Almost 6 months and Oden still not cleared for basketball
by Planet29 on May 25, 2010 5:14 PM PDT
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No big shocking news here, I think all Blazer fans know by now not only is Oden always getting injured it takes him twice as long to recover than the average player. We have another good 4 months before training camp starts and hopefully by then he will be healthy and in shape ready to go. Assuming he is ready to go I think the Blazers should take advantage of this rare opportunity and take off the training wheels and see what he can really do playing 32-34 minutes vs his 22-24 he has averaged so far in his brief 82 game career. So far he has played only 6 games where he has played 32 minutes or more and in spite of picking up a foul per every 5 and half minutes played has only fouled out 5 times.
I would like to see that all change by employing what I would like to call the "ODEN PLAN". At the end of every game at least one of four things MUST happen #1 Played at least 32 minutes #2 Fouled out #3 Ejected #4 Carried out, no exceptions win or lose does not matter. To accomplish this monumental feat I think a firm set in stone minutes per quarter should be set, something like the first 10 minutes in the 1st quarter and the last 8 of the second and the same plan in the second half. Do not worry about fouls, if he picks up 6 fouls in the first quarter so be it its not like we have never played without him before no big deal. Maybe he can learn from the experience and possibly the reffs will have second thoughts about fouling a guy out before the first half is even over. A new contract is coming up and we really need to find out if he is even capable of playing 30+ minutes night in and night out, but hopefully we will take this opportunity and find out before he goes down once again.
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Yeah!
Rabble Rabble Rabble!!
"Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child."
-Ron Wild
My "Oden plan"; have him play ANY minutes if he is capable.
"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
Yes
Agree in concept. Details less important, The key point is this is a “prove it” year because of the contract situation.
a bucket
"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 May 25, 2010 6:55 PM PDT up reply actions
creative post.
Must have taken you awhile to come up with that. Thanks for the insight.
Good points to your post,
a few things over looked however. As you point out Oden fouls ALOT, Nate is probly the biggest foul nazi coach in the league, somone help me out herebut if i remember right he is much more strict than your standard 2 fouls gets you sit in the 1st qtr and 3 fouls your done for the half type coach. If Dwight Howard played for Nate Mac he too would only play 25 or so minutes if you ask me.(due to fouls ofcourse)
Second, i have resisted all urges to label him a bust but this current injury is perplexing. His injuries have pretty much all started minor and became catastrophic, Microfracture started as minor exploratory then they “found something” requiring microfracture surgery, hell all of his injuries seem to be down played then become this on going saga. I am not a huge conspiricy guy but there is something to this, also what the heck is the deal with the last injury? Correct me if i am wrong but wasnt the heal time supossed to be like 6-8 weeks? As the author points out it is now month six and still no activity……..and no questions from the media or answers from the team/ Oden.
I find all this highly suspect, again as the author points out we are 4 months from next year. The “plan” was to let him rest as much as possable then after the playoff to get him squared away and in shape for next year. This so far is not happening, and it dont seem like it will any time soon. Oden will NOT be in form enough to start or even play significant minutes in my opinion, Camby is looking better and better every day.
by blazerbeliever97504 on May 25, 2010 7:02 PM PDT reply actions
for the record
i felt more dis-appointed typing that out than i may have ever felt regarding a sports team. I dont think i truely admitted it to myself until just now. My addmission: Oden will never be a franchise center, servicable maybe but never a cornerstone. I am sad.
by blazerbeliever97504 on May 25, 2010 7:05 PM PDT up reply actions
to be fair.
they did say he would be out 6-8 MONTHS not weeks.
"im ready for a fight..." -Joel Przybilla
by KillaPrzydollaBILLA on May 25, 2010 7:18 PM PDT up reply actions
It was 6-8 months?
Ok well that makes me feel slightly better but overall i stand by my point about G.O.
by blazerbeliever97504 on May 26, 2010 8:09 AM PDT up reply actions
yeah the 6-8 weaks was to get out of all the gear, cast or whatever they call that stuff today...
and off the couch….
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
Nonsense.
He’s still a child, and should be treated as such. He was born in1988.
He’s also the most valuable asset in our quest for a championship. Sure, the Oden experience has left us wanting, but the situation is what it is. If PA must drop another $50 or $60 million to keep him, I’d bet big that we will. He’s Greg F-ing Oden. How often do prospect like GO come along?
Who was older, Rookie Lew Alcindor or GO on opening day next season? Bill Walton? Those guys spent four years each at UCLA, and neither played as freshmen.
I know you’re frustrated, clearly, but IMO; you gotta get a grip.
As to letting him foul out in the first quarter, come on. It’s like you’ve invented some Darwinian code because you haven’t your your parade yet.
This is pretty sad as well.
Oden has nothing in common with Kareem and Walton.
Abdul-Jabbar and Walton came out of school with superb basketball skills. Walton was arguably the best passing center in NBA history, and Kareem had the most unstoppable high-percentage shot in NBA history (#1 in NBA career scoring). Oden was simply a physical specimen with almost negligible basketball skills. His foul rate is astonishing. It’s unclear now if he will ever regain the physical abilities he had in college, but it’s a near certainty (IMO) that he will never develop the basketball skills of Walton or Kareem.
I hope Greg comes back, has a productive career, and someday helps us win a championship. But his upside is much closer to Dikembe Mutombo than Walton or Kareem.
"Brandon eats first around here" - KP
by BlazerFanSince1970 on May 26, 2010 12:35 AM PDT up reply actions
I agree
I would say it’s higher that Mutombo though. The thing about Blazer fan that cracks me up is how they think a healthy Oden=Championship.
The guy first needs to get healthy, then he has a ton of work to do. First let’s start with learning how to not foul. 4th year in the league should be the trick? It was also a problem at Ohio State, so you tell me. Dwight Howard is much further in his development and is still not the type of force that can win a team a championship. That requires health, grit, determination, know-how, excellent fundamentals, intelligence, high bbiq, experience and a large # of moves/tactics to fall back on after the other team takes away the things you do best. Were still trying to learn how to not foul.
Temper expectations folks.
Blazer Pride.
by loyal_blazer on May 26, 2010 8:45 AM PDT up reply actions
how they think a healthy Oden=Championship.
I would say the equation is closer to “no healthy Oden = no chance of championship”
When reached 40 years of following Portland basketball you have, be as passionate of the Trail Blazers you will not!
Yeah, necessary but not sufficient.
"Brandon eats first around here" - KP
by BlazerFanSince1970 on May 26, 2010 1:56 PM PDT up reply actions
well I do think his point was that these guys developed their skills as college players
over 4 years time…sure they might have been further along when they entered college, but do you really know since they did not play freshman seasons back then?
Of course Oden is way far behind them because of his injuries now, but I think the orginal poster on this thread was trying to put this all in a more realistic framework…
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
I know they didn't play as freshmen,
because no one did. It was against the rules until 1973.
courtesy of Wikipedia:
NCAA Division One Freshmen could play varsity ball until 1954. The NCAA then changed the rules and freshman were ineligible to play. The rule was rescinded in 1973. That is why you see college greats like Robertson, West, Alcindor (Jabbar), Mount, Maravich, Carr etc. playing in only 75 to 90 games. They were eligible for only three varsity seasons. Maravich, Mount, Robertson, Lucas, Russell all would have put up some unreachable numbers if they played 140 games in a career like the guys of today. If Maravich had played in 113 varsity games he would have scored 5000 career points and Oscar would have scored over 3800 points.
Yes, GO is behind in his development, for obvious reasons. I would hope that his problems would help him steel his mental approach, however. Bad times make a guy tough. I can tell that, unequivocally.
And yes. I was trying to look at where GO was chronologically, and what he has left ahead of him, hopefully.
by damonrayhymer on May 26, 2010 11:57 PM PDT up reply actions
He has a lot in common w/ K & W
They are/were very tough to deal w/ on the court. Each brings his own strength, but I think we’d all agree that among them, Oden is the most physically imposing of the three (as you indicated). Now, harness that force, and we are talking about something very special, something that will challenge bloggers to come up w/ new superlatives. IMO, he has very little in common w/ Mutombo. He’s an athlete.
22 year old athletes don’t lose a step. He broke a bone. The bone is being repaired. When he came back from micro fracture (a much more serious situation), he was all that. Yes, the fouls were still an issue, but anyone w/ a modicum of experience will tell you that that is correctable. Like I said, he is a child. He doesn’t have what the aforementioned HoFamers had, but he is said to be coach-able. The ceiling of this kid, assuming his body can take the rigors (which is no given, admittedly), is off the charts.
KP passed on a superb talent in Durant to get him. Like it or not, that should tell you all you need to know: Oden is a freak of nature. This quality is not about coaching. You can’t order what he’s got off the menu.
You might be right about about skill level in comparison to K & W, but I think twoforlarue summed it up very well: I would say the equation is closer to "no healthy Oden = no chance of championship"
Our bed is made.
by damonrayhymer on May 26, 2010 9:38 PM PDT up reply actions
Cannot forget that his foul rate was really starting to improve just before he went down.
21 games and you were getting the feeling that he was on the right track. He was just starting to really get his legs under him and you could see his conditioning following suit. This was as much to do with his poor foul rate as anything.
Foul rate is probably the easiest thing for Oden to solve.
Too bad we didn't take a Lopez over Bayless.
But I guess we didn’t really know that Oden was going to be so unreliable and that Przy would get seriously injured.
On a cruddy team
If you follow that logic, we should trade LMA for Andray Blatche. He’s already proven that he’s better.
NJ drafted Brook at #10
Robin went to PHX at 15
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_NBA_Draft
When reached 40 years of following Portland basketball you have, be as passionate of the Trail Blazers you will not!
Pryz is just as unreliable as oden
He is injured, he is not not putting ofrth any effort. He has had two very serious injuries. Over the same time period Joel has two very serious injuries.
I actually do not think calling either unreliable is particularly fair. It would be like your boss calling you unreliable if you missed work cause you got hit by a car or something.
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
All Blazer fans know by now that it takes GO "twice as long to recover than the average player"?
Actually, I hadn’t heard that. In fact, I find no basis for the statement whatsoever. Microfracture knee surgery typically takes about two years to recover from. A broken patella: roughly a year.
The only injury I even recall Oden SUPPOSEDLY being slow to recover from was his cracked patella—sustained in a collision with Cory Maggette’s metal knee brace. And in that case, the rate of recovery only seemed to be slow because of an initial, inaccurate report of the extent of the injury by the Blazers’ medical staff. In fact, GO recovered from that serious injury on schedule.
Has GO suffered a lot of injuries as a Blazer? No question. But why embellish by claiming he’s a slow healer?
I was born in '52, and I believe in #52. Hang in there, GO.
You too, Przy: everyone knows you're the heart & soul of the Blazers.
Because it is summer, there are no games to distract us from going to the dark corners of our minds...
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
OK, OK: now I get it
…I heard GO once took a month to recover from a hang nail! They say he once had a case of the sniffles that lasted a year! At Ohio State, he had a case of athlete’s foot that lasted all season. Not even Tuff Actin’ Tenactin worked!
Er, how’m I doing? I wanna get good at this so’s I can hang out at Blazersedge.
I was born in '52, and I believe in #52. Hang in there, GO.
You too, Przy: everyone knows you're the heart & soul of the Blazers.
great
now just throw in how we should’ve picked durant and you will have the total package
"Oh Yeah!" ~ Kool Aid Man
Whats worse is he said
DURANT!.
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 the Oden Plan
If he fouls out before the late 4th, who cares? Do we really go to him late in games?
“And we all know who’s getting the ball in this situation. Roy takes the inbound.. 4 seconds left.. dribbles right, passes to Oden. He takes the open jumper….”
by collectiveshane on May 26, 2010 1:09 PM PDT reply actions
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