Posts tagged GregOden at FanHouse

Greg Oden made his preseason debut Tuesday night, at home against the Kings. As you'd expect, Trail Blazers fans combusted on Oden's introduction and after just about every play he made. And he made plenty of plays ... ESPN's J.A. Adande and The Oregonian's Jason Quick talk about Rudy Fernandez's premiere, which had some irresistible moments, but Oden was everything that has been promised.

Within the first three minutes, Oden has hung three fouls on Sacramento starting center Spencer Hawes, a normally mammoth looking fellow who instead resembled an aardvark next to Oden's elephantine stature. But despite the overwhelming size and strength advantage, Oden was the player fighting for position and lunging after rebounds and twisting through traffic to get closer to the ball. He has David Robinson's size and Dennis Rodman's energy.

This isn't to crown Oden so early ... it was 20 minutes in a preseason game against, again, Spencer Hawes. G.O.'s offense is limited to getting good position and dunking the ball at this point -- he didn't show an inclination to face up or watch for cutters (not that Portland cut much around him). Defense, of course, is his calling card, and he showed real affinity for keeping Sacramento's bigs away from the rim. But he has a lot of work. And he needs to stay healthy.

Honestly, though: the Western Conference should be scared of this guy. Hawes should be scared, Chris Kaman should be scared, Shaquille O'Neal should be terrified, Mehmet Okur and Carlos Boozer should acquire some Advil. LaMarcus Aldridge has it right in a quote in Quick's piece: "Greg is a man-child." Greg Oden means business, and he showed Tuesday that he is finally ready to play.

UPDATE: Lest you consider me too prone to exclamation, the most rational writer in the land, Kelly Dwyer, has similar thoughts.

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The opening locale for our NBA Preview tour hosts a championship contender ... unless you believe in Vegas, where two teams have odds of at least 18-to-1 to win the title. Bettors have Utah at 18-to-1 and Portland, ahem Portland at 12-to-1. Clearly, folks expect big things from the newborn Trail Blazers.

That brings us to our first topic: how good will Portland be? The Blazers caught much of the nation off-guard last year, with a long winning streak through the early winter keeping the team alive in the rough Western playoff race. Clearly, Portland overperformed based on common expectation. Is that even possible this year? Win or lose, the Blazers will likely get more attention than any other Northwest team this season. The burgeoning tomorrow promises excitement, and no one wants to miss out the introduction of greatness. No pressure, kids.

Yawn. You know the drill. There's a Blazer. He's having surgery on something in his foot, ankle, or knee. He'll be out a few months. No need to panic. Be well, citizens.

This time it's Channing Frye, who had surgery to remove bone spurs in his foot and will be out what was first reported as 3 to 6 weeks, but is now eight to ten weeks, putting his return squarely in the middle of November, do not make training camp, do not make opening night, do not collect $200 dollars. Okay, you still collect $200 dollars because your contract is guaranteed. It's a figure of speech, Chan man.

This follows in the great Blazer tradition of Greg Oden last year, and Brandon Roy this year.

Again, neither Roy nor Frye's injuries are considered serious, but it does now present a creeping pattern of the injury bug for a team that was supposed to be taking its rightful place as the heir to the Western Conference, at least making a playoff spot this year.

Maybe it's all a coincidence and everything's cool, but if I were LaMarcus Aldridge, I wouldn't leave my house. Good news is this means more time for Channing to blog!

(HT: BlazersEdge, of course.)

Andre Iguodala feels like a new man with his new contract and new teammates who should take the Sixers to new heights. As such, he wants a new nickname. From the Philadelphia Daily News (via Skeets via Sixersoul):

"I don't like 'Iggy,' I don't mind 'The Other A.I.,' " he said. "It just shows the fans are watching basketball and know what I do. I want to be 'Dre, that's it.

"The A.I. thing, it's about Allen, always being in his shadow. He's a different player, brings a different element. It's like Kobe and Michael Jordan. Everybody says, 'Who's the next M.J?' You never want to be compared to another player [that way]. I just want to be me."

I totally get what he's saying about "The Other A.I." -- he's working on his own legacy, not living out Iverson's -- but 'Dre isn't much of a nickname. When I say "Iggy," every NBA fan knows who I'm talking about. Do you know how many guys named Andre are in the NBA? Well, I don't, but it's a lot, including 40% of Philly's starting lineup. Sorry man, but unless you come up with something better, it's going to be Iggy for a while.

My brother has a saying. "Some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant." Recently, the Portland Trailblazers' fans have felt like every day they're the dog. Today is one of the few days they take on hydrant-like qualities, and even then, it's only a slight sluggishness and a bloated water feeling.

Brandon Roy is scheduled to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery tomorrow to repair a torn meniscus that was revealed in an MRI on Tuesday. The Portland Tribune is reporting he'll miss time right up until training camp but be back when camp starts. BlazersEdge is getting everyone together to climb off the ledge.

Given all the good things that have happened to the Blazers lately, from getting Rudy Fernandez stateside to Greg Oden's impressive practices coming off of injury, something bad was bound to pop up. If this is the worst thing that happens to them until the season starts, the fanbase is still blessed in the Gods' eyes. If you're not sure of that, ask your local Clippers fan. You should be able to find them next to you on the ledge.

That's assuming of course, the knee heals fine. Best wishes to Brandon in his recovery.

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Hipster Runoff, via T.K. When I think of hipsters, I most definitely think of the Spurs.

2. Blazer's Edge. Will Greg Oden win Rookie of the Year?

3. The Sporting Blog. Josh Smith: "You're nothing without a good point guard." Take that, Tyronn Lue!

4. Wages of Wins Journal. Minnesota could win 30 games without Kevin Garnett for the first time ever. Progress!

5. Ball Don't Lie. Actual North Dakotan press headline: "Wade Keeps Dwyaneing His Shots." Next up: "Michael Keeps Redding His Otis" and "Mike Keep Krzyzewskiing His Rotation."

6. Cuzoogle. The un-PC Spanish Basketball Federation sets its targets on Germany.

Starting you off on the long road to divorce and estrangement from your family is New Orleans at Orlando at noon. So after opening presents, enjoying your Christmas morning coffee, and inevitably calling your sister to ask why she hated you enough to buy your kid that obnoxious talking Monk doll or plotting to return the sweater that your grandmother got you for an iPod charger, you can sit back, relax, and watch Tyson Chandler and Dwight Howard beat the crap out of each other.

Then the blood rivalry resumes with San Antonio traveling to Phoenix at 2:30PM EST for what should be a warm and happy holiday greeting between the two teams as Amare Stoudemire tries to go Silent Night, Deadly Night on the team that's bounced him from the playoffs two years in a row, while Bruce Bowen attempts to give Steve Nash the gift he's never wanted, two severed Achilles' and a partridge in a pear tree.

Last season, one part of the NBA's opening night doubleheader featured the Portland TrailBlazers, a team who had just 32 wins in 2006-07. The draw, of course, was the professional debut of Greg Oden. G-ODE's knee mussed the plan up; within weeks of the schedule's release, Oden underwent microfracture surgery and announced he'd be making his debut in 2008.

Well, the NBA will not relent: Oden's Blazers -- a decent team in 2007-08, but only 10th in its conference -- will appear on Opening Night again, as Portland visits the Lakers on October 28 on TNT. That game will be preceded by a massive marquee match-up: Cleveland at Boston.

Oden's team -- err, Brandon Roy's team? -- will get plenty of pub past Opening Night, too. Portland will be on national TV more times in the first week (2) than some teams will be all season. The Blazers will have eight games on TNT, and five on ESPN (including a pair against San Antonio). Clearly, the NBA believes in either the drawing power of Oden or the idea Portland will be a surprise contender this season. We'll see.

Via TrueHoop, this video of Greg Oden talking and dunking from The Oregonian will surely send Blazers fans into some state of frenzy. Also, it will send opposing Western centers into decade-long depressions.



In one of his myriad pieces during Odenporn Week at The O, Jason Quick notes G-ODE is bigger than he has ever been. He looks to be an absolute monster in this clip, and his physicality in a workout with Nate McMillan led the coach to re-retire from the game. Not to build up the already hyperhyped legend of Oden, but ... it's hard not to.

One of the best things about last season was the fact that so many teams were good that you didn't expect. The bad thing was that they all played in small markets, and therefore were only on national television for about a second and a half before returning you to your regularly scheduled Lakers versus Mavericks game. Well, apparently the NBA is going to go ahead and try something different after last year's disastrous Greg Oden vs. Kevin Durant Christmas Day matchup. That game lost its luster of course due to Oden's injury and that the fact that the Sonics were worse than watching your alcoholic uncle fall off the wagon and face first into the spiked eggnog for the third year running. That left us with quite the bad taste in our mouths, but this year, we get a unique treat.

New Orleans.com has gotten a copy of the Hornets's 2008 schedule and is reporting that the Hornets will face off against the Orlando Magic next year on Christmas Day. The game is expected to be held the night of Christmas Day and most likely on TNT. I would expect the usual Lakers ratings blowout in the early game, and possibly another crack at Oden vs. Durant in the afternoon. But the nightcap, hoo boy.