In your eyes to ease the pain of selecting him over Durant? His ceiling isn't what Durant is doing now at age 21. But if he can develop into a legit low-post threat and grab 12/13 rebs a game it'll soften the blow of the 2007 Draft. Oh, and staying healthy, right?
Multiple All-Star appearances. Shouldn't be too hard with the bigs in the West. I think 12/10/3 can do the trick.
At this point it's not the numbers (and I can say it's never really been a huge concern of mine) ... actually that's a lie, it's about one number: as in '82.' How many games is he going to be able to play in a given season? If he can push the 75+ mark that would be enough for him to possibly develop into an impact center in the league, if goes down for another 20+ games then put a fork in him and move on.
as long as he stays healthy, I think he'll be a top 3 center in the league. nothing has changed. its just his injuries...if he's healthy he helps us win more than Durant will anyways.
There's nothing he can humanly do to justify the pick but saying all he has to do is 'stay healthy' is a cop-out. He has to develop his post game in every sense of the term. He literally has one move: bump-bump-baby hook. He doesn't attack the hoop at all. A little too much LMA is rubbing off on him. Also, being labeled a defensive stalwart he bites on nearly every pump fake.
his game is fine. once he gets more on court time he'll be good to go. he's a defensive game changer, even though he fouls alot. He gets the ball in the post on an ISO, he's going to get double and triple teamed still. He has a nice pump fake one handed dunk too.
He's got a nice looking foul shot. Even bounces nicely off the rim. I don't understand why he doesn't add a foul line jumper to his repertoire like Rik Smits.
ugh, I don't want to see him take jumpers at all. He's a power player...he has the body to just destroy on the block.
He's also had two major leg injuries. He needs more of an arsenal instead of just camping in the paint. He doesn't need to do one exclusively.
endure survive stay keep going keep on go on forge on press on drag on hold on hang on hold up plug away withstand persevere sustain persist remain last maintain continue weather cope handle carry on brace pull through live through it stick to stick around stick it out ride it out tough it out never say die bite the bullet go the distance Show up to camp in 100% good shape for once.
I want the guy to stay healthy, first and foremost, but I think he will have to make at least two or three All-Star appearances and play at a consistently high level to soften the blow. Championships are a difficult thing to obtain, especially now that the super friends have joined forces in Miami, and there's a good chance that neither Oden nor Durant will win one in their careers. We cannot gauge the Oden/Durant debate on championships, because we have no idea how good this team would have been with Durant instead of Oden.
I don't have pain. Well, I do, but that's just arthritis, not Oden. Oden just needs to play his game. I'm fine with that.
I like the takes, I think all are hitting on the basics. The objective of this game in this league is to have a team that wins a lot of games and goes deep in the playoffs and maybe wins a couple rings over the course of a generation of a core team or group. So getting Durant's skills don't really equate to those for this team and we'll never know, so really to "ease the pain" as you put it would be to simply be healthy, develop into that defensive player that we see flashes of, avoid the fouls so he can actually be out there long enough to convert that defensive ability into wins. If you add in 3+ all-star appearances telling that he's evolved into one of the best centers in the league, and if he wins a DPOY award or two, that in my eyes is as valuable as winning an MVP for popularity and scoring points, so that would be enough to make me happy we took the pick. At the end of the day if we have a ring by 2020 and Oden was playing larger minutes/games then it is likely he was the primary cause of that ring and I would have no amount of pain over that pick and would be praising the choice at that point.
