We need to trade Oden

[KingSpeed]

At the age of 24, in his career to date, Joel Przybilla had appeared in 158 games out of a possible 410. Those are numbers that would embarrass Sam Bowie or Pervis Ellison. Nonetheless, you stated that "knowledgeable" fans wouldn't be concerned or upset.

I'm simply asking you when you believe it is legit to take injuries into account when evaluating a player. 3 years in the league? 5 years?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic - it is a serious question. You believe some of us are being unreasonable with our expectations.....but what do you consider a "reasonable" timeline?

Is Joel a "once in his generation" Hall of Fame center? No. He's a defensive role player who will never be an All Star.

 

[maxiep]

So what? Why are you comparing Greg to a mediocre center like Bynum? I thought Oden was going to be a once in his generation center?

Greg has that ceiling. It seems there are a lot of posters who are already writing him off for the likes of Andrew Bynum. You feel free to talk about the L*kers. I'll stick with GO.

 

[maxiep]

Is Joel a "once in his generation" Hall of Fame center? No. He's a defensive role player who will never be an All Star.

Joel was drafted #9. However, the point of my post eluded you. Time to return the diploma to Ann Arbor. I thought people from U of M were supposed to be smart?

 

[Ghost Pepper]

toutlaw25......

You bump your gums a ton in defense of a player who's been hurt since he put on a college jersey. Let's get this straight, GO has had something wrong for three years and on 3 out of his 4 limbs. Does that sound injury prone to you? People have a right to their opinions especially with a player who has had this many problems and this much hype.


We all want him to be the player HE WAS BILLED TO BE, but to be BLIND to his shortcomings is ignorant on your part!

 

[The Sebastian Express]

Greg has that ceiling. It seems there are a lot of posters who are already writing him off for the likes of Andrew Bynum. You feel free to go play with Mario Lopez and other B-list losers and talk about the L*kers. I stick with GO.

I think the majority of the people writing him off are the people that started shit talking other teams and their centers without realizing Greg may have some rust this year coming off microfracture. Now some of them are all in a tizzy because their mouths wrote a check that their asses couldn't cash yet and so they're blaming Greg for this. It's pretty cute to be quite honest.

 

[DaRizzle]

Bynum=Mediocre my ass

 

[HailBlazers]

So what? Why are you comparing Greg to a mediocre center like Bynum? I thought Oden was going to be a once in his generation center?

Bynum=Mediocre my ass

Shows what King knows. Oden has the ability to be a once in a decade center but your living in fairyland if you thought he was gonna come straight outta college with little experience and dominate. The ability/potential is still there he just has to develop some skills and learn the NBA game. Dammit.

 

[RoyToy]

King's just arguing for the sake of arguing, pay no attention to it.

 

[Ed O]

Exactly. Sam Bowie had a much better rookie year than Oden is having.

Not by a long shot. Bowie's PER was 15.7 and Oden's is 17.7.

Oden has been far more effective than Bowie was.

Bowie played more minutes, but how many more is TBD.

In any event, Bowie was almost three years older than Oden so it would be expected that he should have a more advanced skill set/be closer to his ceiling (and, indeed, he only broke 16 PER twice and never broke 17 in a season). Just goes to show how silly the Bowie comparisons are on yet another level.

Ed O.

 

[oldmangrouch]

With age should come maturity and patience. Clearly, those qualities passed you right by.

Didn't anybody ever tell you? Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional!

 

[DaRizzle]

Since I did not recieve a yes for the Luke Walton/ Oden trade I will now up my offer...

Adam "The Stash" "AMMO" Morrison for Greg Oden

You guys can get who you always wanted..

...you're breaking my balls here

 

[oldmangrouch]

At the age of 24, in his career to date, Joel Przybilla had appeared in 158 games out of a possible 410. Those are numbers that would embarrass Sam Bowie or Pervis Ellison. Nonetheless, you stated that "knowledgeable" fans wouldn't be concerned or upset.

I'm simply asking you when you believe it is legit to take injuries into account when evaluating a player. 3 years in the league? 5 years?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic - it is a serious question. You believe some of us are being unreasonable with our expectations.....but what do you consider a "reasonable" timeline?

I'm not sure I see your point. If Oden winds up with a career path comparable to Joel's, how is that anything but a disaster for the team?

 

[KingSpeed]

Greg has that ceiling. It seems there are a lot of posters who are already writing him off for the likes of Andrew Bynum. You feel free to go play with Mario Lopez and other B-list losers and talk about the L*kers. I stick with GO.

What are you talking about? Mario Lopez? Lakers? B-list losers?

 

[KingSpeed]

Joel was drafted #9. However, the point of my post eluded you. Time to return the diploma to Ann Arbor. I thought people from U of M were supposed to be smart?

You were comparing Oden to Joel, implying that Joel got a slow start but turned out to be a good player. But we all hope Oden becomes more than Joel. Not sure why you've resorted to personal attacks though. You must lack confidence in your argument.

 

[KingSpeed]

Shows what King knows. Oden has the ability to be a once in a decade center but your living in fairyland if you thought he was gonna come straight outta college with little experience and dominate. The ability/potential is still there he just has to develop some skills and learn the NBA game. Dammit.

There is a place between "dominating" and what he has done this year and I wish that is what we were getting from him. 10 pts, 10 rebs, 2 blks? Not domination but decent and active.

 

[KingSpeed]

I'm not sure I see your point. If Oden winds up with a career path comparable to Joel's, how is that anything but a disaster for the team?

Exactly.

 

[KingSpeed]

Not by a long shot. Bowie's PER was 15.7 and Oden's is 17.7.

Oden has been far more effective than Bowie was.

Bowie played more minutes, but how many more is TBD.

In any event, Bowie was almost three years older than Oden so it would be expected that he should have a more advanced skill set/be closer to his ceiling (and, indeed, he only broke 16 PER twice and never broke 17 in a season). Just goes to show how silly the Bowie comparisons are on yet another level.

Ed O.

Great post. A solid argument without resorting to personal attacks. Thank you. Good points. As a moderator, you might want to have a talk with maxiep. He crossed a line.

 

[Deebag]

Coming off MF surgery and other minor injuries, GO, when he gets his minutes, is having a great rookie season. You can tell he's going to be better than Bynum. He will make more of an impact than Yao defensively (which is what centers are most needed for). And I don't question the idea that he will be a top 2 center in this league within 2-3 years. The only guy that he might not be able to top is Dwight Howard, and that's only because Dwight is first option of his own team whereas Oden must share the spotlight with Roy and Aldridge. Oden and Howard have pretty similar per-48-minutes rookie averages. But again, the main difference was, Dwight was healthy throughout the whole year and was the center of attention on a crappy team. Put a healthy Oden in Dwight's rookie year, and he would've done better. Of course, Howard was only 18 at the time but still. Oden has a very similar track record. He barely played a year of college, and was playing hurt while Howard came straight out of high school. Both specimens were very raw and undeveloped and you can see that both men are having trouble adjusting their first years.

Basically what I'm saying is, if you have actually watched most games where Oden has played, the potential is obviously there. All that matters is his will to learn and his ability to stay on the court (from both injuries and foul problems). If he stays healthy, there's no doubt in my mind Oden will become an all-star premiere center for many years to come. That's a big if, but I do believe he will pan out.

If he wants to still be that "once in a decade" center, he'll have to do it on the defensive side. I don't see him averaging more than 18 points a game on a team loaded with offensive talent. He'll need to average 14 rebounds and 3 blocks, and win multiple DPOY awards to really achieve that legendary status.

 

[Minstrel]

I'm not sure I see your point. If Oden winds up with a career path comparable to Joel's, how is that anything but a disaster for the team?

I think his point is that injuries to start a career does not necessarily mean that the player is doomed never to become durable. Yes, if he followed the exact same injury history as Przybilla, that would be quite bad...but there's no reason to believe he will. Przybilla simply serves to show that durability is a skill that can be acquired even if it is not there at the start.

I don't think there's anything unreasonable about being concerned with injuries, especially when they've clumped together a bit at the start of a career. However, I don't think it is reasonable (assuming the injuries weren't considered career-altering) to assume that the injuries will become a permanent fixture.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

I think the majority of the people writing him off are the people that started shit talking other teams and their centers without realizing Greg may have some rust this year coming off microfracture. Now some of them are all in a tizzy because their mouths wrote a check that their asses couldn't cash yet and so they're blaming Greg for this. It's pretty cute to be quite honest.

I think this is exactly it. I can understand being upset that Oden is injured. Bad shit happens all the time: Michael Jordon broke his leg in his second year. Zydrunas Ilgauskas (not because he's a comparable player, but because he's a big man) missed most of his first two years with foot problems. It happens. But suddenly all of this becomes Oden's fault. He must have no heart. He doesn't care. They blame Oden for THEIR high expectations. "He promised me he'd be great! He reneged! The bastard! Plus he earns lots of money - in my day you had to WORK for your money. And yet, here he is, apparently living a life and sometimes going out and enjoying himself! Jesus H. Christ - where's the justice?"

If you want examples, check out the comments on the latest article:

Posted by blzrfaninchi on 03/02/09 at 6:47PM

Season tickets go on sale March 4th.

Dont expect the big "surprising" news about Greg's other knee needing microfracture until after that date.

Get used to seeing Joel and Channing at the 5. Because Greg is done for the year.

Blazer brass is controlling the story. Gotta love it.
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Posted by pikechung on 03/02/09 at 6:47PM

Ridiculous.
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Posted by blazermaniak on 03/02/09 at 6:47PM

just say przybilla is the starting center the rest of the way and whatever oden can do he can do. that way we don't view him as being something we are going to rely on.

devin harris for whatever it takes!!!!

etc.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

So - you people who have given up on Oden: don't you think we better trade him now, before everybody else realizes he's a loser? And if so, who do you think would be a fair trade? Because after all, Sam Bowie (Oden's middle two names, apparently) netted us Buck Williams.

In a completely unrelated note, it's funny that the "Thunder" seem to be a lot better without Kevin Durant, ain't it?

 

[Minstrel]

So - you people who have given up on Oden: don't you think we better trade him now, before everybody else realizes he's a loser?

Those people don't believe Oden has any real trade value left. There are people here who think he'd be drafted 10th in his draft class, if that draft were re-done.

 

[PapaG]

You were comparing Oden to Joel, implying that Joel got a slow start but turned out to be a good player. But we all hope Oden becomes more than Joel. Not sure why you've resorted to personal attacks though. You must lack confidence in your argument.

He did the same thing to me. It's what happens when somebody has nothing else to say. It's the lowest common demoninator, and it makes me lose respect for that poster.

 

[gatorpops]

We need to get Oden well!

 

[hasoos]

Folks need to relax. Right now, I just plan on Oden having no impact. That way if he plays, and especially if he has an impact, it is a bonus. Take your top of the world expectations, and lower them to reality, and then it is much easier to deal with.

 

[maxiep]

Didn't anybody ever tell you? Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional!

Sorry for being a dick earlier. I've just been getting frustrated with the lack of patience regarding GO.

 

[maxiep]

I'm not sure I see your point. If Oden winds up with a career path comparable to Joel's, how is that anything but a disaster for the team?

My point was that Joel put his past injuries behind him and has been pretty reliable since.

 

[maxiep]

Great post. A solid argument without resorting to personal attacks. Thank you. Good points. As a moderator, you might want to have a talk with maxiep. He crossed a line.

I did. I apologize.

 

[maxiep]

He did the same thing to me. It's what happens when somebody has nothing else to say. It's the lowest common demoninator, and it makes me lose respect for that poster.

Your respect was misplaced anyway. I'm not a guy that seeks it or deserves it.

 

[maxiep]

Folks need to relax. Right now, I just plan on Oden having no impact. That way if he plays, and especially if he has an impact, it is a bonus. Take your top of the world expectations, and lower them to reality, and then it is much easier to deal with.

My expectations are still sky high for him. I see the flashes of dominance, but I also understand that he's still getting into game shape. The nagging injuries have been disappointing, but none of them have been particularly serious. The difference between me and other posters is that: a) I'm not going to draw any conclusions about GO until he's gotten into game shape; and b) I have patience.