Greg Oden: What Does He Need to Be?

Greg needs to be an all-star (indication that he is a successful scorer/rebounder in big minutes), perennial DPOY contender and take LA’s mantle as 2nd option of offense.

Without a healthy and productive Greg we have a hole in our championship plans that simply cannot be patched over.

A God-like force that stuns the enemy into a stupor of inability with his mere presence alone.
And by that I mean: reach his full potential.

And as obviously as healthy, playing 70 to 80 games over multiple seasons. Perkins gets injured in the finals against LA, and Boston’s championship repeat goes out the window.

Ideally he would be better, reaching All-Star level multiple times. And if healthy and on the court without too much foul trouble (around 2000 minutes, i.e. about 25 to 30 minutes per game) he would very likely be better than a player like Perkins with the rebounding and scoring efficiency that he showed. But that’s the absolute basic need to be considered a competent center on a championship team.

If he’s not healthy enough to do that (and soon, since Roy is really entering his prime years), the team would have to look at an adequate replacement that is younger than Camby. Not a superstar, but a player with the quality of say a Marc Gasol or Emeka Okafor who is able to make things happen on both ends of the floor and can still play at that level for a couple of years. Drafting someone like that might still be possible too, but that would really risk the championship window. So proven help from wherever in or out of the league would be needed.

As an aside: With how the game gets officiated at the moment, I’m not sure we’ll see a super dominant center any time soon. Dwight Howard is the closest thing to it at least on the defensive end, but even he as a very mobile big man gets whistled for contact very often. Refs haven’t seen a dominant big posting up since young Shaq was around. So he sits on the bench in foul trouble, while the athletic wings like Kobe, James, Wade, Durant & Co. stand at the foul line. It will also be interesting to see how Houston performs this season in this regard, a team that seems designed to get opposing teams in foul trouble with Yao and Kevin Martin. And, no duh, Miami of course.

Playing

success means: Next five years – 3 WCF, 2 FInals, 1 Championship

Greg will need to average playing 65 games per year. Be on the roster in 4 out of the 5 playoffs years. Average 30 minutes, 14 points, 12 rebounds, 4 offensive, 2.5 blocks, 4 fouls, 2 assists.

The quality of his production when Greg has played gives me great confidence that he could obtain these figures, and I think I’m aiming low. His injury record has to introduce some element of lowered probability, even though I don’t want to believe any of that. You never know the impact of the other players on his numbers – Bayless feeding him in the post and P&R could boost his scoring, or Batum and LMA could benefit from all the doubles on Oden, actually lowering his averages while still creating an impact. I like their chances; 82% probability, 7% standard deviation.

Almost forgot the All-Star appearances: 4

Greg Oden is the BlazersEdge!

At a PER of 23 playing 30 minutes a night over a healthy season, Greg will get these numbers. This team is then one of the two best in the west and one of the top five in the league. He is an all-star. He stays healthy, the Blazers championship window is WIDE open.

That is what I want from Greg Oden.

I need him to bring it strong and stay a Blazer.

Greg just needs to stay healthy, get experience and learn to play his game according to the refs.

Other then that, just continue where he left off last year, Go out and have fun, play as hard as possible, Push back limitation with practice,playing up to his potential and good coaching

needs to be able to see Greg is confident and is going to do his part by blocking any shot around the rim.

A fast-breaking Point Guard.

You know, that or all the well-reasoned stuff about health, foul trouble, confidence and fit within a championship-caliber offensive system.

To crush his enemies, see them drive before him and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Besides growing as a player, a full season of development between him and the team. Ascend the skill ladder and win games together.

To have a solid shot to win a title, we probably need him to, at a minimum, be healthy for the playoffs and average 35+ mpg playing at least as well as he did in short minutes last season.

A member of the Portland Trailblazers.

but averaging around a double-double in at least 25 min/game of work for around 60 games/year and healthy for the playoffs 4/ 5 years and be a DPOY candidate every year with winning it twice over his career. We don’t need him to become the #2 offensive option, just be enough of an option so opposing centers wouldn’t think of trying to go cover/double LaMarcus with the constant threat of Greg dunking it… averaging 2 blocks per game would be very nice too, which he has shown he could do. If he can change the way other teams play us, that will likely be enough of a change for us to win a championship with the rest of the players we have in place and the natural progression of LMA (a lil), Batum (a lot), Matthews (a decent amount), Roy (a tiny bit), Bayless (decent amount), and a slight improvement in surrounding talent.

MP FG FGA FG% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
33.4 9.4 15.8 .596 6.0 6.9 .870 4.1 9.0 13.1 2.9 0.9 2.9 1.4 3.2 24.9

The greatest player since Chamberlin. honestly, to beat the super friends, GO has to become an NBA icon of MJ, Russell, Bird, Magic, Erving, the logo proportions. If we don’t see much progression from LA, BRoy, Batum etc. I understand the healthy, double double, DPOY arguments, but to take home multiple rings he has to become a superstar. That said, I will be overjoyed with a healthy Oden who grabs every board and gets 3 + blocks a night. It’ll at least feel familiar, ie the Drexler teams who would have negated MJ’s carreer with a mid 20’s Sabonis, what the ‘77 team could have been if healthy. I love this team, but we’re not a Boston or LA, we’re not even a Miami. That’s to say we’re not a destination. Now going completely on a tangent, my biggest regret is how we let expiring contracts expire here. People fall in love with Portland when they come here. Channing is certainly the most recent example. But, look at all the “ambassadors” we’ve had over the years. I don’t think their lining up for this job due to some fantastic relationship with Paul Allen. Besides the PG debate, besides the question of how good can GO get, the Blazers have to take a risk. I feel like I have been sitting at a blackjack table since 1988 as a fan. Get up big (NBA finals) down and almost out (NO, not the jailblazers, but the Otis Thorpe, Chris Dudley, Harvey Grant teams) but always trolling along. Some fans liken this team to an addiction. In this metaphor, obviously a gambling addiction. We’re at the point where we need to bet it all. We lose, seek counseling. We win, well then we’re that upper echelon team. That team where you don’t call it an addiction, but rather a religion.

The stat line is just a ridiculous extrapelation/guesstimation on one of the years Tim Duncan was injured for about 20 games.

can he play 70 regular season games and 25 playoff games a year for the next decade?? If so, he will fulfill all of the other criteria.

Perhaps a 7ft. tall version of Mr. “T”, yeah that’s the ticket…

P.S. And a full length red & black Blazer’s Edge mink coat.

I want Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem, Artis Gilmore, Mose Malone, Bill Walton, Arydas, and _____________ (put your favorite center here) wrapped up in on one package. Oh, forgot to take my medications this morning.

To make it to the second round? He just needs to be available.
To win a second round series? He needs to be an impact player, but maybe not an All Star.
To compete with the L*kers for a Finals berth? He probably does need to be an All Star.

  …but if you try sometimes you just might find, you get what you need.

I thought right before he went down last season Oden was rounding into the player he needs to be for The Blazers. I sensed a growing confidence and witnessed some dominating stretches of play. That’s what made his injury that much more painful to witness as a fan.

I don’t know, a big part of me doesn’t even like threads like this. Since he hit high school Oden has been told what he “is” or “needs” to be

I know, we are evaluating Blazer talent and roster realities in relationship to immediate and future goals. Which ALL fans do. But I’m tired of defining Oden, and then having circumstance and reality and random chance barge in and redefinde Oden again.

I think this upcoming season probably shows us not what we need Oden to be, but what Oden is capable of becoming. I’m not going to bother to attach expectation or definition to a human being that has covered the spectrum of attached expectation as harshly and diversely as Oden. For many, he has gone from being a Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell once in a decade up and coming center…to a total N.B.A. bust. Were either extreme of definition fair to place upon someone? Probably not.

Here is what I can say. Again, before injury, I was impressed with what I was seeing from Oden. He was showing the ability to dominate and intimidate from the center position in a way very few centers in the N.B.A. are capable of doing. So the talent to be what we would “like” Oden to be, IMO exists. What as Blazers fans we NEED is him to be able to remain healthy enough to translate that into “seasons and post-seasons” of N.B.A. play…we don’t need anything more or less than that…but that isn’t easy and it certainly isn’t a given.

I think however I am at a place where I’m NOT going to once again start to attach to Oden what he “needs” to be. Ultimately whether Oden becomes that dominating Blazers center we as Blazer fans desire and/or Oden becomes a very tall dentist with unusual stories to tell while your mouth is full of cotton and novocaine will be controlled by factors that I think are currently undefinable and unpredictable.

   Oden can be whatever he can be. He needs to try to give himself a career in the N.B.A. if only because it’s obviously the path to the best financial opportunity for himself. I would say, I think he’s one more major injury away from REALLY having to re-evaluate what is possible for himself. However, who can say if that major injury will come? He’s young enough that it IS possible that most of this has been just Terrible circumstance.

  I hope that ultimately Oden figures out what he needs and if that correspondes with what I want as a Blazer fan? Fine…it will be a Win, Win….

If he thinks happy thoughts, then happiness will follow.

I don’t remember whether this was really discussed at the time of Greg’s and Joel’s injuries, but I wonder —

Is a broken patella what you would call an “injury-prone” kind of injury? In other words, would you say, Greg and Joel’s knees are always going to be a big question mark because of this, or would you call it a freak occurrence and once it heals it should be good?

If anyone can answer this, I think that would tell us a lot about whether to expect both of these guys to be (or reach) 100% and stay there.

The problem being it was a stress fracture and the stress came from BB. Therefore that can re-uccur