Greg Oden - parallels to Bill Walton?

Nice story about Bill Walton from the SI archives. Lots of parallels to Oden are evident. Thanks to Henry at T.H. for catching this - thought it deserved its own fanshot.

almost 3 years ago DonkeyShins 36 comments 9 recs |

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AMAZING FIND!!!

I hope, with all my heart, that that article gets written again next year about Gregory Wayne Oden. I really do. It’s amazing how much that article does parallel Oden right now.

myspace.com/marktwainindians

by mark twain on Mar 10, 2009 12:34 PM PDT reply actions

Incredible comparisons

Take out the hippie stuff, and insert “Oden” instead of Walton, and it almost fits.

good find.

Rip City Baby...People have no idea what is coming.

Follow my twitter www.twitter.com/PDXBlazersFTW, @PDXBlazersFTW. Lots of random Blazer Posts from links I find around the blogosphere.

by lanepete on Mar 10, 2009 1:26 PM PDT reply actions

This is the best

“Bill’s a gorilla until the fight starts. Then he goes in hiding while I straighten things out,” Lucas says.

I'm a really really ridiculously good looking orange mocha frappaccino drinking manhammer sandwich

by hobobob on Mar 10, 2009 2:44 PM PDT reply actions

injury ridden first two seasons-
questions about health and desire-
questions about social skills-
coming from a successful program to a team that had been under a transition (a stretch but jailblazers to our current blazers)-

Here’s a interesting aside though.

Walton’s dreamhouse …

$100,000 A-frame in the Portland suburbs

Compare that to the homes these guys live in these days. Crazy!

"Every time Troutlaw touches the ball, I pop an anti-anxiety pill."

by DaNoose on Mar 10, 2009 3:36 PM PDT reply actions

That house that was 100k in '76 or whenever this was written...

Would probably be a million nowadays.

The house I grew up in was sold in 1990 for 89k and sold last year for 575k in SW Portland. 97219 representin! heh.

by tmundal on Mar 10, 2009 3:57 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs

It'll be back down to 100k before too much longer.. lol

Great read BTW. Lots of similarities.

by Escrote on Mar 10, 2009 7:37 PM PDT up reply actions

repre-ZENT

by kickbrass on Mar 10, 2009 11:05 PM PDT up reply actions

97219 baby +1

by Croatian_Sensation on Mar 15, 2009 8:49 PM PDT up reply actions

This should be a must read for all BEDGERS, DAVE POST ON FRONT PAGE!

myspace.com/marktwainindians

by mark twain on Mar 10, 2009 3:54 PM PDT reply actions

Looking back

does anybody else see the similarities in our current team makeup? Hopefully it will be the combination of the greatest players in Blazer history:

Oden=Walton
Roy=Clyde
LMA=Sheed
Batum (young) =Pippen(old)
Blake=Twardzik

and hopefully

Bayless=Porter

Does anybody else see those similarities?

"Damn the Blazers. Damn them to hell. They are working the rest of the league like a speed bag." - Bill Simmons 6/26/08

by SpyderRyder on Mar 10, 2009 7:59 PM PDT reply actions

no

our players now are our players now. I don’t want Bayless to be the next Porter. I loved Porter when he played and I’m sure I’ll love Bayless too once he figures his stuff out. They are different. That’s OK.

That said, the Oden/Walton parallels are interesting because it really shows how much the “Oden is a bust” people are jumping the gun.

by kickbrass on Mar 10, 2009 11:07 PM PDT up reply actions

Bayless needs to work on 3 pt shooting

if he is gonna be TP.

by Escrote on Mar 11, 2009 9:38 AM PDT up reply actions

why has it taken 1 and 2/3 of a season

for people to think about the Walton/Oden parallels?

Oderint dum metuant

by WhiteRabbit on Mar 10, 2009 11:57 PM PDT reply actions

Walton = Bust

by LaoTzu on Mar 11, 2009 12:23 AM PDT reply actions

LaoTzu = Ignorant

Walton = 2 NBA World Championships
Walton = NBA MVP
Walton = NBA Finals MVP
Walton = NBA All Star
Walton = NBA First All Defensive Team
Walton = NBA 50 All Time Greatest
Walton = Oregon Sports Hall of Fame

by fat27 on Mar 11, 2009 1:40 AM PDT up reply actions

Yeah I know, I'll take that bust anytime.

"Every time Troutlaw touches the ball, I pop an anti-anxiety pill."

by DaNoose on Mar 11, 2009 2:08 AM PDT up reply actions

It's the second sexiest kind of bust there is

I'm a really really ridiculously good looking orange mocha frappaccino drinking manhammer sandwich

by hobobob on Mar 11, 2009 9:43 AM PDT up reply actions

Walton played 468 games in 13 seasons

that’s less than half of the regular season games.. (1066 regular season games possible)

the extra 49 playoff games don’t quite replace all that lost time either…

The sad thing is that Bill Walton was a bust.. considering that he was one of the five best players coming out of college and how much injuries affected him..

Clearly.. Bill Walton is the best bust ever in the history of the NBA… but how different would things have been if he had been able to play more..

"Slum dunk? You just go to the rim, and crush.. crush the ball in the rim."
- Nic Batum

by idoltime on Mar 11, 2009 10:02 AM PDT up reply actions

Walton's problem

Was that he was suffering from osteoperosis due to copper and magnesium deficiencies (perhaps diet related). Let’s give Greg some plumbing and an old VW engine block to chew on just to make sure that isn’t an issue.

by DonkeyShins on Mar 11, 2009 1:39 PM PDT up reply actions

No one who ever saw him play

for UCLA or those two Blazers seasons would ever call the guy a bust.

I’m not talking about the guy who couldn’t run on the Celtics, I’m talking about the young Walton.

Ask Lucas if Walton was a bust. He’ll tell you. – Elgin

Blazers win BDL 2 on 2 tournament!
Skeets: i’ll close it down now … congrats. you bastards

by 22baylor on Mar 11, 2009 3:38 PM PDT up reply actions

but just imagine what he would have been

liike Royster mentions below.. Walton could have had at least a mini-dynasty of his own and a very different career if injury hadn’t been an issue..

I only use the term bust, because I’d say that the possibility of what Walton’s career could have been and his actual career were as far apart (due to injury) as Sam Bowie possibility to actual career..

of course, calling a HOFer a bust is ridiculous, but top 50 is very different than top 10. and that is what Walton’s injuries cost him..

"Slum dunk? You just go to the rim, and crush.. crush the ball in the rim."
- Nic Batum

by idoltime on Mar 12, 2009 1:25 AM PDT up reply actions

Not a bust

disappointment, maybe, because of the injury, but that’s the worst you could say. Without his injuries, it’s almost assured that he would have been a top 5 center of all time, and a very real possibility of being the easy #3 guy on the all time list. With a healthy Walton, we would have almost definitely won in ’78, and who knows after that. That would have been 2 titles in his first 5 years in the league, which is more than any top center not named Bill Russell could claim.

Who knows if we could have maintained that team with some of the contract issues, but it’s really not out of the question that we’d have put together as dominant a title run as any team outside of Russell Celtics.

by Royster on Mar 11, 2009 10:38 PM PDT up reply actions

i think lao tzu was being ironic.

i assume so anyway.

ignacio

by ignacio on Mar 12, 2009 10:06 PM PDT up reply actions

man

Great find. And what journalism too! I laughed my * off reading this article. Can’t Canzano quit writing his articles like he’s trying to win the prize for “Article Most Like The First Chapter of ‘Return of The Native’ ?”

by premthegrem on Mar 11, 2009 3:38 AM PDT reply actions

yes

great article. If you want to run your offense through your big man, maybe he should be the focus of social activities too? Lol!

At this point, It’s good to see LaMarcus and Greg start to bond a little (story about them in the taxi cab bumpin’ music), but hopefully the players organically over time create chemistry. Sounds like Oden is enjoying being alone a little bit, and that’s fine. He’ll come back around, and perhaps history will repeat itself next season (the Blazers running with a healthy Oden would be dreamtastic).

You can see it every game, the team’s bond grows. I know that it can’t hurt to have Lucas coaching all of our bigs right now w/out Oden. LMA, Frye, and obviously Joel have all stepped up their game in Greg’s absence.

Sorry for the tagent.

by appel82 on Mar 11, 2009 1:22 PM PDT reply actions

Another SI article

There was another SI article that I’ll have to find in the archive and post a link for, if I can remember to do it when I have the time. The writer started out talking about the fans in the MC serenading Walton with an impromptu chorus of “Won’t you play ball Bill Walton?” during pregame when he was sitting out with his heel injury.

by two4larue on Mar 11, 2009 1:58 PM PDT reply actions

Here's the link to the Rick Telander SI article (1-27-75)

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1089459/4/index.htm

At one practice on the morning after a game—in which he, of course, had not played—Walton came to the gym full of pep and proceeded to block his tired teammates’ shots in layup drills and make a general nuisance of himself. “Why don’t you run by yourself, Dollar?” snapped John Johnson. Other Blazers tried to ignore his presence. But when Wilkens left the floor to go to an appointment, the players suddenly surrounded Walton, grinning slyly. “Let’s take our frustrations out on Captain Flake,” someone said, cocking a ball behind his ear. “Yeah, give me your paychecks, too,” shouted Walton. “You already got ’em!” answered Johnson, and the first ball whistled past Walton’s head. Another caromed off his leg. Soon the air was filled with sizzlers as every player blasted away at the dodging, swearing center. They chased balls into the stands, laughing like maniacs, and returned to throw them at Walton, again and again.

Can you see Oden’s teammates doing something to him like this? (Compared to Bill’s first cople of years, Greg has nothing to complain about.) Of course nowadays there’s the internet and blogs and youtube and almost nothing happens “behind the scenes” anymore

by two4larue on Mar 11, 2009 6:15 PM PDT up reply actions

fixed the link to begin article on first page

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1089459/1/index.htm

SI swimsuit cover (with Cheryl Tiegs) is an added bonus

by two4larue on Mar 11, 2009 6:59 PM PDT up reply actions

thanks for pointing this out

This was a great story by a great writer (Curry Kilpatrick). – Elgin

Blazers win BDL 2 on 2 tournament!
Skeets: i’ll close it down now … congrats. you bastards

by 22baylor on Mar 11, 2009 3:48 PM PDT reply actions

6'11" 225

was a Monster Center in the 70s.
Times they have a’ changed.

by TheThinWhiteDuke on Mar 11, 2009 6:55 PM PDT reply actions

Shocking similarities

I saw Oden the other day wearing a tye-dyed Grateful Dead T-Shirt.

by Escrote on Mar 12, 2009 10:02 AM PDT reply actions

I'm sure it looked HORRRRRIBLLLLLE

Blazers win BDL 2 on 2 tournament!
Skeets: i’ll close it down now … congrats. you bastards

by 22baylor on Mar 12, 2009 1:19 PM PDT up reply actions

Bill Walton

got an education at UCLA to go along wth his two NBA titles. Greg Oden lost once in the finals then dropped out of college. That’s not a slight on his character but it is an indicator how much better equipped and prepared Walton was to deal with his career. If injuries are the parallel you seek then they are similar but there isn’t much else to compare at this point. Greg should take a lesson from Walton and work to keep his weight down. He’s heavy.

by oregonslee on Mar 12, 2009 8:11 PM PDT reply actions