But still, it was nice that he took the time to talk about a few things.

I mean the guy is pretty busy, I’m sure he has other things he needs to get done other than watch 2 hours of turnovers and foul calls. Sure it would have been nice of him to take some time and check out his new team mates but I wouldn’t take it as him not caring or anything like that.

They’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other in training camp and pre-season.

He said he had not talked to anybody on the team since the end of the season. That interview really makes me feel bad.

for basketball like Bird, Jordan, Kobe and others had/have. That was one of my worries about drafting him over Durant. But still, this was just no-count summer league play.

What bugged me more than this, was that he didn’t seem to follow the team around last year all that much on road trips like it was stated he was going to do. He did that super long one I believe, but missed others. But he was rehabbing, which I’m sure was much better facilitated right there in Portland (and he was very diligent about that rehabbing). You know one of the things that bothered me the most, was his lack of enthusiasm when sitting on the bench watching while his OSU teammates played in the NCAA tournament.

Everyone likes Greg because of how laid back he is. It’s hard to have both Kobe’s driven passion and Greg’s easy going, fun personality. Fortunately, he’s supremely talented and given good health he should still contribute a ton to the team, with or without that inextinguishable fire. Just a guess, but I think the NBA season will be very long for him.

Summer league is kind of a pain to watch. I’m sure not even Jerryd’s parents watched his games at SL.

Doesn’t bother me one iota. Considering his schedule, that would have been a complete waste of his time. The only basketball I want him to watch on TV right now would be Pete Newell big man instructional videos (if they even exist).

There is a small part of me that feels a bit bugged, but you got to look at the whole body of work. Perhaps this is a gross way of oversimplying what Ben wrote, but it seems like the perception people are having with this is that….... Greg Oden didn’t watch summer league and hasn’t been in contact with his teammates, therefore Greg Oden must not care.

Greg Oden cares a lot. He may not eat, sleep, or die every tiny aspect of Blazermania yet, but he cares. Apologizing for an injury shows he cares. The kind of rehab he has been doing really shows he cares. Do I need to mention Rasheed and Darius in the same sentence when comparing them to Oden’s work ethic?

Greg said he hadn’t talked to his teammates. That is kind of sad. I’d like to see him be more proactive in staying in touch with them. On the otherhand, it is fair to point out that perhaps some of his other teammates with phones should give him a ring as well. It is a two way street.

He is a 20 year old kid who looks 40 who we seem to think should act like he’s 30. He’ll show his true colors in the not too distant future.

You must have taken the sensitive pill or else its just that time of the month for you. Seriously, summer league? He doesn’t have time for that , and when he’s done lifting, marketing, promoting, pumping, practicing, training and rehabbing, I have no doubt the last thing he thinks about is his teammates or their summer league play. He probably meets up w/ old buddies, hangs w/ his girlfriend or watchs movies while wrestling w/ charles barkley mclovin. Although i voted that it bugs me, i changed my mind after I started to think. RELAX buddy, you are a G that doesn’t mean you have to loke up on everyone anytime something is not exactly right!

Sophia

that he wasn’t even the little bit curious about Bayless. The national media couldn’t shut up about his play in SL so you’d have to be under a pretty big rock not to know what’s going on. Since he’s your teammate, don’t you think you’d tune in for at least a quarter or two?

it was the total absence of ANY Blazer player. I didn’t expect any to come and watch every game, but I thought someone should have made an appearance. Chris Paul was there and I don’t know who all else. Same way with the Rookie-Soph game or All-Star Game. I saw Blaze, but no players. You’da thought that somebody might have wanted a quick trip to Las Vegas…

It sure wasn’t his best interview, so I’m not going to take it TOO seriously. But I gotta say I was surprised that he wasn’t curious about “the new guy” and I sure wish he’d mentioned that he’d talked to Brandon or LaMarcus or SOMEBODY.

nothing to get emotional about

Henry Abbott of TrueHoop decided he would rather have Durant than Oden: Durant lives and breathes basketball and thinks nonstop about dominating on the court; Greg Oden is a more-or-less regular kid who happens to be 7 feet tall and can play some hoop. I’m not even inferring this, Abbott actually mentioned this in his blog last summer during the GO/Kevin Durant Apocalypse debate.

So, to me, this is the price of having Oden: He’s got stuff in his world outside of Basketball, and he’s already thinking about his life after basketball, at all of 19 years old. He approaches the NBA like most of us look at our job: things we do for a living between doing things we’d rather be doing.