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Oden vs. Durant

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Oden (honk) or Durant (honk honk)?

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: June 25th, 2007 01:00 AM

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E-mails arrive for Portland Trail Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard reading simply ?honk? or ?honk, honk.? They come from fans weighing in on whom the Trail Blazers should take with the first pick of this week?s NBA draft. Franchise officials have embraced the alluring but agonizing choice, putting up billboards around the city that ask drivers to beep their horns once for Ohio State center Greg Oden and twice for Texas forward Kevin Durant.
The Blazers did not indicate which way they were leaning.

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Top of the classes

Draft: Petrie had star classmates

By Scott Howard-Cooper - Bee Staff Writer

Last Updated 1:38 am PDT Monday, June 25, 2007
Story appeared in SPORTS section, Page C7
Greg Oden is the next Bill Russell!
Kevin Durant is the greatest college freshman ever!
Woman gives birth to alien baby!

The basketball world is hyperventilating on hype. The NBA draft comes every June, only this time it's more like once a generation. Talent evaluators rate it the deepest in years, with about half the lottery adding to the buildup by playing into the Final Four, and league brass benefiting from no longer having to introduce their fans to high school kids.

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I don't like Simmons that much, but he isn't an OSU hater.

From a blog entry of his in April the day after the OSU title game...

Basketball Blog: Oden is No. 1 SLOTTED

Apr. 4, 2007 | feedback

I'll remember Monday night's Florida-OSU game for five reasons: Florida cementing its status as one of the best non-UCLA college teams of the modern era; Billy Packer and Jim Nantz overlooking this very fact for most of the night; Greg Oden finally earning the No. 1 spot in the 2007 draft; Corey Brewer catapulting himself into the top seven (and possibly higher); and Nantz's hysterical reaction after Joakim Noah's "we're gonna do it right!" postgame interview, which could best be described as, "I can't wait to get to Augusta."


Let's tackle the first two points because they go hand in hand ...


Clearly, the night's major theme was Florida's winning consecutive titles without being seriously threatened in either tournament. Not counting the obligatory Round 1 blowouts, the Gators won their other 10 playoff games by 11.2 points per game (with only the '06 Hoyas coming within seven points of them) and their four Final Four games by scores of 73-58, 73-57, 76-66 and 84-75. That's ridiculous. Looking at the bigger picture, three Florida players are top-10 picks (Noah, Brewer and Al Horford) and two more are projected as second-rounders (Taurean Green and Chris Richard), the most impressive collection of NBA-ready talent in years. But their selflessness stood out over everything else: They loved playing with one another and genuinely didn't care who received the most attention. One of Monday night's enduring images was Noah (suffering through a notably mediocre night) cheering like a 12th man on the bench as his teammates finished off the Buckeyes down the stretch. Did it matter to Noah that his draft stock was taking a sizable dent? Absolutely not. He just wanted to win the game.

Did Nantz and Packer expand on any point from the previous paragraph? Nope. Not really.



Their commentary revolved around the following things: how Oden needed to avoid foul trouble; how Florida had three big guys to rotate on Oden; how Oden and Noah looked tired; how Oden was avoiding foul trouble; how Oden and Noah looked tired; which guys were in foul trouble; how Oden looked tired; and how Oden looked tired. They completely underplayed the Florida/greatness angle; hell, if there was ever a subject in which Packer's opinion would have carried some weight (since he's announced every Final Four game since 1975), it was that one. They ignored any discussion of the 2007 draft because of CBS's policy of "let's only concentrate on the college game," ignoring the elephant in the room. They underplayed the fact that OSU killed itself by missing so many 3-pointers until the last few minutes, when the stats made this fact impossible to ignore. And when it became obvious that Florida would win, we got to hear Nantz's extended thoughts about the greatness of Mrs. Billy Donovan and Mrs. Thad Matta, followed by Nantz gently reminding Packer (legitimately in a pro-Oden frenzy by the game's end) that Oden couldn't win the "Most Outstanding Player" of the Final Four because Florida won the tournament.


Needless to say, the Packer-Nantz broadcast left, um, a little to be desired. I'd delve into this topic further, but we're bound to hear more about Packer in the next few days after he used a slur about gays on "Charlie Rose" last Friday. (Note: Jimmy Kimmel aired the complete clip on his show on Monday night.) Fairly or unfairly, CBS's lead college basketball announcer joking on TV that Rose would "fag out" of a wager has the potential to become the major sports story of the week.


As for Oden, some OSU fans apparently misconstrued the point of Monday's "Oden hasn't earned the No. 1 pick yet" mini-column, considering my mailbox was crammed with "Oden shoved it in your face!" and "how does that crow taste now?" e-mails this morning. I don't blame them for missing the point; after all, Ohio State is a state school. Just kidding. But allow me to give a little lesson in reading comprehension. When somebody writes the following lines ...


? I've watched OSU 15-16 times this season and there wasn't a single game that left me saying, "Wow ... that guy's gonna be unnnnnnnn-beeeeee-leeeeeeeeevable."


? What's the case against Oden then? You could sum it up in one sentence: He hasn't earned that No. 1 spot yet.


? Barring a monster effort against Florida, we could make it through the entire college hoops season without a definitive "Oden Game."


... that doesn't make him an Oden Hater.


Look, I'm a basketball fan. I want to watch as many great basketball players as possible; the more the merrier. Everything I ever write about basketball is based on a simple premise: I want the product to be better, I want the players to be better, I want the games to be better. So when I'm questioning why everyone is handing the No. 1 spot to Oden when he hadn't played a single dominant college game, or pointing out that I was disappointed because this year's most ballyhooed high school recruit (O.J. Mayo) bombed at the McDonald's All-American Game by repeatedly jacking up terrible shots in traffic, then screwing up an easy three-on-one with the game on the line so he could brick an gawd-awful 3 ... I mean, these things weren't written because I was sitting around thinking, "Which player can I ream today?" As I wrote yesterday, I'm in the pro-Oden camp. I just wanted to see one monster college game from him. Just one.


Monday night? We got it.


Greg Oden was awesome. He was the best player on the court. He kept OSU in the game by himself. And I turned off the TV thinking two things.

1. Greg Oden is the No. 1 pick in the draft. The debate is over. He pulled a Private Ryan and earned that spot.
Click to expand...

April 4th Entry on E$PN
 
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