Greg Oden and the Minute Allocation to Players in Foul Trouble

A guy on my 8th-grade basketball team was 6’1" and could jump out of the gym, and was every bit as hack-happy as Greg is. My coach subbed him as soon as he was in foul trouble, and sho’ nuff, as soon as he was subbed back in he was fouling again. Finally he threw up his hands and left the kid in the game, and I think he fouled out midway through the second quarter. But for the final half-dozen games of the year he didn’t foul out once.

Moral of the story? I’m not necessarily advocating that we let Greg foul out midway through the second quarter. But hell…8 minutes, 5 fouls? If we leave him in with 2 — if we leave him in with 3, even — is he really gonna play fewer than 8 minutes? I doubt it. So let the big man learn how to play with foul trouble.

At the same time though, I’m getting really sick of the refs calling these little weak fouls on Oden. They don’t treat other big men the same way. They seem to think just because Oden is big that he must be fouling if he’s touching some body.

Now sure, Oden makes rookie mistakes and is often guilty of a foul, but all too often Oden isn’t even allowed to put a body on the other center when playing defense without getting called for a foul. It’s getting really tiresome.

in my opinion the fouls called on him were legit: hip checks, pushing on the back while going up for the block, etc.
It was wierd watching Oden come in in the 4th and be out in 30 seconds…did anyone else see the look defeat in his face? It was almost as if he tried to foul out…like he had just given up trying.
Did anyone else sense that or am I just imagining things?

but wouldn’t you if you were in that situation? the fouls were weak but they were legit. he still looks a step slow out there sometimes. chasing guards on the perimeter and pushing drivers in the back are just plain stupid on his part. over the back stuff or hacking a guy’s putback is more forgivable because I like the aggressiveness, but if you’re already in foul trouble you just gotta concede the dunk sometimes. he’ll get better and the refs will prob cut him some more slack as time goes on…

Bad move to avoid those fouls.

Nates job is to win games and having to go with LMA @ C and playing small ball against a team as rough as the Nuggs or the Jazz is a recipe for a loss. Oden may not get in rhythm, but he still can be there if needed when Joel fouls out.

I understand that some impatient fans want to have Greg foul out to learn how to do that but what does that teach him? It teaches him bad habits so that if and when Joel goes into decline or is injured, we will have no depth behind Greg, either that or he will have 5 fouls in the 1st Q and will play tentative the rest of the game.

The season is only a 3rd of the way through and since Greg has only played in 2/3rds of those games he is even less experienced.

Dont worry he’ll get it.

Sure, GO might immediately pick up another foul. But if you pull him out after less than a minute on the court, you’re GUARANTEED a completely unproductive night from him. A player has to at least break a sweat to get in a rhythm. Nate could have gotten at least something out of GO tonight had he let him stay in after picking up those quick second half fouls. Pulling him was knee-jerk coaching, in my opinion.

Thankfully, Super Przy saved the day this time.

Greg isn’t going to do us any good on the bench. I suppose we may want him in the game at the end to try and contest some shots on D, but the guy needs to play. Even more, our team needs to make a concerted effort to get him the ball on defense. If you don’t want Nene getting 7 offensive rebounds, let him try stopping Oden. Let the other team get into foul trouble for once. If Greg is going down due to fouls, we might as well take some of our opponents down with him.

was the way he ran down the floor in the few minutes he played. I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but he tends to run fairly slow in transition. Last night, he was sprinting the full length on two different occasions, which surprised me a bit.

But with Greg last night, he couldn’t go 1 minute with out fouling someone. If Nate left him in after number 4, all signs point to him picking up #5 a minute or two later. For the guys who don’t generally have trouble with fouls, I agree completely. Like when Roy got 2 early fouls the other game, he is a guy that Nate should be able to trust to play through it and not pick up his 3rd. Greg, not so much….