I am posting this here, it's not exactly a typical diary thread but I'd like some feedback. I'm sure most or a lot of the fans on this site are familiar with Greg Odens YardBarker site. I just watched his latest video posting.

  It was a copyrighted Blazer Productions clip. I haven't been to The Blazers official website but my guess is that it is running on that site as well. I was disappointed. Not in content, as it was interesting enough. Some comments from Oden about rehabbing and watching games to learn from them, some comments from Bayno (I think) about Oden getting the opportunity to learn by watching. For a Blazer fan, not a bad way to spend a minute.

  My hope is that Oden continues to place real unproduced self made video clips on his Yardbarker site, or even The Blazer site if The Blazers want a piece of the action. I got a sense of the genuine Oden from his self camera held, self spoken videos. It was refreshingly unproduced, unscripted. In this day and age it actually felt somewhat unique.

  I know as Oden "grows up" and his career progresses it might just become more difficult for him to maintain that level of connection. However it was a nice insite to see non-professionally produced video and read semi-spontaneous postings from Oden complete with the occasional spelling error. As a fan it made me feel I was getting a glimpse of Oden the human being, not Oden the N.B.A. "product".

   I'm not sure this is even a problem at all. Oden often posts and has posted other videos from interviews and commercials, I'm just hoping that he continues and is allowed to continue to post his own personally made comments and observations. Hopefully this isn't a case of The Blazers, or Odens advisors trying to control the image or "product".

   Oden showing me his messy apartment and his favorite watermelon and Cookie Crisp seems so much more real, and unrehearsed than Oden carefully telling me about learning from watching the game, followed by Bayno more or less repeating the same message.

  I suppose there must be both. The Marketed Oden, and Hopefully the "real" Oden. Even before we drafted him, his "realness" was a quality I liked about this newest Blazer. I hope he is allowed to continue to share this with fans, unrehearsed and unscripted.