I've had microfracture surgery. Now, my case was a bad one - and it sounds like "The Anchorman" had a very small affected area and should come back 100%.

But I just think that the single worst thing you could do to a recovering knee is add 30 lbs to the load that it has to carry. Muscle, fat, it doesn't matter - 30 lbs is 30 lbs.

We drafted a 7-footer who had the best combination of strength, speed, and explosiveness that has come around since Shaq. Name two things that are worse for explosiveness and speed than a knee injury and adding 12% to your body weight?

On the positive side, it's nice to hear that he is a hard worker, and seems determined to come back better than ever. Plus, I am trying to trust the team's judgment, it just isn't always easy.

The center of the future is a guy built like Amare, Howard, or Chandler. Obviously Howard's a marvel to look at, but Oden was already strong enough to move all of these guys around a bit.

Like you said, Shaq is becoming irrelevant. Yao is big, but he will get torched by an athletic Oden in our open-court game. Eddy Curry, a young guy who was a prized possesion 2 years ago, has quickly become out-dated in a league that has legitimate centers running circles around him.

I'm all for adding a little bit of muscle every off-season, but after the knee is back to full strength.

Oden was built perfectly for our team the moment we drafted him.

Oden was 19 when we drafted him and he'd spent a year out of the weight room because of his wrist injury. Remember the first time you started lifting weights? Your body reacts a lot faster and muscle builds very quickly initially, especially when you're a whipper-snapper at 19.

Secondly, Greg Oden is going to change the dynamic of the game when he's in there. We shouldn't be worried about "Can he push Shaq around? Will he be able to handle Dwight Howard? Yao?" In this case, it should be about Oden morphing into the type of beast that he wants to be, and other teams having to react to it.

I'm reminded of "Blue Chips," a now classic movie in my opinion that starred a young Shaq (as a decent actor!) and Penny Hardaway. In the movie, you see Shaq as a mobile big man who could physically impose his will on a game. That is the type of player that Greg Oden is. And if you remember, Shaq lifted weights hard his first couple years in the league, worked on his post game, and then all of a sudden we weren't saying "Oh, how is Shaq going to cover Ewing," we were saying "No one in the league can stop Shaq, what can we do to slow him down..."

I think it's great that Oden is doing everything he can to improve, and keep in mind that lifting is just the first step in a long process to get him back on the floor...

Also, we weren't concerned with his ability to bump with Shaq or Yao. Read the post again - we were concerned with his speed and general explosive quickness.

My whole point is that the game is changing away from bulk and power. Of course I understand how young men will naturally put on weight over time, but I don't know if the Blazers should be speeding up that process- 30 lbs at a time-  BEFORE his knee is healed. I would literally like for Greg to be as light as possible until his knee is all the way back and he is several months back into full-contact activity. Then he can hit the weight room a little.

In direct response to the end of your post, Champs - building upper body strength has nothing to do with "the long process of getting him back on the floor".

If you remember, it was his knee- not his biceps- that got injured. Healing his knee back to 100% is the only thing that they should have their eye on right now. The guy threw LaMarcus around like a rag doll this summer- upper body strength is not keeping him off the floor.

The kid is 19, how much did your body change between 19 and 25? The body he had when he was draft is not the body he will have when we win championships, regardless of if he had this knee problem or not. Was he strong? Yes, but he needed to get stronger still, this is good news.

This is 100% true if he is fast, explosive, and strong. This is completely untrue if he is of average speed, average quickness/vertical, but really strong.

We already have a Jerome James in the NBA. How is he doing right now?

We come here to discuss and dissect everything that happens (or doesn't happen) in Blazerland.

Heck, there are 20 posts in a diary about a Stephon Marbury trade that will never, ever become close to happening.

If you are going to call this discussion "over-reacting", then you don't belong here.

We are grown men and women sitting at desks at work at 11:00 am, blogging and reading about a sports team who has been among the league's worst for a few years in a row now. So just the fact that you are here with us means that you can't consider this discussion an over-reaction.

I'm guessing that you also came on and told everyone they were over-reacting about 1 year ago when they were saying that Brandon Roy should have surgery as soon as possible.

Sometimes people who are thinking about the big picture- and not how much better Oden will look with his shirt off- are right on the money.

Do you really think the team and Oden are not thinking about the big picture? Are you honestly saying they want Greg to look good with his shirt off more than they want him to be a dominate basketball player?  I believe that comment, and others like it, are an over-reaction, and that is why I said so.

Just because we like to talk Blazers here, doesn't mean that every discussion is an over-reaction, some are only a reaction like the Marbury diary you brought up.  That was not an over reaction in my view, it was a simple question ask, "would you want to do this?" The comments were great on both sides of the arguement, but none over reacted as far as I can see.

When it comes to Greg, we have over reacted in my opinion on almost every bit of news that comes out on him.  From his eating habits, (that was a huge one) to conspericy(sp?) theroy's about how he really hurt his knee.  This is just the latest bit of news in which I feel we are going a bit over board.  I half expect to see a John Canzano article or blog post about how the Blazers are ruining their #1 pick by letting him work out on oregonlive tomorrow.

Do we have reason to be concerned about Greg and how the Blazers are handling him? Sure, we are invested in this team and we want to see them do well and win championships. But the Blazers have shown no signs of making horrible decisions, B. Roy's heel injury while concerning, was not a bad decision on the Blazers part. Many doctors agreed that rest would solve the problem.  Now that it has come back, he may have to go under the knife, but foot surgery is nothing simple and should not be taking lightly.  Which is why I feel they made a smart decision and the right decision last year.

Listen, Roy, LMA, Greg, and the other players are not going to win those championships alone, they can't win them inspite of the management of the Blazers.  They can only win them with the management doing well and making good decisions. So at some point we need to trust that the Blazers management, including the training staff, coaching staff, front office, and team doctors are working just as hard as the players to win Portland it's second NBA championship, and 3rd, and 4th, etc... :)

I prefer to call it interest, or buzz, or excitement, or anticipation. The fact is that the media is over-covering every last detail about this team now, because interest is at an all-time high (also, things like blogs make it so easy these days).

One part that I need to take exception with:
"Do you really think the team and Oden are not thinking about the big picture? Are you honestly saying they want Greg to look good with his shirt off more than they want him to be a dominate basketball player?  I believe that comment, and others like it, are an over-reaction, and that is why I said so."

I said in my first post in this thread that I trust the team knows what they are doing. I know that I am just a lay-person.
Also, I am not claiming that the team is excited to that Greg will look better with his shirt off - that was a sarcastic response to the (generally naive) enthusiasm that some posters above were expressing as a reaction to this "news" about Greg's weight gain.

I personally think (yes, even everyday people are allowed to have opinions) that such a dramatic gain in weight on a person who just had season-ending knee surgery warrants a worrisome reaction. I also noted my personal experience with microfracture surgery, and just thought that it was worth pointing out that this may not be good news, but something to be cautious about.

Again, I generally trust that the team knows what they are doing, but I still can use my tiny bit of knowledge on knee problems, weight gain, etc, to be concerned about the situation.

Of course developing his strength will be a huge asset one day, but you have to do these things in the correct order. Developing strength means developing lbs too, and you just don't want to do that until after the knee is back to where it used to be.

His knee is going to come back and say to his brain "what the hell did you do? I can't carry this shit around!? did nobody tell you that I'm a little out of shape and very sore???"

As a matter of fact I'd guess it is. It was Jason Quick 'reporting' what he 'heard' from an anonymous blazer official.

I would assume that Oden and the Blazers are receiving the best medical advice during his rehab. There was already direct discussion from the blazers about using this year to strengthen Oden's core. This could be part of that.

It's unclear what Oden's optimum weight should be or what type of balance he should have between upper and lower body. But considering his height and body type, 275-285 lbs doesn't seem excessive at all.

you idiots can all kiss my ass.