Oden

[keltsfan]

Kestas,

Offensively, Oden is raw and Simmons characterization of him, with the
caveat of the broken wrist, is fair.

Defensively, Oden is exceptional.  He's a potentially dominating, game
changing presence on that end and of those players Simmons mentions, only
Olajuwon compares favorably.  Oden's defensive instincts are outstanding.
He's got tremendous awareness of the floor, he's got above average footwork
and understanding of the proper angle to take to cut off an attacker, he's
got exceptional ability to recover if beaten by a smaller player, and he has
the fundamentals of shot blocking down like I haven't seen since watching
highlights of Bill Russell.  In short, he already does at 18 years old what
many NBA centers can't do after seven years of pro ball or ever for that
matter.   

Oden is a big young man.  And for his size he's very athletic. I've been a
bit disappointed in the fact that he doesn't appear to be running the floor
like I've seen him do in high school and this might be a red flag indicating
his fitness level is not as good as it was.  Or as Walton suggested to
Simmons, Oden is being very careful to not reinjure the wrist.  I hope it's
the latter because in high school Oden was showing much more all around
athleticism.

I thought it unfair that Simmons took one exceptional quality from each of
the centers he mentioned and stated that Oden didn't compare well.  The same
could've been done for the other players he mentioned.  For example, O'Neal
and Mourning lacked the natural scoring ability of Robinson, Robinson lacked
the passing ability of Walton and the physical presense of O'Neal, etc....It
would be interesting to compare Oden's 18 year old game with the equivalent
18 year old games of those other players as well as Duncan, Russell and
Walton. 

The brilliance of Oden is clearly on the defensive end, exactly what the
Celtics need by the way, and his anchoring the Celtics defense would
facilitate the Rondos and Allens of the team kicking some ass on that end.
With Rondo and Allen on the perimeter and a player like Oden backing them
up, WOW.

In any event, as long as Boston snags one of the top two picks and both Oden
and Durant come out, things will be looking up.  If Durant is the pick,
Ainge will have to trade out some of the redundancy since the young fella is
a top notch scorer on a team already possessing scorers in Pierce,
Sczcerbiak, West, Jefferson and Green.

If Oden is the pick, the one issue that must be addressed is can Oden and
Jefferson coexist on the offensive end? Will each get in the other's way?  

Ravi

  

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: celtics-bounces at igtc.com 
> [mailto:celtics-bounces at igtc.com] On Behalf Of Kestas
> Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 5:04 PM
> To: kelts
> Subject: Oden
> 
> Mark (and other Oden watchers),
> what do you think of BSG's observations of Oden?
> 
> http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/blog/index?name=simmons
> 
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