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Greg Oden Arrived?
November 19, 2008 11:17 AM
There you go, America.
Greg Oden -- the man who was projected as a top overall draft pick since he was a junior in high school -- has arrived. Took just 12 shots, but managed 22 points and 10 rebounds.
It's in all kinds of stories as his coming out party; his big night, or his arrival.
If you look only at the box score, Oden has arrived and the rest of the Blazers somehow let him down against a lesser Golden State team.
But I watched that game, and I can tell you that the thing that's letting everyone down is the box score.
Even as a Blazer fan who is steadfastly over the moon about this young man (he will crush you) it is flat wrong to say that the Blazers held him back last night. The opposite is true.
Here's what I saw: After a slow start, the Blazers were rolling. Honestly, it was just so obviously Portland's night. They had better players at nearly every position, and they were hunting turnovers on defense, while putting the right pieces in place on offense.
Then Greg Oden checked in.
This morning I checked and found that Greg Oden had the worst plus/minus of any player on the court. In his 30 minutes, Golden State outscored Portland by 11 points. It's rare that a player on the losing team has the best plus/minus in the game, but the guy Oden came in for, Joel Przybilla, tied two Warriors for that title. Portland was ten points better than Golden State in Przybilla's 17 minutes.
So, no, Portland didn't hold back Oden last night, and he didn't arrive.
He is enormous. He is strong. He is talented. He got a lot of minutes and touches, and turned them into some nice numbers. But the player who is going to anchor Portland's next title team? I'm still patiently waiting to see Greg Oden evolve into that guy.
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