To be honest, I've always felt he should have come off the bench this entire season. I think he was putting too much pressure on himself..................somehow, trying to live up to all the (incessant) hype. I think that, in and of itself, threw him and his game off. Now? He just goes out and plays basketball.
Did you know that Kareem works with Bynum every day - he is Bynum's own personal coach. Luke was doing that for Greg I think. We should get Ewing or Walton for some private tutoring, not the Greg the Beast needs it.
Roy mentioned this on his "Wheels at Work" segment last Thursday, so even his teammates are noticing it.
Definitely. Hell, I can hit a 7 or 8 foot hook shot with regularity. Obviously not against NBA players, but then I'm not built like Greg Oden. Oden has the flattest hook I've seen in a big man since Sabonis. Sabas was a fine player and it worked for him, but there's no way I'd use him as an example of how to shoot. I'd make Oden watch footage of Zach Randolph and Carlos Boozer. Those guys get beautiful arch on all their shots, including hooks, and they can get them off in ridiculous amounts of traffic. If he put that kind of arch on his shot, he'd be unstoppable. Because even when they miss they tend to bounce right above the rim, which is why those two guys are such great offensive rebounders. Oden is already one of the best offensive rebounders per minute around--you add in a few of those chippies that Boozer and Randolph live on, and it's not even fair. A lot of it is just him rushing. I know that when I'm less comfortable I tend to put less arch on it. But if you watch Boozer and Randolph, it's so ingrained in how they shoot that they shoot that way no matter how much pressure they're under. I'd love it if they forced Oden to take 500 hook shots a day, the right way, all summer. By November he could be devestating.
We should get Reggie to work with Greg because all GO really needs is some bad a$$ attitude, and he'd be set.
This was exactly the post I was going to make. And yes, Collison flopped, but in looking at the replays I actually though GO gave him a pretty good shot. I was amazed Oden didn't get called for the foul. I hadn't seen the refs give him that kind of benefit of the doubt before.
It was also a veteran officiating team. We'll see more of them and less of the bottom-feeders in the playoffs.
Greg definitely got him in the top of the throat with an elbow, but IMO Collison was already preparing to flop before the hit.
That was the kind of no-call I used to complain about all the time back when Shaq still mattered. Now that Shaq doesn't matter and Oden does, I'm happy to completely ignore my principles and say, "'Bout time the refs started giving Oden a chance to play his game!"
