Sorry I have been stressed out lately. My 20 month old son has been in ICU since Thursday because his mothers boyfriend beat him up. He has a fracture on his skull and times have been hard this week. I took it out on the forum again. I knew I shouldn't have pressed "post" when I wrote that... but I did anyways. I am sorry and if you need to temp ban me for it, I will accept.
Very sorry to hear about that. As a father, I can understand. Consider it forgotten. I hope your little one is OK.
I really feel bad now. I promise it wont happen again. Thank you for being kind and accepting my apology.
Who said it was "one of the strongest draft classes of the decade"? That can't be true. It was labeled a two player draft - Oden, the rebounding & defending beast in the post, and Durant, the future NBA Scoring champ. Two players does not make a draft. After Durant, who did the Blazers miss out that books to be written about the subject years from now? Yi? Horford? Brewer? Conley? Green? Noah? Wright? Some of those players are good. Some suck. But, so far, none are making anybody cry in their soup over not nabbing instead of Oden. Nothing even close to the pass on Chris Paul so we can move down and draft Webster fiasco. The only reason some folks might call Oden a bust is if he is injury prone and thus ineffective, and Durant - who the Blazers could have drafted - becomes a multiple all-star.
That draft was bad! Greg is still gonna be the man, watch! Durant will be a scoring champ, but never win a playoff series.
I agree. Martell should be on that list for sure. Kedrick Brown taken 11? Korolev taken 12th? Those aren't blue chip NBA prospects that far down in a draft. They may have flamed out of the NBA, but so did LOTS of other players. So what? Did those teams pass on an ALL-NBA talent?
Sounds like a touchy subject around these parts. Oden cant be a bust unless he flames out. Since he appears to be on an upward trend, and 21 yr old centers often take years to develop, Id say the kid deserves a few years before anyone starts tossing around the bust card.
Webster gets a pass still because of his age. High schoolers aren't typically branded busts for at least 4 or 5 seasons. Before then they just have "rocky starts." People don't really hold last year against Webster because of the injury. And he still has the same sweet-looking (although not overwhelmingly superior in effectiveness) jump shot and the NBA body. My guess is that by the end of this season he'll be legitimately placed in the "bust" category. He's kind of in the same category as Darko--certainly an NBA-level talent, but a guy who had no business being picked ahead of several franchise players.
Chris Paul and Deron Williams. Well, technically he wasn't picked before those guys like Darko was, but that was the net effect. Portland thought Webster (+Jack) were better value than either of those two guys, much the same way Detroit thought Darko was better value than Anthony, Bosh or Wade. Maybe it's not a perfect comparison.... But yeah, I'd be happy to have Bynum or Granger ahead of Webster too. Or David Lee. That was kind of a funky draft, wasn't it? Bogut, Marvin Williams, Deron Williams and the combo of Webster/Jack were all valued higher than Chris Paul.
...who had just been suspended from the ACC tourney for punching a dude in the 'nads. Can't forget that and still be objective. How many of you (us?) would've protested Nasherson getting another "thug" with talent?
Sadly, probably quite a few. This is a classic illustration of why the "character first" people just don't get it. You can't judge a kid based on what the MEDIA says about their character/personality. Paul is no more a "thug" or bad character guy than Roy. That isolated incident meant didly squat!
Agreed. He did poorly in the swimsuit competition, and his answer about "the Iraq and such" didn't help. Perhaps he can pull it out in the talent competition. barfo
The Oden is a bust tag is silly. The last info we have on him is that he played with the Olympic hopefuls, and more than showed he belonged. p.s. Oden-haters, you're going to rue the day you went up against the extreme. We're talking Imminent Ruage!
