If GO were a #15 overall pick then there wouldn’t be the same level of criticism leveled at him, but that is not reality. He WAS picked #1 overall and he DID come into the league with similar expectations to Robinson, Shaq, Olajawan, Ewing, etc. KP and Blazer management did nothing to quell those expectations either.

At this point, there is no doubt in my mind that Blazer management knows they screwed up. Greg will never become the player they thought he could become. Aside from his inability to remain healthy (HS, college, NBA) and his extremely limited skills, he does not show the same level of fire that other great players show. If he did, he would have had the pride to take it upon himself to get better this year which he did not do.

At this point, Portland has two choices. Either they keep Greg and hope he develops into a 10/10 guy or they cut their losses and move on. After all, Greg still has some trade value that if packaged with talent could bring us a very nice player. Unfortunately for us, I don’t think that KP is the type of guy that will easily admit a mistake and move on. Instead I think it’s more likely he’ll stick with Greg to a point where it hurts our future. We’ll see.

Who do you want Oden compared to? Eddy Curry and Michael Olowakandi? I thought Portland *expected* Oden to become a dominant top-flight center.

I didn’t *pick* them – I gave you the top-flight centers in the NBA over the last twenty years. Where do you see Oden fitting in there?

Again, you can say Olajuwon played three years of college, but he never played organized ball *at all* prior to that. Oden took his high school team to state championships four years straight.

Akeem signed with the Rockets and bumped Ralph Sampson out of the center position in the *preseason*. Not Joel Prysbilla, Ralph Sampson. Akeem played one round in the playoffs his rookie year – 21/13. His second year he was dunking over Kareem, Magic, and Rambis at the same time. He stole the ball from Bill Walton three possessions in a ROW, dribbling the length of the floor for two dunks and an assist.

Is it reasonable to compare Oden to Olajuwon or Robinson? Maybe not – *clearly* not at this point. But then you need to stop predicting that he’s going to develop into that kind of player; because he’s showing NONE of that.

Offense not running through him? Of course not! He can’t stay on the floor! Whether it be fouls or injury; how can the Blazers run the offense around a 20-minute player who plays less than half the games? But that’s part of who he is. He only played half a college season because he was hurt – but that’s part of who he is!

Look, the big complaint about Yao Ming is that he doesn’t get the ball enough. Portland successfully denied him the ball during both the regular season and the playoff series. Houston fans want this to be the coaches fault, the opponents fault, the other players fault. But Yao has had this problem through different coaches, different opponents, and different team mates. He doesn’t have great hands or reaction, and he is slow laterally. You can’t just say “Well, if they would get him the ball he’d be the greatest center since Mikan.” His limitations on being able to get the ball are part of who he is as a player.

Oden has given NOBODY any sign that he will be healthy for extended periods. He has shown no signs of defensive quickness other than immediately at the rim. He has shown absolutely no offensive development at all. Now, you can say that he has to recover and develop, absolutely. But saying that at this point is also saying that his upside is limited; because all the GREAT centers had already shown much more even at the start of their careers than Oden has to this point. I wish him well, but as others have said, he shows no sign of being worth the #1 pick. That’s actually fine – your team isn’t built to play inside-out anyway. If Oden could play 35 minutes and be a 15-10 player, that will be enough for Portland success. But it will still go down as a bust of a #1 draft pick.

KeS

I also disagree with KeS who just so happened to pick hall of fame centers who went to college for 3 or more years or centers that will be in the hall of fame. The one foriegn player he did pick was playing professional ball since the age of 15 and certainly had time to learn the game of basketball.

It is a fact that the center position in the NBA is the hardest position to learn of the 5 positions because you are the ancher on offense and defense.

If you want someone to be mad at then be mad at Nate for Oden’s performance because he didn’t properly develop Oden. Even being mad at Nate can only take you so far because after all Oden had 1 full year off from basketball and it takes at least a year to get back to form like it was before the injury.

For everyones sake, I am glad Oden’s rookie year is over and he now has some time off to reflect on this year and do the things he needs to do to be sucessful and ditto for the team and coaches.

Install several new skills first, throw him in the deep end, then watch him improve.

But all I could think was, “My God, when has anybody seen a sprinting, seven foot brute leading the pack in a fast break?”

Who cares if he missed the dunk? He got a little too excited to be running the floor like Lamarcus. But wow, what potential!

I only played HS ball; have been a gym rat most of my life, and have followed the sport forever. But although I’m no expert, I do feel like when I look at Greg I am looking at him like I would any other player and athlete in the gym, not as a hyped media figure.

From such a perspective, to me, he looks on one hand like a superior athlete and physical specimen with a ton of talent; who is not healed completely from a serious knee injury. Athletically, he can run and jump like few other big men, and has good hands and feet, generically speaking. He is very quick.

On the other hand, he looks like he just doesn’t know how to play basketball yet. He sort of just shoves the ball at the basket. His jump shot has good form for driveway shooting, but he has zero confidence in it. His hooks have sketchy form. He doesn’t know how to hold the ball, or how to dribbble. He doesn’t yet know how to go up strong; (despite appearances due to physical giftedness) or go up quick.

None of this is suprising, given that he has never really had a chance to learn the game. In college he was injured, right With the Blazers he was only rehabbing as well, right up to the beginning of the season. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think he even had four years of training in HS.

He almost needs to go to basketball camp and learn fundamentals of his position. (I recommend Dave Cowens to tutor him, as he accomplished more with less, through refining his skills, competed well against more talented centers like Kareem; and has indeed taught basketball for decades.)

So quite unlike most of the other centers he is compared to, Greg is a basketball pup, and a still hobbled one at that. On top of all that he is rusty, even though there was never much to rustin the first place, skill wise. He really, really needs to catch up to be at an NBA level.

You just can’t judge anything about his skills, unless you want to look foolish, because he simply has not had a chance to learn them yet.

Now consider that it is notoriously time consuming to learn a pivot man’s skills from scratch, and for godsakes do the math on all this! Anyone who does that would not be talking about Greg how he is typically talked about.

Defensively he is so gifted he already looks potentially elite, except for the fouling. When he guarded Yao, his presence was on another level as compared to Joel, who is no slouch. He looked like a peer of Yao’s, generally speaking, not unlike Shaq is a peer. Also, the whole paint environment feels uniquely different with Greg patrolling. It’s a different level of “ownership”.

You can tell just watching for a few minutes that he is a potential defensive monster, which is about all we got.

Despite his almost profound lack of skills, he was able to dominate at the highest level in college, and go on to contribute meaningfully to an NBA playoff team.

In conclusion, Oden is potentially a top five center who just has a long way to go. If the Blazers don’t get him the tutelage he needs, and rehab his explosiveness; then yes, we have a problem. If he doesn’t work hard on everything, then yes, we have a problem.

But please spare us this “he just doesn’t have it” drivel.

I maintain that with all the time he had off,didn’t he have alot of time on the court just taking it easy just shooting ??

He doesn’t seem to be able to stand there and take the easiest of shots. It just seems strange he looks so awkward taking a simple shot.

Sure,he has a thunderous dunk,but I remmember everyone talking about him shooting with his left hand and doing fairly well. It seemed impressive at the time. Now he looks like a doofus making a simple shot.

F5..
A manual ?
Did Greg say that ??
PULEAZE !
Are you Mother Oden ?

Here is one of many articles that advertised him
as a scorer..
Try this one..

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draft2007/insider/columns/story?columnist=ford_chad&page=Oden-070420

Franklin: you bring up some valid points. However you lose me when with the extreme stuff like “Made zero progress the entire season”. C’mon man. You can’t be that pig-headed.

The funny thing about extremism in either direction is usually that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.