Rookie-Soph game!

[Jack RamsaysPants]

Yeah, that 10 to 15 minutes he plays a game can really wear a guy out . . .

Or ya know averaging 23mpg.

 

[barfo]

is "soak up the experience" codeword for coke and banging groupies?

Of course. What else would it mean?

barfo

 

[MAS RipCity]

What does that mean? You even call him an assassin and a beast, what more is he supposed to be?

Honestly, maybe Oden will turn into a great player, but mentally I think Durant has the clear edge. I remember people raising the issue pre-draft, where Oden seemed to lack the same fire that KD has, and it still remains a concern.

Amare is a beast as well, but he doesn't have the intangibles either to be a truly great player.
Roy is a perfect example of the intangibles...clutch shooter, very cool under pressure, a young leader, just has an uncanny knack for making things happen. Now Roy doesn't possess the physical traits of a Lebron or the athleticism of MJ, but he has their intangibles.

I agree with KP..Durant = scoring champ
Oden= future titles

 

[Big Frame]

IO jkist wamt eveupme tp lmpw, I love Rodney scuky!

 

[number 10]

Amare is a beast as well, but he doesn't have the intangibles either to be a truly great player.
Roy is a perfect example of the intangibles...clutch shooter, very cool under pressure, a young leader, just has an uncanny knack for making things happen. Now Roy doesn't possess the physical traits of a Lebron or the athleticism of MJ, but he has their intangibles.

I agree with KP..Durant = scoring champ
Oden= future titles

But why would you compare Durant to Amare? Amare even had problems coming into the league, KD had nothing, except maybe a Bayless style attitude.. Also, if Oden = future titles and not Durant, that means that Oden has these intangibles?

One thing that I remember hating about the Durant-Oden debates was that Oden supporters made Durant into this chucker who's a bad teammate, when any other year we would've creamed ourselves to get Durant.

 

[MAS RipCity]

Oden, I am not sure if he has "it: yet, we are barely scraping the surface on his game. But he FITS much better here. His defense and paint scoring should be exactly what we need when we are hitting our stride.
The point of my original post was that KD is not the 2nd coming. He will be great, but from what I have seen, his ceiling is McGrady in Orlando..great player, but not good enough to be in the class of the uber elite

 

[BalancedMan]

Oden, I am not sure if he has "it: yet, we are barely scraping the surface on his game. But he FITS much better here. His defense and paint scoring should be exactly what we need when we are hitting our stride.
The point of my original post was that KD is not the 2nd coming. He will be great, but from what I have seen, his ceiling is McGrady in Orlando..great player, but not good enough to be in the class of the uber elite

Really? Tracy McGrady posted the 12th highest season PER score ever in the league, up there with some pretty good company of names. He had a PER above 30 one season, although it was somewhat of an outlier as his next best year was at PER 25. http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/per_season.html

I think that Durant could be better...or at least play at that type of McGrady ceiling for a longer duration in his career. Think about where Durant is at 20 vs. where McGrady was at when he was 20.

I've held out the faith for a long time. I don't think that Oden will be a bust, and I think that if he says healthy he'll have multiple all-star potential and we could win some championships. But he won't go down as a Top-5 NBA player. He won't be a Tim Duncan or KG type of player or leader on the block. Nor will he dominate down low like a Robinson, Hakeem or O'Neal.

Durant will more than likely be a "Top-5" NBA for a while in his career. In five years he'll be talked about the way that Wade, LeBron and Kobe currently are (Roy, although he garners discussion, is outside that realm, but is the top of the next tier of players).

So yeah, I think we kind of made a mistake on this pick. No use crying over spilt milk...I'll think we'll be fine regardless. But I would drool to see how we'd play with a Roy/Durant/LMA combination. Add a decent garbage man center (Pryzbilla is a perfect example) and a PG that can shoot (Blake?) and that's a championship level team.

Like I said, I didn't watch Durant much last year but saw his numbers. His shooting is much better this year and watching him reminded me of how great I thought he was when he was at Texas. Darn.