With the retirement of Brandon Roy and Greg Oden most likely out for the year and probably with a new team next year the era of the "BIG THREE" is offically over. Since Oden did not play a game until the start of the 2008-9 season I guess the era of the big three really only lasted three seasons, 2008-9 to 2010-11. I thought it would be interesting to see how they did in terms of the most important stat in basketball (wins and losses) during that three year span. I put them in eight different categories ranging from all three playing together to none of them playing at all.

1. Oden, Roy,LMA 2008-9 (38-18) 2009-10 (13-8) and 2010-11(0-0)

2. Oden and Roy 2008-9(0-1) 2009-10(0-1) and 2010-11(0-0)

3. Oden and LMA 2008-9(2-2) 2009-10(0-0) and 2010-11(0-0)

4. Roy and LMA 2008-9(14-7) 2009-10(28-14) and 2010-11(25-21)

5. LMA 2008-9(0-0) 2009-10(8-8) and 2010-11(23-11)

6. Roy 2008-9(0-0) 2009-10(1-1) and 2010-11(0-0)

7. Oden 2008-9(0-0) 2009-10(0-0) and 2010-11(0-0)

8. None played 2008-9(0-0) 2009-10(0-1) and 2010-11(0-1)

It looks like there is at least one very positive trend that started last season and that is the emergence of LMA as clearly the teams best player. With a hobbled Brandon playing they struggled with a 25-21 record, while in spite of other players going down on top of Roy not playing they went a remarkable 23-11. With the rest of the team a lot healthier then they were at the end of last season I think things are a lot better than most people think.

On the down down side we will never have a clue as to what Oden could have done with this team. With a healthy Roy and LMA in terms of wins and losses it made very little difference when Oden was playing with them. The record with Roy and LMA was 42-21, with Oden added they were 51-26 almost identical percentages. So as far as wins and losses go at the level Oden played in those games it really didnt matter if he played or not. Who knows what could have happened if he was ever able to play normal minutes(30-35) for 75+ games a year, we will never know.