If I were Nate Mc. I would hit Oden with switch every time he fouled

Everyone who knows me will admit that I’m one of the biggest, but yet most fair, Blazers fans out there. I will criticize when that criticism is warranted, and I will praise when it’s earned.
Regarding Oden, I’m not calling him a bust yet. No. Was I disappointed with his rookie season? Yes, absolutely. Was it a good season? In many ways it was. We saw some great flashes of his strength, power, and agility. At the same time, we saw how uncoordinated he is right now, his hands aren’t that great, and he looks lost on the court. He also plays defense with his arms, not feet, which leads to a lot of fouls. Some of that can be attributed to him being a rookie, of course.
I think his PER doesn’t tell the entire story. Look at his game log, and you’ll see his best games came against teams with no inside presense (ie Golden State when he put up 22 and 10; the Bucks without Bogut – 25 and 14; Wizards 18 and 14). He also had awful games against anyone that had a decenter center, such as Phoenix, Houston, LA Fakers, Orlando, etc. So, his PER is skewed. I’d love to see what it was like against, say, the top 10 teams in the league, and compare THAT to the results of other rookies. Dan, Jeff – can you guys run those numbers?? That’d be awesome.

Finally, as far as his fouling, compare him to other recent centers:
Dwight Howard: 2.8 fpg, 32.6MPG, started all 82 games, 17.27 PER
Emeka Okafor: 2.9 fpg, 35.6 mpg, started all 73 games he played, 16.4 PER
Yao Ming: 2.8 fpg, 29 mpg, started 72 games, 20.2 PER

And by the way, each of them had higher Fouls per Game in the 2nd season than in the first.. We know Oden can’t afford that, unless the fouls are more spread out over the course of the game and he manages to stay on the floor longer.

The bottom line is, Oden is not a bust yet, of course not. But I’m far from saying “he’ll definitely be a superstar”. Look, he’s had one year in the league, that’s not enough to make any kind of accurate decision about him. I pray that he becomes great, I really do. And I hope he becomes AT LEAST what Dwight Howard is today (I don’t see why he can’t – they have similar skill sets in my opinion). But for now, I’m just gonna enjoy my Blazers team at the top of the Western Conference for the next decade, whether he’s part of it or not (and I sure hope he is the centerpiece of it all).

Great article. I mean when I watched Oden play this season the only thing he did poorly was foul on pretty much ever possession. Do you think his fouls will go down at all?

I think he will be the best center in the league.

Greg Oden’s rebounding is what sets him apart. If his rookie year is any indication, he is a once in a generation offensive rebounder.

According to basketball-reference.com, his rookie year offensive rebounding percentage was 15.7%. This is right up there with the rookie years of Rodman (15.6%) and Moses Malone (15.5%), and above Buck Williams (13.7%) and Barkley (12.5%). These are generally considered the greatest offensive rebounders in the last 35 years.

Dwight Howard led the league in offensive rebounds this year by a far cry, and he had 13.8%. So Greg’s offensive rebounding rate was 14% better than this year’s league leader.

This manifests itself not only as an individual stat. In fact, he not only grabs more offensive rebounds when he’s in the game, the whole team grabs even more. So he doesn’t “suck up” offensive rebounds from his teammates. Rather, he “makes his teammates rebound better” (related to “makes his teammates play better”), and to an amazing degree.

From basketballvalue.com come the team offensive rebounding stats. The average team has an offensive rebounding rate of 29%. These numbers are fairly clustered, with all but the best and the worst ranging from 26% to 31%. The best (except for Portland) is Philly at 33.4%.

Portland without Oden, is 32.5%, which would be 2nd in league. But with him, we rise far above the pack. With Greg in the lineup, our offensive rebounding rate is 38.7%! If you are into statistics, with Greg in the lineup, Portland is 5 standard deviations better than the average.

For one individual player to make that much of a difference is truly amazing. It’s such an incredible margin, and indicates that he is a once in a generation offensive rebounder.

Great comment Blaz06Draft! His rebounding rate is truly remarkable. You should check out Kevin Love’s rebound rate as well. He is a machine.

yes he is

You guys put it as if Oden is unlucky with fouls. Like he just happens to be getting more fouls than other guys. He is the one committing them. He is the one who can commit less of them. A guy you can compare him to is Carlos Boozer. Over the past 2 seasons (one of them injury plagued) Boozer has averaged 3.6 fouls per game, very similar to Oden. Over that span though he has managed to average playing over 33 minutes per game. He also has posted PER’s of 21.83 and 17.28 (the second coming in only 37 games). To add to this point, since Boozer has been a member of the Jazz he has averaged a PER of 20.79 (with his lowest PER since his rookie year coming last season), played no less than 31 mpg (in a season where he only played 33 games) and averaged 3.4 fouls per game. So to say that the fouls are the culprit for Oden’s lack of playing time or productivity is not really founded. Oden has averaged a slightly higher foul rate and both players have been injury proned with the bulk of the injuries being severe knee injuries, making them a decent comparison. There is some other reasoning behind his lack of playing time. Perhaps its the stellar play of Pryzbilla that has lead to Oden’s diminished minutes or maybe McMillan just doesn’t see it yet. That remains to be seen.

Oden’s lack of playing time due to fouls actually is founded. Especially when a rookie commits fouls, coaches will often sit a rookie in foul trouble to teach them a lesson to stop committing dumb fouls. Przybilla may be a good back up, but Oden’s productivity is the reason he was the starter until he injured and fouled his way out of the spot. Przybilla had a 15.46 PER. Not too impressive, just an average player in the league. Also 2.46 fouls per game. Thanks for playing.

“Oden’s productivity is the reason he was the starter until he injured and fouled his way out of the spot”

Not really true. He was the starter because he was the #1 pick and there was pressure to start him at the beginning of the year. Throughout preseason there was a LOT of chatter in Portland (trust me, I know) about Joel being better and more ready right now, but how do you NOT start a #1 pick who is supposed to be the cornerstone of your franchise for the next 10 years? Pressure…

If Oden was truly better than Pryz right now, he’d have his starting job back when he came back. But at this point, he’s not (I don’t care what PER says). If you watched as many games as I did (i’d say I watched about 70 of them this year), you’d have seen that Oden is NOT ready to be a starting center, one of the reasons being him fouling way too much.

And as far as “lack of PT DUE to fouls” being founded – not sure if that’s the right way to look at it. It’s circlular logic. He fouled because he was on the court for such limited time and couldn’t get in the rhytm and was overly aggressive. However, he was on the court for a limited time because he fouled a lot. And a LOT of his fouls were just stupid stupid fouls and not playing good defense, pushing people with his hands, etc.

Can’t wait to see what Oden does next year though! I’m predicting 14-11-2blocks, in about 30 mpg.

Bynum is better than that joker. Bynum could dominate the league more than lebron, oden, kobe, wade or any of those dudes.

He’s large marge son. Oden is Bambi son. Wobbles as it were. His feet don’t move right.

This site has some funny stuff on it son. By the way teh Blazers aren’t going to win title after title.
hahah

Grandpa oden needs a cane.

I read this site and thought it was interesting. I think yall are looking at it different than the players do…

Guy can really rebound.

Blaz06Draft: Greg Oden’s rebounding is what sets him apart.If his rookie year is any indication, he is a once in a generation offensive rebounder.According to basketball-reference.com, his rookie year offensive rebounding percentage was 15.7%.This is right up there with the rookie years of Rodman (15.6%) and Moses Malone (15.5%), and above Buck Williams (13.7%) and Barkley (12.5%).These are generally considered the greatest offensive rebounders in the last 35 years.
Dwight Howard led the league in offensive rebounds this year by a far cry, and he had 13.8%.So Greg’s offensive rebounding rate was 14% better than this year’s league leader.This manifests itself not only as an individual stat.In fact, he not only grabs more offensive rebounds when he’s in the game, the whole team grabs even more.So he doesn’t “suck up” offensive rebounds from his teammates.Rather, he “makes his teammates rebound better”(related to “makes his teammates play better”), and to an amazing degree.From basketballvalue.com come the team offensive rebounding stats.The average team has an offensive rebounding rate of 29%.These numbers are fairly clustered, with all but the best and the worst ranging from 26% to 31%.The best (except for Portland) is Philly at 33.4%.
Portland without Oden, is 32.5%, which would be 2nd in league.But with him, we rise far above the pack.With Greg in the lineup, our offensive rebounding rate is 38.7%!If you are into statistics, with Greg in the lineup, Portland is 5 standard deviations better than the average.
For one individual player to make that much of a difference is truly amazing.It’s such an incredible margin, and indicates that he is a once in a generation offensive rebounder.

I think is lacking in confidence , first you have to believe in yourself
or else nobody will;
Check Kevin Garnett is not all that , in fact in his rookie year 15.8 one of
the lowest per , in fact Ewing and Howard are a lot better in paper but
Ewing never won a ring and Howard we will have to wait and see, the
point is even if you don’t show great numbers you have to believe that
you can , I guess is a mind thing ( determination) as well.

While Oden might not be a bust in the sens that he might become productive, it can’t be too encouraging of a start to even be in that discussion. Especially while Durant is looking like a future MVP.

Oden even admitted in an interview that Pryzbilla should be starting over him but because he was the poster child he got to start. The rumors around portland pre-finding out he was injured was “He is the future, we’re gonna be in the championship because of him his ROOKIE season.” WTF? The Marketing has tried to focus on him too much, which to me has made him into a bust. He’s not living up to their hype, so they need to focus elsewhere until he brings more to the table than an elevated fouling average and injury rate.

me too

Fleezy: IfIwereNateMc.IwouldhitOdenwithswitcheverytimehefouled