Oden/Yao/ Ilgauskas

[espn_hall_of_famer]

Oden's inability to stay healthy is an on the court issue -- I don't think most of his detractors are all that focused on him taking a picture of his dong, or his Eeyore personality -- not being able to play isn't some trivial tertiary issue to judging his value as a basketball player.

I wasn't referencing Oden as an "on the court vs. off the court" issue. I was using the analogy of Pete Rose/Barry Bonds (whose issues just happened to be were more "on the field vs. off the field") and how human nature is to take an extreme opinion to one side or the other. In Oden's case people also can't find middle-ground, so while completely different as far as issues as my analogies, but point is still people either see past the lack of minutes for Oden and say he's still an all-star/DPOY caliber player as far as talent when he plays and he's only 21 so he'll have years and years to get his thousand games played in. Or you're the type of guy that sees 82 games in three seasons and thinks it will be a pattern for the next 15 years. Like the person who goes into a casino and sees the roulette wheel come up 0/00 three straight spins, you're either the person who thinks it won't happen again for a while since the odds have to normalize statistically, or you're the person who thinks that particular machine is rigged and Vegas is cheating and it will come up 0/00 every spin going forward and you're not going to stick around to watch, just assume it did and attempt to tell everyone you're right.

 

[Nikolokolus]

I wasn't referencing Oden as an "on the court vs. off the court" issue. I was using the analogy of Pete Rose/Barry Bonds (whose issues just happened to be were more "on the field vs. off the field") and how human nature is to take an extreme opinion to one side or the other. In Oden's case people also can't find middle-ground, so while completely different as far as issues as my analogies, but point is still people either see past the lack of minutes for Oden and say he's still an all-star/DPOY caliber player as far as talent when he plays and he's only 21 so he'll have years and years to get his thousand games played in. Or you're the type of guy that sees 82 games in three seasons and thinks it will be a pattern for the next 15 years. Like the person who goes into a casino and sees the roulette wheel come up 0/00 three straight spins, you're either the person who thinks it won't happen again for a while since the odds have to normalize statistically, or you're the person who thinks that particular machine is rigged and Vegas is cheating and it will come up 0/00 every spin going forward and you're not going to stick around to watch, just assume it did and attempt to tell everyone you're right.

Human bodies are not roulette wheels or dice. Once a person starts breaking down -- and at 34 wiith 3 major knee injuries spread over ten years, I'm starting find this out myself -- it's sometimes very difficult to reverse that trend of declining health. You're right that in the long term random events tend to normalize, but in this case injuries have a tendency to create something of a feedback loop that makes another injury more likely to occur than the last ... Maybe more importantly there is a psychological toll that being chronically injured has on a person (increased tentativeness, lack of trust in their body, etc.) that affects a player's longevity in their career as an athlete.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

Human bodies are not roulette wheels or dice. Once a person starts breaking down -- and at 34 wiith 3 major knee injuries spread over ten years, I'm starting find this out myself -- it's sometimes very difficult to reverse that trend of declining health. You're right that in the long term random events tend to normalize, but in this case injuries have a tendency to create something of a feedback loop that makes another injury more likely to occur than the last ... Maybe more importantly there is a psychological toll that being chronically injured has on a person (increased tentativeness, lack of trust in their body, etc.) that affects a player's longevity in their career as an athlete.

That is a good point. I think with Oden, it will be very interesting to observe the mental affects that the injuries have had. Completely opposite to a player like Bynum (who had ligaments and tendons cut on and thus made that feedback loop where his body was continuing to break down from those previous cuts), Oden hasn't had the same cuts down, so he has almost no physical feedback loop to get injured again, but all of the mental feedback as you mention.

I think Oden is right there in the middle span of where it could go either way. I had a baby sitter once place my 12-month old boy at the time on the kitchen counter while she was getting lunch prepared. He scooted off and broke his femur in half. I have yet to see either the mental or phyiscal feedback loop show signs that it impacted him any way what-so-ever since he was one year old and it healed to 100%. So like Oden, he's young and his body still heals like a high schooler instead of like a 34 year old who is never quite is the same after another injury. So he'll have to physical feedback loop to be injured again, just that mental aspect, and time will tell if it does come into play.

 

[Nikolokolus]

That is a good point. I think with Oden, it will be very interesting to observe the mental affects that the injuries have had. Completely opposite to a player like Bynum (who had ligaments and tendons cut on and thus made that feedback loop where his body was continuing to break down from those previous cuts), Oden hasn't had the same cuts down, so he has almost no physical feedback loop to get injured again, but all of the mental feedback as you mention.

I think Oden is right there in the middle span of where it could go either way. I had a baby sitter once place my 12-month old boy at the time on the kitchen counter while she was getting lunch prepared. He scooted off and broke his femur in half. I have yet to see either the mental or phyiscal feedback loop show signs that it impacted him any way what-so-ever since he was one year old and it healed to 100%. So like Oden, he's young and his body still heals like a high schooler instead of like a 34 year old who is never quite is the same after another injury. So he'll have to physical feedback loop to be injured again, just that mental aspect, and time will tell if it does come into play.

My first major knee injury (torn MCL) happened when I was 22, I bounced back OK, but I was never quite the same, I tore my ACL when I was 29 (same knee) and I've really never been the same. Regardless my only point is that being constantly injured wears people down and no matter how young you are, when the knees/feet/ankles/hips start to go there's even more of a toll.

 

[Rhal]

My first major knee injury (torn MCL) happened when I was 22, I bounced back OK, but I was never quite the same, I tore my ACL when I was 29 (same knee) and I've really never been the same. Regardless my only point is that being constantly injured wears people down and no matter how young you are, when the knees/feet/ankles/hips start to go there's even more of a toll.

The difference is that all of Oden's injuries that have required surgery are bone injuries. They didn't have to cut into his tendons or remove large amounts of cartilage. Even the surgery he had that kept him out of his rookie season was preemptive. He had a bone chip in his knee from Maggette, not sure exactly what happened in the first game of his secound season for the foot but he didn't have surgery on that. Then his knee cap breaking in half that was just that... a bone splitting in two that will heal back stronger then it was when it broke.
I look at those injuries and I don't see anything that leads me to believe that any of these are going to be recurring or will slow him down because none of them leave anything worse then it was before after their healed.
Mentally Oden will probably make Martell look like Ghandi this next season.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

My first major knee injury (torn MCL) happened when I was 22, I bounced back OK, but I was never quite the same, I tore my ACL when I was 29 (same knee) and I've really never been the same. Regardless my only point is that being constantly injured wears people down and no matter how young you are, when the knees/feet/ankles/hips start to go there's even more of a toll.

I could see that. That's really too bad. Both of those injuries (ACL/MCL) are the worst of the soft-tissue injuries since they are cutting on key ligaments that will never heal the same and will always be a little "off" when you use them under the same stress that caused the original injury (assuming you don't go from like weightlifting to rowing or some strange change in sports like that). But I see what you're getting at, and that is really what worries me about Roy, he's had a couple soft tissue injures like that (and like Bynum has had and has never been the same from). Luckily for the Blazers, Oden has had a microfracture cartilage and a broken patella bone. So two simple bone injuries that will never create a physical sensation or twinge to let you know they were ever injured.

So we luck out "knock on wood" up until this point in Oden's career that he'll at least not have any of that history wearing on him like you had since they were just broken bones, so there is no physical reason for him to re-injure something else any more than Amare had from his micro-fracture of cartilage early in his career or Delonte West or Collison had from breaking their fingers, or Bogut from breaking his arm, or any other handful of guys that have broken bones and come back none the worse for the wear.

 

[Nikolokolus]

The difference is that all of Oden's injuries that have required surgery are bone injuries. They didn't have to cut into his tendons or remove large amounts of cartilage. Even the surgery he had that kept him out of his rookie season was preemptive. He had a bone chip in his knee from Maggette, not sure exactly what happened in the first game of his secound season for the foot but he didn't have surgery on that. Then his knee cap breaking in half that was just that... a bone splitting in two that will heal back stronger then it was when it broke.
I look at those injuries and I don't see anything that leads me to believe that any of these are going to be recurring or will slow him down because none of them leave anything worse then it was before after their healed.
Mentally Oden will probably make Martell look like Ghandi this next season.

He had microfracture surgery which is a cartilage problem ... and it's a very serious operation.

 

[jlprk]

But management is also very, very slow to let him make a timely comeback each time, which then forces him to play catchup against players in condition, and get injured again. The way to break the cycle was to do whatever was necessary to have him in shape by the start of camp. Management hasn't figured that out yet--the cause of the recurring cycle. Let him play!

You're right that in the long term random events tend to normalize, but in this case injuries have a tendency to create something of a feedback loop that makes another injury more likely to occur than the last.

Are those 2 separate repeating cycles or the same thing? My cause is having to play catchup every season. Is the cause of your cycle that he slowly loses his mental edge?

 

[Rhal]

He had microfracture surgery which is a cartilage problem ... and it's a very serious operation.

Its a serious operation but it wasn't that he needed it, it was preemptive operation. That leaves me more optimistic and thinking that it healed just fine with no lasting problems .

 

[jlprk]

Wouldn't it be something if his career ended because of an operation he didn't need.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

Wouldn't it be something if his career ended because of an operation he didn't need.

Sort of like your first wife's idea for you to have a vasectomy (who you promptly divorced two months after the procedure)?

 

[jlprk]

Stop making up stories. Besides, it's best for a human and a chimp not to have children.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

Stop making up stories. Besides, it's best for a human and a chimp not to have children.

Why? "Mullet Children" do have some redeeming qualities.

 

[Nikolokolus]

Are those 2 separate repeating cycles or the same thing? My cause is having to play catchup every season. Is the cause of your cycle that he slowly loses his mental edge?

No, I'd call it more of a result than a cause

 

[barfo]

Dentistry? Really? Can you imagine the hands of a 7 foot giant inside your mouth....? good gosh!

This is something that will be discussed for decades, you know that. It will still be in discussion after Durant enters the hall of fame and Oden is listed as the reincarnation of Bowie. There is A LOT to be further discussed as this unfolds over the coming years.

I disagree. I don't think Oden will ever become a dentist, and that idea will gradually be forgotten.

barfo

 

[BGrantFan]

i still don't understand the mindset of hoping someone would fail, just so you can be 'right'.

As a Blazer fan you should hope and expect he is everything and more because, really, the team you're a fan of depends on it.

Where does he "hope" that Oden will be a failure. Actually, he stated that he hopes he is wrong.

 

[BGrantFan]

What does that make Bynum?

Other than apparently worth Derron Williams, Al Jefferson, and Paul Millsap.

Bynum wasn't drafted over Kevin Durant, or seen as the next great center, was he? Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Minstrel]

Bynum wasn't drafted over Kevin Durant, or seen as the next great center, was he? Please correct me if I am wrong.

Bynum was drafted ahead of Durant actually.

 

[BGrantFan]

Bynum was drafted ahead of Durant actually.

Not "over" though. Semantics, my British friend.

 

[Rhal]

Bynum wasn't drafted over Kevin Durant, or seen as the next great center, was he? Please correct me if I am wrong.

Bynum was drafted as a prospect that was seen to have almost all the tools necessary to become a great center. If he had played in college and stayed healthy he would have been a higher draft choice maybe even #1 since Andrea was picked #1 that year, but he forgoes college and entered the draft and was 17 when drafted. But yes Bynum wasn't seen as nearly as talented as Oden coming out and of course he wasn't picked ahed of a superstar we are going to be hearing about for the next 15 years.