Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blazers"

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

Yeah!

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

Lucky for us, you're not. Goodness, you're a painful read! I do like and appreciate your opening sentence, however...
Oden and Durant do have a wide gap in respective contributions.

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

Over the entire season, definitely, since Oden played much, much less. When both are actually on the floor...that's a lot less clear.

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

Well, other than the fact that Durant is asked to be the franchise player, and Oden is asked to grab rebounds and block shots. Their respective contributions must also take into account what each player is asked to do, IMO.

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

I don't think it's particularly relevant what they're asked to do...all that's relevant to me is what they actually do. Oden may not be asked to be a scorer, but he's been a very efficient one and that has added a lot of value when he's on the floor, as are the double-teams he generates despite not being "asked" to be a scorer.

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

Curious...how often do those double-teams occur? If Oden is on the floor 30% of the time....then he gets the ball on 20% of possessions...then sees a double on half of those possessions...are we talking like, what, once or twice a game?

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

He was doubled 90% of the time he touched the ball!

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

Oden was on the floor 24 MPG, so he was on the floor half the time. The other numbers aren't easy to get from the net, but from observation, your guesses seem wildly off to me. Oden got the ball far more than once per five possessions when he was on the floor. It seemed that he got the ball at least half of the possessions, if not an outright majority. He simply didn't shoot it that much.

Finally, I have no idea whether HCP's number (90%) is based on actual video evaluation, but he drew double-teams a lot when he had the ball. Significantly more than 50% of the time, IMO.

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

Agreed. Actually. Oden played roughly 25+ MPG, just happens he was in for a few minutes in the game where his patella gave way and it counts against the total bringing his mpg down, but that's sort of irrelevant, just thought I'd mention it.

He was double-teamed roughly 90% of the time that the ball got into him in the post, which was about 70%-90% of the trips down the court (even though as Minstrel mentioned he rarely shot it). So it isn't anywhere near a few times a game, but more like 90% of the 80% of the times it comes into him for the 55% of the minutes he's on the floor, or 35%-40% of a full 48 minute game.

Yao was about the only matchup that I can remember where he didn't physically dominate the defender and need a double-team. Trying to remember if there was anyone else that they didn't bring help for, maybe Shaq?

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

The Pistons won a ring with Darko but they still should've drafted Wade.

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

When you constantly have to foul like Oden does, then there's something wrong with your defensive skills. You can't talk about how GREAT Oden is when he's on the court when obviously he's not a good enough player to know how to defend without fouling. And those fouls happen ON THE COURT.

 

Re: Matt Moor at NBA Fanhouse: "Kevin Durant's Star Continues to Shine Light on Blaze

The key part you got right is "there's something wrong with your defense". I'd have to find a site that tracks it, but very few of Oden's fouls came against opposing centers. The primary issue was lack of perimeter defenders when Oden was on the floor in 09/10.

Now that said, he did struggle somewhat with fouls in 08/09 where he was having a hard time learning to keep his hands straight up instead of reaching into the shooter. But that was also because he wasn't 100% on his knee and was compensating somewhat and just needed to work that out.

We didn't see that much at all in 09/10 and he really seemed to improve on his one-on-one matchups. But Batum was injured and we slid Roy over to SF and he was continually overmatched. We had Rudy out there at SG and he can't defend a stump. Blake was starting a lot of those games at PG early last year and he couldn't defend much better either. So perimeter players were continually getting into the paint and Oden was having to bail out a lay in and foul them.

We'll see how this season looks now that he's 100% and now that we have Batum back (not to mention Matthews sitting in the wings behind Roy and Camby behind Aldridge, should add to the level of guys Oden has to bail out while he's on the floor in 10/11).