Re: Oden saved his worst for last Certainly discouraging heading into next season, for him and the fans. His confidence level has to be at an all-time low. I'm still not convinced he even loves the game. He has some of the worst body language I've ever seen, he makes basketball seem more like a job than anything.
The strange thing is, all of the experts said Oden was a "can't miss" kind of player. I guess he fooled us all.
Another problem is that Greg receives some of the worst passes possible. Only Rudy really gets the ball to nicely with that little sweeping pass to him. Tonight Roy threw the ball at Greg's feet with two guys defending Greg. Earlier in the series Roy threw a weak pass to him for a lob that got intercepted. That's nothing against Roy it is just something he and Greg need to work on this summer to develop a great pick and roll tandem.
i think most had way to have of expectations to start with. his offensive game was extremely raw coming into the league but most seemed to ignore this when we drafted him and made him out to be the next duncan/shaq/russell. it takes time for the big guys to get acclimated to the game. think about, until this season he's probably never been on a court where someone could look him square in the eye. he dominated at every level without ever really having to learn effective moves. now he's playing against the best of the best and history has shown us that big men progress much slower than guards. the game over the next couple years will slow down and he should spend the entire offseason working with a bigs coach learning some post moves. he isn't the savior that the media/blazers pr made him out to be but he doesn't have to be a savior. i will end with this, yao ming was considered a bust his first two years in the league and many were calling him a stiff and that he'd never make it. i know we live in a, reactionary/what have you done for me lately, culture but let the kid grow. if we are having this convo in two years then i'll be worried.
Who called Yao a bust? In his 2nd year he was an 18 and 9 player with 2 blocks. I'd take that from Oden knowing what we know now.
the funny thing is that oden actually produced at the same rate as a 15/10/2 player, most people just don't realize it because he wasn't on the court enough with his foul trouble.
I am confident we will see a similar to college Oden next year after an off-season of conditioning (and not a year of mindless upper body weight lifting) and working solely on moves. You could see some of his quickness coming back in this series in spurts and that was comforting as it is just a bit past the 18 month mark (which is usually pin pointed for starting to regain your full quickness and athleticism after the surgery).
is it his fault that he's foul prone? partially. oden can't do anything about some of the ridiculous calls made against him. next season he won't be a rookie anymore. i bet that's enough to eliminate a foul a game just from the refs calling him differently solely because he isn't a rookie.
Well another thing is that Nate freely admitted to telling Oden to not back away and track the player when he's switched on the pick and roll. He said that is "lazy defense like Shaq learned" and he wanted Greg to "learn how to defend the switch". So that didn't help in the foul department.
I think most of that comes from taking a year off because of microfracture surgery, dealing with learning to trust his knee again, injuring his foot, and then injuring his other knee. His lower body is basically screwing him over at this point I think. Plus the added weight of the top of his body. It's like he's relearning to play the game with a different body which is why I am hoping the trainers have a new approach with him this off-season. Mostly I figure if I can wait through four years of Travis, Sebastian to Ha, Viktor, Sergei, Charles Smith, Ratliff and Shareef then I can wait two years for Greg to recover from microfracture surgery. Especially while Brandon has decided during this time waiting for Greg he's going to turn himself into a superstar.
To be honest, watching Ha, Telfair, Khryapa was a lot more tolerable than watching Oden struggling to run up and down the floor, much less play basketball.
his offensive game was never that good. he got by with being bigger/stronger and usually quicker than the guys guarding him in the college game. he was supposed to be a dominant defensive big man right away. i will give you that, and GO has been a disappointment so far. he even said it himself when he graded his season a C-. but the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth is just plain stupid. let the guy develop and see where he is two years from now instead of freaking out and calling him a bust after his rookie season.
I can't wait for all you doubters to jump on the Oden wagon when he starts playing better. All the reasons for his struggles have been listed about a million times so won't lis them. I am in the camp that Odne will not be a bust. I am a little surprised at the stats he is going to have to put up for some people to not call him a bust. With Roy, LMA and an upgrade at PG or SF there won't be that many points left for him to get. He will never be our first or second option on offense so much more then 12 points is not going to happen. You peole just need to get off his back, let him develop as a player, and then sit back and enjoy what the Blazers are going to do for the next 5-10 years.
That wouldn't explain his bad hands, or his poor instincts. I get really tired of people defending Oden against all charges simply because of his surgery. The surgery didn't take away his entire game.
clean the chipped bone up and get some conditioning, and foot work in, and he'll be a new player next year, i hope.
Oden, in retrospect I, like many here, gave him the benefit of the doubt all year. But in reality, maybe he's not all that that, and maybe he's not going to be. He sure has a LONG way to go if he is.
Re: Oden, in retrospect Oden still has the potential to be the guy we thought we were drafting. Next season is really going to tell us if he has it in him to reach that potential.
