Portland Fans Still Delusional RE: Oden vs. Durant

Durant is a freak. He put up 25/7/3 on 48% shooting in his second year. If he doesn't ballhog then the Thunder probably can't even win 10 games a season.

Portland screwed up big time. Can you imagine Roy, Durant and Aldridge as your big 3 for the next 7-8 years? Damn.

 

Calling Durant a ballhog is like calling Kobe one because they are the go to guy on both of their teams so if they need to score they can count on them both. All I can say about Oden is too much hype in college.

 

Durant will lead the NBA in scoring at some point. There is no question about it. He is as good as they get in terms of putting the ball in the basket and he's still got a lot of development to do. This is an entirely different topic, however.

Living in Portland now, I do hear what a lot of Blazers fans have to say about Oden. And no most of them are not delusional about Oden vs. Durant. They recognize Durant's greatness just as much as they see Oden's struggles. However, most of the Blazers fans still have hope for Oden because of his raw talents. We got a glimpse of what Oden can do in game 3 the other night. It's natural to have hopes when you see that enormous potential from time to time. The biggest question mark about Oden is whether he can stay healthy. If he does that he will progress naturally and be a force someday. After all, with his size and athleticism Oden is about as physically dominating as big men go. However, personally I don't think Oden will ever stay healthy long enough to develop into a star like what some Blazers fans hope. He has the worst track records of injuries in recent memory -- the guy has been consistently injured on every level that he's played at. Hence I'm predicting Durant over Oden will go down in history as another Bowie over Jordan.

 

QFT. Never understood why TMac takes so many 3s shooting 33%.

 

The Blazers don't need Durant. They have Roy at the wing already. The Blazers need a low-post player 4/5 or a wing defender or upgrade at 1 + a couple of veterans. They have cap space and trade chips to do it this summer.

 

durant is never going to develop playing with roy and aldridge. you dont need 3 scorers on the team, you only need one.

the reason durant is so good is becuase everyone else on thunder is either too young or plainly suck

 

if they have durant, they would be in the 2nd seed right now.

 

cut the guy some slack...it is after all his first year, and he looks like he will develop into the same class of players that the blazers are all in...


he just needs time to develop, and sure enough, he will be up to the challenge...

 

Too early to tell.

Yao thinks very high of Oden, said he has a chance to be better than Howard.

 

Hindsight really is 20/20 isn't it?

Yes, Oden does look very lost in this series. But don't you guys remember another certain #1 pick who brutally raped everyone he guarded during his first season? Some tall Chinese guy, what the hell ever happened to him? Oh wait.

Come on guys, he is coming off a super serious injury and he is trying to guard the best offensive center in the NBA. Some people will say it takes up to 2 full years to fully recover. Ask Amare Stoudemire.

I will reserve judgement until I see him put together a 70-75 game NBA season.

 

Probably better than Roy + Oden.

 

Durant + Roy would work well IMO. Roy is tentative at times. Lets be thankful we don't have to find out if it works or not.

 

Still doesn't erase the fact that Durant is the better prospect of the two. At the very least they'd have more trading chips to mold the team into what they want it to be, if Durant, Aldridge, and Roy failed to mesh.

Oden looks like a complete bust to me. Worse than Olowakandi. You obviously need more time to evaluate him, but he's on par with someone like Kelvin Cato at this point. I really don't see any real talent there.

 

Durant averaged 18 FGAs per game last year. That's pretty low for a #1 perimeter scoring option. He's very efficient.

He also moves very well without the ball.

 

latest buzz: Houston Fans still delusional RE: Gay vs Battier

 

Agreed. Not that this isn't a great discussin, but he's right.

 

It'd be hard to imagine us in this series if you subtracted Oden and added Durant. Wow. What could have been...

 

I think that Portland made the absolute correct call at the time. Nobody expected Durant to develop as fast as he has, and even more so, nobody expected Oden to be hampered by so many ridiculous injuries.

Oden still has plenty of time to develop into a complete beast. I'm pretty sure he's still just 21 years old. He has freakish strength and athleticism for a 7 footer, and before long he'll become a much smarter player. Durant will probably go down as the better player, but time will still tell whether or not Portland made the correct choice. I'm giving them another season.

You can never know how Roy and KD would have co-existed. I know that if Oden develops into a 15/12/2.5 kind of guy, which are my minimal expectations, Portland will be hell to face in the postseason for some time.