Keeping the Oden angst in perspective.

With all this talk about Greg not living up to the hype I thought it was funny to go back and look at certain number 2 overall pick in his rookie season, where he averaged 22 minutes, 9 points, 5 rebounds, 1.2 blocked shots and 3 fouls per game.

Does anybody here remember this kind of hand-wringing over LMA's rookie year? I sure don't.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/stats?playerId=2983

 

He was playing behind our leading scorer that year and improved all season long, but I get your point.

 

In fairness, many people said LMA was a "project".....people who said (say) that about Oden get yelled at!

There is also the hyperbole factor. Most people agreed LMA was going to be a good player - but no one went around calling him a "once in a generation" talent.

Lastly, Oden was NOT a rookie! He was a second year player who has missed 100+ games over his first 2 seasons. That is a big problem - and one which some of us refuse to ignore.

 

Oden made the rookie team for the all-star break this year, not the sophomore team.

Check your facts!

 

+1

It's not a secret that expectations were far higher for Oden than they were for LMA. So much that it's not really fair to compare the two.

 

Check the pre/post all star stats for Aldridge. For Oden.

LA showed tremendous upside to finish out his rookie season (even with the heart issue). Oden didn't.

 

If the Blazers were in the playoff hunt during Aldridge's rookie year he might not have played as much. Nate obviously was trying to win every single game this year more than any other year. Two years ago it was all about rebuilding the team. This year it was all about making the playoffs. Two totally different situations with different kinds of pressures.

 

Nate played Magloire ahead of Aldridge for much of the early/mid season in 2006 citing that LA wasn't ready yet. The only reasons LA got more minutes to finish out the season were because of injuries to our bigs, and his improvement. Oden didn't get minutes as a result of his own foul trouble (you can partially blame the refs' collective vendetta against him for that). I can almost guarantee that Nate would have played him more if he could.

 

Exactly. Look at Oden's second through 6th games back from his foot injury at the beginning of the season. He played GREAT. People in here said he'd be kicking ass by the end of the season but the fact is, he got worse and gave us relatively nothing in the playoffs.

 

When I see a Greg Oden that is in great shape and still not producing give me a call. Until then, much of what I saw this year doesn't mean much.

 

But at the top of the season, Oden said his surgically repaired knee was stronger than his other knee. And look at his stats in his first few games back from his foot injury. He produced. So why did his production wane? And why, after a year to get in shape and learn the pro game, did he end up giving us relatively nothing in the playoffs?

 

Kevin Pritchard said he doesn't think Greg was in very good shape all season. I'll take his word over yours.

 

I didn't say Oden was in shape. I said ODEN said his knee was strong.

 

Well you quoted my post where I was talking about Greg's level of fitness and followed it up with Greg saying his knee was strong. Maybe you confused yourself?

 

I actually brought up this point yesterday. He didn't look in top physical shape(would be pretty hard to obtain considering how limited he was in working out), but he wasn't even close to basketball shape. I don't think he was even cleared to play 5v5 full contact until August or maybe September, so it's kind of hard to be in basketball shape if you can't play basketball.

 

Given that the season ended a week ago and we have several Oden angst threads, I highly doubt we'll be talking about anything else this summer-- much less keeping anything in perspective.

 

I hope you are right my friend....but as people keep pointing out, there is a difference between "hope" and "expectation"!

 

One thing I will say about Aldridge is that he seems to have a ridiculous work ethic. I don't think it's a stretch to say, with the information that's been released to the public, that Aldridge worked harder on his game than Oden.