In only 22-24 mpg, he's averaging 10 rpg and 3 bpg. That's what Nate said- rebounding and defense. Unfortunately, he can't stay out of foul trouble and he's awkward out there on offense. If he could stay out of foul trouble and gain some confidence handling the ball, we'd be much better off. I disagree with Nate that defense and rebounding is all that we should ask of him. We need at least 10 ppg from him. Most people in here predicted that he would give us 12-15 ppg this season. He gave us 9 ppg last season and he was just getting his feet wet. Where is this season's improvement? We should be making plays to get him confident out there. Not just hand him the ball at the end of the shot clock when there's nothing better to do.
He's still stunting his development on the offensive end. When he does go to Greg it's usually an ISO late in the clock. At this stage we should be running strictly pick&rolls with Greg like Chandler/New Orleans.
Blake ran a great PnR tonight with Oden. Oden had a clear run to the basket, and could have sent down a monster jam; if Blake had have passed it to him .... .... instead Blake chose to pass to Aldridge at the top of the key, for a jumper.
To be fair to Blakey, he DID attempt to find Oden on the break, where Greg rose up pretty high and almost jammed it. Unfortunately, the ball was so high and behind him that when he was fouled the officials said there was no way it was a shot attempt and free throws were not awarded.
Greg gets terrible position when he's trying to get an entry pass. He also drop steps really poorly. So predictable. With experience and comfort after his microfracture (they say it takes a year to be comfortable to spin around) he should hopefully be better. Hopefully it was more of a case of Chuck Hayes having quick hands to slap the ball away than anything.
Nate is probably not the best coach for Greg to have. I am not saying that is good or bad, but it's just an observation.
Didn't you just get done saying that scrubs around the league play better than Oden? Why would you want him to have the ball in his hands then?
Leaving aside the offense, he fouls WAY too much. This can't be blamed on refs, and it can't be blamed on superstar calls for the opponent. Its something he needs to fix.
Come on, there were a couple of ticky tack fouls called on him, b/c people dramatize it. If you were to have Roy do the same thing to Battier, or whatever, it wouldn't have been called a foul. see Melo and Webster last game battling. Just like Mike said, they need to keep that shit consistent. But you also can't blame Oden on some of those either, you have to blame our shitty perimeter defense. Letting the quick guards blow by them and Oden has to come over and either block or get ran into and call a foul.
So you want all your players to be treated like superstars? I'm just saying that in the playoffs last year, whenever Oden racked up the fouls people complained it was because of Yao getting calls. Well, this year he's getting into foul trouble against the likes of Chuck Hayes and Luis Scola. The constant there is Oden fouls a lot. That's his problem that he needs to deal with. Once he learns out to play defense and rebound with fouling, he'll be a truly impact player. The offense can come around later.
See that's the thing, I don't want any of the players to be treated differently. Either call the foul or don't, but don't change it based on who the player is. Is it a foul or not?
The thing is Oden isn't getting fouls during plays I swear 70% of them are away from the ball and bullshit calls. He learns to use his lower body more and not use his upper body other then to get position for a rebound. The majority of the calls were bullshit or the fault of our perimiter D. He's had a few legit fouls squarely on his shoulder on defense, but probably not more then 4 out of his 16 total.
