of cartilage early in his career or Delonte West or Collison had from breaking their fingers, or Bogut from breaking his arm, or any other handful of guys that have broken bones and come back none the worse for the wear.
Are those 2 separate repeating cycles or the same thing? My cause is having to play catchup every season. Is the cause of your cycle that he slowly loses his mental edge?
Its a serious operation but it wasn't that he needed it, it was preemptive operation. That leaves me more optimistic and thinking that it healed just fine with no lasting problems .
