Despite the injuries, Oden's ceiling is still as high as Durant's
I know, I know, another Oden vs. Durant article. This one does a good job of explaining what we already know - when Oden's healthy, he's a beast in the paint. Some awesome graphs to back it up.
almost 2 years ago
notjames116
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This is pretty good.
I maintain hope that Odens luck turns.
A positive attitude will not solve all of your problems but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort - Herm Albright
Keep the faith.
I love this.
If he can start to pull together full seasons he’s going to be a monster. I think Zydrunas Ilgauskas is the model here… he had major foot problems early in his career, and missed one full season and only played five games in another, but he’s proven to be extremely durable since then (8-9 good solid seasons). Oden’s ceiling is a great deal higher than Ilgauskas’s too, obviously.
by therecanonlybeone on Feb 12, 2010 6:20 PM PST reply actions
modern medicine has changed the outlook on lower body injuries
I don’t imagine greg ever playing more than 70 games in any season at his size, but up in that area would be awesome….
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
Minutes per game is a huge Oden problem
and as long as this system continues will remain to be. In the two and a half seasons since they came into the NBA Durant has played 7,680 minutes in 204 games averaging over 39 minutes per game this year. On the other hand Oden has put up just 1835 minutes in 82 games and played a little under 24 minutes per game in his 21 games this year in spite of being as healthy as he has ever been. In his 82 games he has played 39 minutes or better in a game ONE TIME. It is quite possible that he will never reach Durants 7,680 minutes in his entire career. This stats per minute stuff is weak lets see the numbers he would put up actually playing at least 30 minutes every night, but I do not think that will ever happen.
I tend to agree that it's an unfair analysis.
There are reasons Oden doesn’t play big minutes: he fouls a lot and he gets tired a lot.
The article was only a numerical analysis. Oden still clogs the lane that our guards need to drive to the hoop, he still slows our pace even more than it already is, and he still causes the wing players to stand around when he posts up.
That said, I still love Oden and think there is hope we can use him properly, but I am just playing Devil’s Advocate.
Portland > Tacoma
by CaptainSexyJacob on Feb 15, 2010 4:21 PM PST up reply actions
If he can get healthy, more experienced
and as he gains a more mature reputation in the league amongst officials, his foul trouble will decline, it was already far better early this season in comparison to last season. I think if he can get the knees both working at the same time he will likely be about a 32 minute per game guy with his backup getting about 16. guys the size of Oden are actually more effective with managed time on the court, plus it would be smart for the blazers to down throttle the regular season minutes to better ensure a healthy greg for playoff time. If he can get and stay healthy…I think he will though, these particular knee injuries are completely unrelated and relatively flukey things…I certainly hope so…he deserves it, I feel so bad for him and how how bad he feels for us. Apologizing to his team mates as he is wheeled off the court, reeasing that press release before even getting any treatment…i just love the kid…
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
I hurt a little inside when I saw the picture of Oden and Durant
I miss seeing our centers in uniform and on the court.
by Jaedin on Feb 12, 2010 10:23 PM PST reply actions 3 recs
All this is a mute point if Oden misess games left and right.
What really good is Oden if he helps us a win a handfull of games but as the season wears on him and his chance of injury climbs and perhaps does get hurt, isn’t there for the PLAYOFFS?
I mean for me personally I would hope to see the Blazers making it into the 2nd or 3rd rounds on a consistant basis, not neccesarily playing in the Finals every year.
B.S. Liberal Studies OSU '06
Trade for Gerald Wallace!!
maybe we can just save oden for the playoffs then.
"There are a few teams you have to watch out for in the fourth quarter."
"Yeah, but Portland definitely is not one of them."
-New Orleans Hornets broadcasters at the end of the third quarter with the Hornets leading 74-59. Portland later ends up winning 97-89.
"They don't mind him shooting that shot at all. Rudy Fernandez is not that great of a 3pt shooter."
-New Orleans Hornets broadcasters right after a Rudy Fernandez missed 3pter. Rudy Fernandez finished the game with three 3pters on six attempts.
by Tofu Anonymous on Feb 13, 2010 2:46 AM PST up reply actions
hehe "Greg Oden benched for entire regular season" headline...
Yeah that would work…:}
There is always practice, his other knee could fly off this time during warm-ups who knows.
I love Greg man! Why do you have to be Mr.Glass!?!?
My wife and I just ran into him in Downtown Ptown the other day and she high-fived the big lug..then went home and looked up those nudey pics lol.
OSU '06
Trade for Gerald Wallace!!
which is why I am all for him back this year
Not the “let’s be careful” plan.
I mean if the doctors say he is healed, go for it, get while the gettin’ is good.
"Travis went all wang-dang diddly wubba SPROING wow-wow on everybody " Dave's recap, season opener
Can you see Oden missing games left and right in the future?
Cause I cant.
A positive attitude will not solve all of your problems but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort - Herm Albright
Keep the faith.
At some point freak injuries become injury prone
And time on the floor a wonderful surprise.
I am thinking Grant Hill.
Don't think Grant Hill
Oden is his own case.
A positive attitude will not solve all of your problems but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort - Herm Albright
Keep the faith.
When Tracy Macgrady is healthy
he is as good as any scorer in the league.
Doesnt change the fact that he is an injury farm. Just like our boy G.O
Ball handling and dribbling are my strongest weaknesses."—David Thompson
hello,
I’ma say up to this point we skrew’d the pooch.
Greg " could " be the most dominant center the game has ever seen " still " but the chances are getting slimer and slimer by each passing day, is he the better choice of the two the day that they were chosen? no. he’s not, up to this point anyway.
will he ever be? maybe.
probably not.
but maybe.
Will We Be Happy with Who we chose in 20 years?….. sure… but We’ll be alot happier if we have 1 or two Championships to justify passing on the one and only Kevin Durant.
I’m curious who’d be our back up/center if we took KD?
Meh..
Yeah, the would ifs are fun, but we got a injured GO to worry about, here’s to him and a speedy recovery….
I still hope he’ll be everthing I want him to be, …. it’s just getting really hard to swallow anymore that he might not.
The Faith don't panic, the faith freaks out, burns out farms, and torchs small villages in the name of The Faith.
Head Czar of Amerika <--- Mortimer said so so there!!!
I agree with you.
The flip side of the story is this. If Greg never gets healthy, we dont have him or KD. If we pick KD, we stil have him, just gotta find a center. I am sure if that was the only missing piece, KP would find the right fit when the time is right.
Blazer Pride.
by loyal_blazer on Feb 13, 2010 10:33 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs
Yeah, the writing on the wall is getting clearer. I still hold out hope that Greg will turn into a player that is worthy of a #1 pick,
but hope in one hand and crap in the other and see which one fills up first. Right now our team plus Durant would be competing with the NBA elite, plain and simple.
"What people need to know is that those pictures were taken a year and a half ago, and I've grown since then." - Greg Oden
by dario argento on Feb 13, 2010 6:00 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
maybe Durrant would have been hit by a max train if he lived in portland, too bad we did not take Oden
maybe if greg went to OK city he doesn’t suffer that micro-fracture injury, he doesn’t chip the other knee, which then cracks the following season, maybe Greg would not have had these injury problems with OKC at all and maybe he would have lead OKC to three straight playoff series victories over the blazers these last 3 years….maybe my lottery numbers would have hit sometime these last three seasons because it included Durrant age and jersey number in it and maybe now would own the Blazers…
maybe maybe maybe
maybe maybe maybe…
lay off it…greg has been nothing but gracious to us Portland fans, he works his ass off to get back on the floor and all you people can harp on about is something that can’t change. Forget about Durrant, he plays for OKC…he is not a Blazer, he will never be a Blazer.
I can not believe the devotion you guys give a guy who does not give a damn about you and act so callously towards a kid that does.
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
by PDXBuckeye on Feb 18, 2010 11:14 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
wish that truck never ran over mom,
or i wish my dad came back from iraq…. …
or i wish my freakin sundae came with a cherry on top…
to each their own peachy ?
The Faith don't panic, the faith freaks out, burns out farms, and torchs small villages in the name of The Faith.
Head Czar of Amerika <--- Mortimer said so so there!!!
7 footers with injury problems while young, tend to keep getting them
durant will probably have a 12-15 year career playing an avg of 75+ games. i think he still gets better as he understands the game more
oden is very much a limited player, but one who can dominate defensively. wish him well but this patter of injuries going back to ohio state years is ominous. very skeptical that he has a 10 year career,
in some ways he reminds me of ralph sampson, with less offensive ability.
ah, I figured it was a Jazz fan. No Blazer fan says Oden isn’t a good offensive player after what he did this season.
#52 #10 #25 #7
by Cablinasian on Feb 14, 2010 12:55 AM PST up reply actions
Greg Oden is limited like Dwight Howard is limited
If he can play the minutes.
Actually, Hedo was good feeding Dwight the rock. Orlando misses that above average Turk. Maybe that’s why KP tried to get him then got Miller so we would have SOMEONE who knows how to get the ball to the post in scoring position (LMA and Prz’s game that’s not).
Then Roy hearts Steve, and Greg hearts Andre … fast-forward to now with no BRoy and no Oden and the only inside game is guard penetration.
No wonder our offense is so obvious. And without Marty, Rudy, or Blake hitting the 3, we gotta play fantastic in all other areas just to eek out a win.
Come to think of it, Nate is performing magic with one arm tied behind his back.
Maybe that’s why KP tried to get him (Hedo) then got Miller so we would have SOMEONE who knows how to get the ball to the post in scoring position
That was the only conclusion for offering Turk 5/50 (and later signing Andre) that made any kind of sense, last July. The Blazers watched Hedo running side PnRs in the playoffs with DH and thought that Hedo could do the same thing wth Greg in Portland
When reached 40 years of following Portland basketball you have, be as passionate of the Trail Blazers you will not!
howard doesn't have injury issues either
i am not knocking oden, but history shows 7 footers with foot or knee injures don’t recover well, and tend to reinjure easily. unless one hides their head in the sand, you have to admit oden is injury prone, really going back to his ohio state years. there are occaisional aberrations, of course.
as to example of howard; heck, he is barely developing an offensive game now. he has no go to move. why he hasnt developed a solid jump hook with either hand is beyond me. seen him play in person several times, and he is an incredible physical specimen. howard seems to have worked at becoming physically superb, whereas someone like yao actually has developed a very decent all around game. yao won’t be the same after these foot injures, which is really a shame. loved to watch him play the game.
Sorry, but "going back to his Ohio State years"
doesn’t make any sense at all. It wasn’t a knee, hip, or foot injury, it was a wrist. Those are just freak occurrences that can hit anyone.
You could make a case based on his injuries since coming to Portland, but not the thing in college.
#7 #10 #25 #52 -- #5 & #88 are back!
Well put jscot!
A leg injury is a leg injury and an arm injury is an arm injury…not the same thing.
…and aren’t the injuries on different legs too….? I’m just saying….
history shows 7 footers with various injuries to the same knee or foot
have trouble, and that history is mostly 15 years back or longer. medicine has changed a great deal since then.
Greg’s injuries are all completely unrelated…not the same extremity even…
Plus, look at Ilgauskus, look at bynum, look at staudamire all these contemporaries are doing relatively well after losing most of multiple seasons in their career…
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
Can we just stop talking about Oden vs. Durant
It just hurts my heart and my head
Holding out for Hedo
nothing groundbreaking...
everyone knows that when Oden is on the court he kicks ass…bu tthat he has missed a lot of games and hasn’t been as effective.
Durant is legit, when they played the Blazers last week he KILLED it down the stretch…and I too am tired of the comparisons and the what-ifs….
Bottom line – despite all of that – we still made the right decision and drafted the right guy. Not to beat a dead horse, but our need was in the middle and he was a once-in-a-decade prospect at that position. Also, keep in mind that since Day 1, Durant has been the man in OKC and has had the green light to take as many shots as he wants and pretty much do whatever he wants. He would not have had the same deal in Portland with Roy and LMA already on the team. And with as soft as LMA is, we’d then have 2, 6’10" guys that like to shoot jumpshots.
One last thing – before everyone gets too googley over Durant, I’d like to see what he can do in a playoff series when it gets physical and guys are playing hard. He’ll still be pretty good, but I think his lack of strength and physicality is going to hurt him at that point
by rip_city_swagger on Feb 15, 2010 10:17 AM PST reply actions
it obviously is not quite dead yet....
keep swingin’.
"Travis went all wang-dang diddly wubba SPROING wow-wow on everybody " Dave's recap, season opener
I still have hope.
If we give the horse CPR, then nourish it to decent health, there could be so much more beating to do.
I like the Blazers
"http://www.volatilelyle.wordpress.com"
by almost awesome on Feb 16, 2010 5:17 AM PST up reply actions
maybe if we would have bought grai for the horse
instead of grainalcohol for myself that horse wouldn’t be dead….
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
Oden's ceiling
is higher than KD….. forget potential… Oden is lying down and Durant is standing up. Hence Oden has a higher ceiling. Even if he stands up, his head will probably hit the ceiling, his knees will buckle, and his arms will fall off.
Durant is an all-star, durable, and proven. Oden is potential, unproven, and broken.
You go to the playoffs on the work of someone like Durant
You win several championships on the work of someone like Oden. Roy will already get us to the playoffs. OKC is going to be useless in playoffs without more size/physicality. Is it becoming clearer why we made the choice we did?
If unconvinced look at what Cleveland did after last year at playoffs. Despite having LeBron (and is Durant > LeBron?) they lost to Howard. This is why they got Shaq, for no other reason than to stop Howard. Oden (healthy) is going to fit into the same class as Shaq and Howard. So you could give me Roy+Durant vs Shaq or Howard and in a 7 game series more likely than not the big guy will come out ahead. This is why we need an Oden much more than Durant.
yes, the big guy could win championships...
but he needs to get there healthy.
I’m concerned this year. next year I’ll be tossing in the towel if Oden can’t grind it out.
"Fernandez, to my eyes, is the Blazer who walks that walk most comfortably. A lot of Portland's fans (egged on, dare I say, by their local broadcasters) lament things like how Ron Artest or Yao Ming get to hit Brandon Roy's arms.
But I suspect Fernandez sees all that and thinks: We get to hit arms! Cool!"
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-39-135/On-Playoff-Experience.html
"I told Pau the Lakers never win here in Portland; I think it's great." -- Rudy Fernandez
I'd bet KP
Isn’t hanging his hat on Oden(privately) . being optimistic has been a slow progression , but reality comes at you fast. The Blazers have to get into the fast lane next year.
Oden
In 3 years he’s given Portland:
High Hopes
Disappointment
Curiosity
Doctor Bills
Sexting
25 productive games.
At this point, putting him in the same sentence as Durant is unfair to both players. Don’t you think?
Treat people well because Karma can hit you at any second.
by Net Ranger on Feb 15, 2010 3:19 PM PST reply actions 2 recs
Finally
some rationality on the subject. These arguments are like listening to little girls before Christmas making up reasons the folks will get them that pony. The wrist was not a freak thing, nor was the knee blowout. It sucks, but if you had to wager something you really cared about on whether he was going to play 3 more seasons or closer to 13, you know which one you’d pick. Let’s join hands and start the healing shall we?
Exactly.
Durant has busted through the ceiling and Oden is a bust until he proves otherwise. Whether the injuries are “flukes” or “bad luck” or whatever, you cannot honestly say his ceiling is higher when Durant is an All Star and one of the top scorers in the league. Oden has accomplished virtually nothing in the NBA. Why make theoretical comparisons of the two? Durant is special talent, Oden is fragile beast. Anyone who would still take Oden over Durant, knowing what we know now, is lying.
by BlazerDavid on Feb 17, 2010 10:27 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs
I totally disagree that their ceilings are the same.
Durant’s ceiling is probably GOAT or at least MVP, Oden’s is probably a rich man’s Ben Wallace in his prime.
Durant is better, and will continue to be a better individual player, to say otherwise suggests a detachment from reality — of course none of this means Greg can’t be an extremely useful player to the Blazers if he can ever stay healthy long enough to contribute
Really? Durants better than LeBron? Better than Wilt? Better than Magic? Is he better than Jordan? Really?
Stop it.
Official Adrian Wojnarowski Hater.
The Ardent Optimist.
by fajunga on Feb 19, 2010 2:27 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs
There's a difference between 'ceiling' and production
Durant’s doing what he’s doing at 21, and while I don’t think he’ll necessarily become the greatest player ever, that level is at least achievable now, which is more than you can say for any current player except Lebron.
Durants ceiling is not even close to GOAT
He’s a fantastic smooth shooting scoring machine who rebounds well and plays adequate defense.
He can’t play D past that, takes way too many jumpshots in crunchtime of which he misses most, and is being propelled along with a chockful of BS calls by a league that needs him to be successful in order to cover up the robbery of the Sonics.
Official Adrian Wojnarowski Hater.
The Ardent Optimist.
Greg needs to do one of those manning commercials
where he follows fans around on their jobs and bitch at them every time soemthing out of their control happens at work.
should have hired that other guy, he would not have lost that customer. should have fired you last year the second you called in sick….
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
when you have to reach this far to make a comparison, you've lost
Durant >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Oden
by Theghostofsomeonefamous on Feb 22, 2010 12:35 PM PST reply actions
Ok, so Durant is a better scorer, big surprise. We knew that then. Durant isn't a better defender or rebounder, or shot blocker.
Also, Greg Oden at worst is a number 2 pick even if we picked Durant. So how can you go wrong by picking the number 2 pick. I could see if Oden would have ended up playing like a 2nd rounder, but this guy has shown that he warranted the selection. He just keeps getting hurt.
By the way, Thunder have no shot at a championship without a center. If Lebron can’t do it, Durant won’t.
by BRoyInThe4th on Feb 25, 2010 12:09 AM PST up reply actions
Oden's ceiling
Oden’s ceiling is indeed as high as Durants, so long as he doesn’t bang his head on that ceiling and get knocked out of play for another season.
No its not
M 80- So what does Portland give up? Big D- Nothing, Pritchard is such a genius that teams just give him players for free. (Comments from Blog a Bull on July 9, 2009)
Actually yes it is. He is not just another 7 footer. He has the length, speed, and strength to become an all time great defensive center. It's just
a lot less likely to happen because his body isn’t holding up.
by BRoyInThe4th on Feb 25, 2010 12:06 AM PST up reply actions
3rd year and Durant is leading the league in scoring. He scores without a lot of effort. Either sticks the relatively unmolested jumper because he is taller than his man guarding him or he glides to the rim because they are playing his outside shot and uses his length to finish. He is pretty efficient for a volume shooter. I would love to have Oden healthy to make a true comparison of impact on the floor. Sigh
by LicketyBrindleDowntheMiddle on Feb 25, 2010 1:41 PM PST reply actions
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