YardAPE, you obviously are not going to take my original advice and go APE shit in your yard so I'm going to stop beating my head against this proverbial wall and take my kids out to our yard so we all can go ape shit. I'm pretty sure I'll feel better about this thread and everything else afterwards. I give Oden until Monday night to start dominating - and if he doesn't I'm going to fly up to Portland and protest in front of the Rose Garden.
I don't think I'm being contradictory. I didn't say I expected his "freekish" athlecism to be yielding 20/10/3. What I meant was that even in the year back from MF Surgery, Amare still threw down some thunderous dunks, and made plenty of highlight reels. He just couldn't do it for 48 minutes and 82 games. I think it's safe to say that the year coming off MF, you can expect 75-80% of the mobility and explosiveness (some nights more, some less) I'll be patient before I call for the guys head, but I just haven't seen Oden do much of anything that makes me say "Wow, what an Athlete!" - Even in his shining moments. It scares me a little, but I'm not giving up on him. Maybe he'll surprise me and come back next year exploding to the basket and thowing down alley oops and blocking shot after shot. Well see.
Well, to be fair, our guards don't throw many alley oops anyway. If we had Chris Paul, I think you'd see a difference.
I think the reason Greg isn't being passed to is cause he looks lost and out of position out there most of the time. When he does establish the low post he gets the dunk or is at the foul line. The high pick and roll with him seems it could be run a lot better too. There has to be a discipline made by the guards to get the ball to him every game and early.Every game! Once he's rolling, their shots will come and they'll be free to set up and shoot. Roy, Blake and Rudy should really take advantage of this because it feeds to their strengths and set shot preferences!
Current Greg...slower than young thin Shaq Current Greg...slower than Fat Shaq Current Greg...slower than OSU Greg Forget about bitching about the coach, Greg's touches, the officials, or anything else. To fulfill his potential, Greg has to a) get into basketball shape b) play smarter c) get his quickness back The first two will happen with time. The last one is the most important, and it's not obvious it will happen. Channing is much less quick than when he was a rookie, and I don't think he'll get his quickness back. Without his OSU quickness, Greg Oden is not really Greg Oden. They mine as well be different players. So, we don't really have Greg Oden yet. I fear those saying that we need to wait a year are right. Even worse, I fear we may never get Greg Oden
Leads all rooks in double doubles with less games and minutes. Just came off of micro fracture surgery which caused him to miss an entire year of basketball. Yes he is having foul trouble just like LMA did as a rookie. His biggest problem is the total lack of defense on the perimeter, because he gets hung out to dry all the time. He needs to learn that some baskets are just going to happen, he is being too aggressive on the defensive end.
Are Greg's hands really small? He sure does seem to get the ball swatted away, or fumbles and bumbles it, a lot.
Ok so Greg sucks, Sam Bowie v2, we shoulda picked Durant, he'll never be any good, blah blah blah etc etc etc. We get it. So what? What do you propose we do? Trade Oden? Bench him? Put him in the D-League? Just whining about it doesn't do any good. I'd like to hear your solution to this problem. What magic knowledge and insight do you have that the Blazers organization and coaching staff don't see? The first reply from DaRizzle is spot on, and worth repeating: 34 games. I'd say he's doing just fine for a 20 year old rookie coming off MF surgery, but you seem to be the basketball deity here, so maybe I'm wrong.
TehChad, Well another person on this board who can't read an entire post, shocker! I've NEVER EVER said we should trade Oden, or we should've taken KD! Read my posts and you'll see that! In fact, I've been harping on why aren't we running the offense through him just like the Lakers did with Shaq? This would open up Roy and Bayless to create, Outlaw and Rudy to set and shoot. My concern with Greg if you can read hasn't been about his talent, cause I think he's loaded, but with the coaching, lack of touches, and teaching of his center skills. What I've criticized about Greg can ALL be corrected with decent coaching! I have suggested numerous times to change his big mans coach and keep throwing the ball into the low post for him and make the guards disciplined to do it for the first quarter of every game! I have suggested Oden and LA working back picks off of each other. I've suggested working with the high pick and roll so Greg executes it better. WTF have you suggested? Oh that's right you just show up to attack posters! Maybe when your learn to read a whole post skipper you'll do better!
Greg's doing fine, considering he is being asked to learn a completely different style of basketball rather than the uptempo, run and pass style that made him so successful. I'll give him 2 years without whining about it.
This is my point! Our team is the youngest in the NBA without Raef, why in the world couldn't we tailor this team to Gregs strengths? He is a once in a decade center who any team would build around! Nate's offense isn't amazing right now, and many on this board have complained that with the type of YOUNG ATHLETIC players we have, why aren't we running more? To continue with a coach and an offense that doesn't play to our greatest strengths with this young of a team doesn't make sense!!!!!!! It would be one thing if Nate had these guys playing amazing defense and we didn't want to mess with that, but come on....... Greg is in foul trouble cause our guards don't help each other and he has to play clean up out of position. We've all seen this! When if not now would be a better time to put in an offense that plays to Greg's strengths, and our young fast team? We have the wrong coach for this type of team! Solution: Run and Gun coach!
And show me where I accused you of saying said things? I just threw the ideas out there because I was thinking you'd propose a solution of some sort, which of course you didn't. And I never referred to anything you typed Natebishop 3.
The O and Joe Freeman sure didn't help matters any in his midseason report, calling G.O. the disappointment of the team. http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2009/01/blazers_at_the_halfway_point.html Personally, I'd label some of our bench players as the disappointments this season, Channing and Sergio in particular as the season has progressed.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! AHHH!!. . . We're not going to see the real Greg Oden this year. We probably won't even see him at full strength next year but give the guy some time to breathe. We're not winning the championship this year. Let him take his lumps and learn. He'll be fine.
Have you ever wondered why all of the previous teams that have come before this group of Blazers of a similar age and other teams around the league that are super young have an almost universally abysmal record? What makes this team so different that they've been able to beat projections and post win totals that most outside observers would say places them beyond their years? Maybe, just maybe we have a coach that actually understands his team's weaknesses and strengths and does a pretty good job setting them up for success by limiting exposure to their weaknesses and maximizing strengths. I'm not saying Nate is the best coach in the league, or even that he's guaranteed to be this team's leader during (hopefully) deep pushes into the playoffs in future seasons, but I think you vastly underrate what he's been able to do with both marginal talent in his first couple of seasons with the team and now with good but young talent these past two seasons. I have almost no doubt that if we had a run-n-gun team they would post spectacular point totals and rack up the losses left and right. You think Nate isn't running the offense through Greg because he's inept, I on the other hand think Nate realizes that counting on a raw rookie center who never had much of an offensive game to begin with and can't seem to stay on the court because of massive foul trouble is the stuff of fantasy and would lead to disastrous results.
