I’ve seen Bynum a little, not a lot, but I don’t see dudes cringing when they go in like they do against Oden. I still think Bynum is a player though.

Bynum has quite an arsenal of offensive moves, but Oden does not need to have a big arsenal. He only needs a right hand move and a counter move going left, which is in his arsenal since he can shoot the baby hook right or left handed.

Oden’s main game is power. Things he need to work on are establishing deep position and sealing guys, instead of a jumper or other fancy moves. In fact, I never want to see Greg shooting a jumper. Shaq (and D. Howard) should be his offensive model and while he’ll likely won’t be as prolific scorer as Shaq, 20 PPG is within his grasp since Greg is also blessed with one thing besides power that Shaq also had (soft touch) as well as one thing that Shaq never had (FT shooting).

I’m also with the consensus: Bynum now but Oden later for his ceiling. (and what a beautiful ceiling it is)

When Oden is on, he is much more difficult to handle. See Noah’s performance against him and Bynum. Bynum profits from the improved spacing and passing skills the other Lakers have, so on average you’ll likely get more good to very good nights from him, without many games where he has no impact. Injury-wise they are about the same. And as said before, I would be shocked if Bynum in year 5 wouldn’t be somewhat better than Greg in a few categories.

If he was playing 30 minutes, that is, which I think is inevitable.

I hear you on the better defense = more foul problems = less time overall, but he’ll get up to 30 minutes sooner or later. And his offense, as raw as it is, is at the 13/13 level with VERY few shots. It’ll only get better.

He’s got a much nicer touch than Shaq or Howard; not as powerful as Shaq or as wildly athletic as Howard, but a good mix of the two. Plus, the FT shooting… we can go to him MUCH more, preferably on the move or with lobs, and get other bigs in foul trouble much more than we do now. And since you can’t foul him to stop him from scoring like you can with Shaq and Howard, eventually there will be no good solution.

I’m tellin’ ya, I’ll be shocked if he isn’t clearly capable of scoring 20+ppg within a few years. We might not have him scoring that much because of our pace and all-round offensive weaponry, but he’ll be at 18ppg or so and clearly able to average more if we didn’t have LMA, Roy, Rudy, Batum, Bayless, etc.

You watch the Lakers more than any of us, you’ve seen how they incorporate Bynum. He gets such easier shots, Kobe and Fish know how to get him those easy buckets, and Pau Gasol is one of the best interior passers at the PF spot I can remember watching. Bynum is certainly more refined offensively than Oden, but he also benefits GREATLY from being used better by his teammates.

Defense and rebounding out of a big is most important, and Bynum is only a little better than LMA at rebounding and does not exert a lot of effort on defense already… and as he ages and gets more accolades, that’s just gonna get worse.

If you had a game for your life tomorrow, you take Bynum. He is a better all-round player right now, and able to easily stay on the court. And I know I am a big Oden homer, but I take him in the long run. His defense, his PASSING (still very underrated; he rarely turns it over on the pass, unlike Howard’s first several years), his shot blocking, potentially league leading rebounding… that is all there right now.

The offense has been pretty good with very limited touches and not being used adequately at ALL. 13ppg is what he can do now, he’ll get a lot better offensively.

Mortimer

Paul would’ve been Paul, he was a year earlier than Brandon. Brandon coming in as a rookie would probably have tended toward playing off the ball with Chris at the helm.