Is Oden really that good??

simple put Yao destroyed Shaq and Howard this year.. because both dont have a midrange game...

on the other hand... Amare and Boozer... both put up big numbers on Yao... because they had a midrange game...well Boozer more than Amare...

but it looks like Amare is getting there...but unless he can be consistant with it...I wouldnt hold my breath...

I just dont see it... guys who are calling on Howard or Bynum to be the next dominant center... ie(offense and defense... but emphasis on offense...)

I have a center fetish... meaning...I dont watch and cheer for teams but I like to watch individual players more...

but in my experience... you dont make a offensive scoring machine in the NBA... one should have those skills already...

 

LOL!

 

Ok, a few things - Shaq has never had a midrange game but that didn't stop him from basically demolishing Yao 1-on-1 his first few seasons with only his power game.

Second - in the "must have offensive skills as a true freshman or else he'll never develp them department - that's simply bunk. Very few great big men had anything other than a repertoire of dunks and tip ins out of high school as they simply didn't need more. Some Freshman stats,:

Hakeem (UH) 8.3 ppg 61%
Robinson (Navy) 7.8 ppg 58%
Ewing (Georgetown) 12.7 ppg 63%
Duncan (Wake Forest) 9.8 ppg 55%
O'Neal (LSU) 13.9 ppg 57%

Compare that to

Oden (Ohio State) 15.7 ppg 61%

The guy is right where he should be. I wouldn't mind him staying in college another year to refine a bit more but I think he's got a big future ahead.

 

You should add the minutes per game stats as well. Dream hadn't touched basketball untill his 15 years old and just immigrated from Nigeria to play for the Cougars, it doesn't make enough sense to use these stats to predict their future achievement. One thing is more possible, if Portland starts Oden next season very early, he will probably fall into foul troubles like he did in the NCAA Championships. He is more like a project with huge potentials now rather than the coming-out-of-school Shaq or Duncan, those words saying he will become the best center in the league in a couple of years are definitely overhyped.

 

He's a kid who still hasn't grown into his body and he hasn't played an NBA game. It's really early but If you want to throw out comparisons, yeah Alonzo or Ewing seem like where he could headed but you never know. He might be a Camby type player, good rebounder and shot blocker but no low post game, just a jumpshot...or He could learn some great offensive moves and really become one of the great centers in history...or he could be the next Kwame. I'm sure he won't be worth the hype for at least 3 seasons. Impact player his first season in the league? Absolutely. Star center? Not yet.

There were those who said Yao would be terrible in this league and there were those who said he would be amazing. His first couple seasons in the league he was neither. Now the haters have been proven wrong (pretty much) and he's living up to the hype.

Oden won't take as long as Yao to get used to the NBA game, but I still think it will take 3-5 seasons before he's really good.

I don't see how you can, as a struggling franchise, pass up on him though.

 

I see him as David Robinson but not as refine offensive wise, and I think he will never be as refine on the DRob. Defensively, the guy has no limits however.

 

On the other hand I don't think his blocks stack up that great. 3.3 in college isn't that special. I think most of the special college shot blockers get 4,5 even 6 per game. I think Zo, Shaq, even Okafor--more blocks as fresh even as greener freshman than Oden.

Another issue with the above figures is Hakeem, DR and Duncan got exponentially better later in college (though Duncan as a fresh blocked about 4 a game, his offensive polish came later, and he had proved it against the pros bigs in international comp if I recall). In fact Oden as a freshman has had more training and development than Hakeem did in his last year of college. Hakeem's last/junior year, like what his 5th year even playing the game (compared to all the pre-college training Oden has received), he had about 17-14-5--more impressive than the more seasoned Oden's.

IMO Oden is not a supreme physical speciman on the level of Shaq or Hakeem, or even fully developed Robinson (junior/senior Navy year). IMO he is closer in natural gifts to maybe Duncan (but again Duncan was extremely refined offensively prior to the draft). In short I don't think he is a slam dunk on the level of these 4. I think Oden is more in the company of Ewing, Deke, Zo, Yao, Howard, Oakfor prospects, maybe a tad higher, granted this is still a pretty special level. But does he have some of these guys drive, bb smarts, determination, focus--that I don't know.

Granted I could be totally wrong but it wouldn't surprise me if what Oden is now is pretty much what you get--good to very good NBA defensive and rebounder C (but NOT great--not a Hakeem/Deke/DR/Zo top of their game presence), mediocre to good offensive C. He has had enormous amounts of training and looks mid to late 20s already (maybe some physicians can determine if he is developmentally mid late 20s like he looks--or I am just biased from the way he looks).

So I am already on record Portland should fleece Seattle in a trade and then take Durant with the 2 pick. I think they are pretty close in upside and safety as picks.

 

A player like Yi is someone who hasn't grown into his body yet, not Oden. He had an NBA body from the time he was in high school and is carrying around 280 pounds very comfortably. He's one of those player that appears a lot smaller than they are when you see them move and explode, and don't have other players around him to gauge size. Hibbert is enormous and pretty mobile for a guy his size, but in their matchup, Oden didn't give up much in terms of size and made Hibbert look like he was wearing weights on his feet.

One thing Oden will not be is a Kwame or Camby (neither player received close to the universal praise that Greg has from a young age), but he is unusual for a center in coming out after his freshmen year. Yao's pick was so widely derided because not many analysts and writers knew him well though scouts were quick to comment on his sheer talent, even if he was playing in a massively inferior league. Oden simply doesn't have the questions about his game and physicality that Yao did.

 

I sure hope you guys are right... as im tired of seeing undersized power forwards fill up the center positions on NBA rosters...

the league has changed... as Shaq and Yao and Howard can atest

there are no more Shaq rules... or the "he is so hard to officiate" when Shaq first came into the NBA...

in todays league you need to be able to shoot from 15 feet out...

 

Well I think if another guy comes in with a frame that can comfortably hold 340 in a 7'1 frame and move like Shaq he will dominate like Shaq.

But Oden is not Shaq physically--not that strong and I don't think quite as quick/explosive either. Shaq was getting 5 BPG his soph and junior years and scoring 26/27 PPG without having any fundamentals at all and with whole college defenses drapped on him. All power and athleticism.

Oden has some fundamentals already--but again I think he neither is a Shaq or Hakeem type unlimited athlete. Not that you need that kind of phenom athleticism to be great (Duncan).

IMO the question with Oden is whether he has already come close to peaking (physically and skillwise because of the best non-pro multi-year BB training possible, unlike TD, Hakeem, Shaq, etc). If he has (nearly peaked), he will still be a very good NBA player, but not necc the best in this draft. In other words is he more Pat Ewing coming into the NBA or more Hakeem? My opinion from limited observation and reports is he is more the former. Not that Ewing wasn't worth a 1st overall pick--but that is different than a once a decade, once every 5 years, type prospect. Add that fact you have another 19 year old prospect whose body clearly has room to grow and who was by far the best college player as a fresh makes things really interesting.

 

I think everyone should be reminded that Oden put these numbers up without the full use of his strong hand.

 

I don't feel like going through the exercise of typing it out but Oden is squarely witin their range in terms of /minute productivity with the exception of Robinson, who played agaisnt third tier opposition in the CAA.

yeah because they started further back. Simply because Oden arguably doesn't have as far to go after year 1 isn't something to hold against him like you seem to be doing.

And as for him having "years of training', quite honestly I doubt he learned so much at Lawrence North High School + 30 games at OSU so as to give him a significantly better platform than anybody else on this list. If the criticism of Odom is that he just dunks all the time and has no refinement, than it's almost absurd to simultaneously hear that he's been trained a lot more and is close to his peak. Rather it suggest the opposite.

 

It's really hard to guage centers because while in college you can take advantage of your height, in the NBA, not as much. I think he has the potential to be somewhere between david robinson and Zo, but probably closer to Zo without the shotblocking. I remember there was a lot of similar hype behind Kandi who had a similar college career, but I think Oden has a better work ethic. Still, Oden could get out run in the league today and be reduced to a Kandi in the worst case scenario.

The other center to look at is Roy Hibbert. My Georgetown bias aside, he has pretty good quickness and has a lot of solid offensive moves. I wouldn't be surprised that if Oden struggles, a lot of people might say that Hibbert would have been a better pick. *edit* hibbert pulled out of the draft for more moneys next year.

Then again, i remember back in the day when Pavel Podkolzine was expected to be the next dominant center, but that didn't last long

 

just wait and watch , Yao going own his ass!!!

 

But we know Hakeem, Shaq, Robinson and Duncan got exponentually better. And they had college seasons far more remarkable offensively and defensively than what Oden did in the only college season we have to base him on. If Oden stayed would be progress like them, maybe, maybe not. Thus Oden is less of a sure thing because he hasn't shown as much prior to the draft, and IM subjective opinion certainly doesn't look as phenom quick/athletic relative to his size as the 1st 3 (more like Duncan/Ewing level).

As for the hand issue, I don't think it affected his blocks once he was cleared to play. 3.3 blocks for someone considered a dominant college defensive anchor really isn't that outstanding. It is excellent, yes, but not phenomenal by any stretch, even plenty of fresh have hit 4 blocks or more per game.

Hakeem had played what 2 years of organized BB prior to his fresh year. Robinson grew like half a foot his freshman season. Nothing about Oden is comparable to things like this.

My crit is not that Oden has no refinement. My crit is that he is neither the atheletic freak of Hakeem/Shaq nor has proven he is as refined as DR or TD before they entered the draft. Maybe he gets more refinement, or maybe he doesn't, but we don't have a 25-14-5 type college season to remove most all reasonable doubt.

Hey, I still think he is the overall #1--just not a TD/Shaq/Hakeem/Duncan type prize (undoubtably future dominant NBAer).

 

Well techinically they got geometrically better - and if you want to measure progress that way, Shaq got exponentially better then regressed his junior season - so honestly I think you are putting way too much into that. The only reason why I cited his freshman numbers was to show that he's on par with the rest of these guys as far as productivity (and in many cases ahead of it).

Again - so what? Hakeem didn' grow up in the jungle and then one day stumble onto a basketball court like in the movies. He grew up in a middle class family and played handball and soccer. Whenever this argument is deployed (say for people like Malick Badiane, lol) effectively you're saying that so and so's high school and junior high coaches gave him a head start. I find this argument silly. Michael Jordan got cut from his HSteam as a sophomore.. And did Hakeem play his whole freshman season with a cast on? Ewing? So you can make up mitigating factors for him too.

Well no of course we don't because he he's only 18 and has payed in 30 games, but your posts are implying that we've seen all he's got and it's not that much.

PS we did not have a 25-14-5 season from most of those guys either. Duncan's highest output was 20 ppg as a senior. Hakeem had 16 ppg as a junior. The only guys who did it were Robinson 28-11(vs. small school competition and then only on his senior year) and Shaq's 27 ppg sophomore season.

 

I still say Oden is like a once an every 3 year type C prospect, not a once a decade type slam dunk. Looking since the 80s I think he is a notch below as a prospect from Shaq, DR, Sampson, Hakeem and Duncan. I think he is in the mix with Ewing, Mourning, Carroll--though maybe at the top of this group.

Oden really ins't that distinguished in anything, not getting 20+PPG, not 5 blocks, not noticable steals, not a board monster. Some prospects had all of them--Shaq and DR, others had most Hakeem, Duncan. Looking at the trend I don't think Oden would all of a sudden become a monster shot blocker, rebounder, and acquire super quick hands. I think the main way Oden could drammatically improve is PPG--but it isn't like he is starting in a "rawer" state as a fresh like Hakeem (new to the game, all athleticism), Duncan (relatively new to the game as well), DR (who grew like 5 inches), or Shaq(no refinement, all athleticism). Oden just reminds me more of many a slightly more athletic Ewing or slightly taller Okafor. Maybe he is more than that, but I think more of those guys than Shaq/DR in my subjective view (consider performance, where I think his game can grow, innate atheleticm from watching him, where I think he body and skill development is already at, etc).

(I also think Durant is close to a once and every 3 year type prospect (2/3 drafts a solid#1), though obviously not a center. This is another debate of course)

Player PPg RBg Blg Stg PFg (year)
OdenG 15.7 09.6 3.3 0.6 2.7 (fresh)

----best C prospects since 1980, in my order pre-draft----
ONeal 24.1 14.0 5.2 1.0 2.9 (jun)
ONeal 27.6 14.7 5.0 1.5 2.5 (soph)
ONeal 13.9 12.0 3.6 1.3 3.8 (fresh)

Robin 28.2 11.8 4.1 2.0 3.0 (sen)
Robin 22.1 13.0 5.9 1.7 2.7 (jun)
Robin 23.6 11.6 4.0 0.9 2.6 (soph)
Robin 07.6 04.0 1.2 0.2 2.9 (fresh)

Hakee 16.8 13.5 5.6 1.6 3.2 (jun)
Hakee 13.9 11.4 5.1 1.4 3.3 (soph)
Hakee 08.2 06.2 2.5 0.9 2.9 (fresh)

Sampo 19.1 11.7 3.1 0.6 2.9 (sen)
Sampo 14.9 11.2 4.6 0.8 3.0 (fresh)

Dunca 20.8 14.7 3.2 0.7 2.2 (sen)
Dunca 19.1 12.3 3.8 0.6 2.3 (jun)
Dunca 16.8 12.5 4.2 0.3 2.4 (soph)
Dunca 09.8 09.6 3.8 0.3 2.5 (fresh)

Ewing 14.6 09.2 3.6 1.1 2.9 (sen)
Ewing 17.7 10.2 3.3 0.8 3.2 (soph)
Ewing 12.7 07.5 3.2 1.1 3.2 (fresh)


------other top C prospects picks since 80s----

Camb 20.5 08.2 3.9 1.0 2.6 (jun)
Camb 13.9 06.2 3.4 0.8 2.5 (soph)
Camb 10.2 06.4 3.6 0.6 3.5 (fresh)

OkaF 17.6 11.5 4.1 1.0 2.4 (jun)
OkaF 15.9 11.2 4.7 0.9 --- (soph)
OkaF 07.9 09.0 4.0 0.8 --- (fresh)

Mour 21.3 10.7 5.0 0.6 3.6 (sen)
Mour 13.1 07.3 5.0 0.4 3.2 (fresh)

Olow 22.2 11.2 2.9 0.3 2.5 (jun)

Bogut 20.4 12.2 1.8 --- --- (soph)

Mutm 15.2 12.2 4.7 1.6 2.8 (jun)

Ellsn 17.6 08.7 3.2 1.3 3.0 (sen)
Ellsn 13.1 08.2 2.4 1.3 3.2 (sen)

Smits 24.7 08.7 3.9 0.6 3.2 (sen)

Dourt 20.2 09.0 1.0 1.0 2.7 (sen)

Benja 21.5 14.1 5.1 0.9 3.1 (jun)

Bowie 17.4 09.1 2.9 0.6 2.9 (soph)

Carrol 22.8 10.1 --- --- --- (jun)

 

This one is getting a little old. That hand's been hurt this long?



I do like the Robinson/Zo excuses, but I don't see him putting it on the floor as much. He's an athlete in the Zo mode though, quick jumper.


He looks way more nba ready than Durant, phyiscally anyway. Durant looks soft, Oden is ripped. He's got an nba body; long ass arms and ugly as hell. That's for whoever laughed at that earlier.

 

It was in a cast from the first game to the last game, so yeah I'd say it was relevant.