Greg Oden risks life and limb!

Well, that's the impression I get when I read some of the recent news articles.

If you haven't seen the news, apparently Greg Oden decided to participate in a few games of pick-up basketball at his local fitness facility. Oops. Apparently that was a terrible thing to do.

The Blazer's weren't too happy about their recovering big man playing pick-up basketball.

Look, I understand that Oden's coming back from an injury and that the Blazers have a lot of money invested in him. On the other hand, from reading the reports it doesn't sound like he was engaging in any running or jumping beyond what he was actually cleared to do. The problem appears to be that he was doing it with "non-professionals."

Sorry, but I can't get too worked up about it. It doesn't sound like he was playing with players good enough to make him really exert himself. It sounds more like he was playing with a bunch of people like me-- decent high school level players, but nothing much beyond that level. In other words, they were excited to be on the same court as him, knew they were out-classed, and most likely were just enjoying the experience. Oden probably didn't get much beyond jogging and making some easy (for him!) dunks.

The summer after Rasheed Wallace graduated from high school, he spent a day at the swim club my family belonged to. He was on his way to UNC, and I'm pretty sure he had been told not to risk injury playing pick-up games with random people. Well, you know what? He played some basketball, some volleyball, and even a little tennis. I wasn't there for the basketball, but from all accounts he didn't really need to exert himself at all to be by far the best player on the court (not to mention the tallest player by a foot). If that's all that Greg Oden was doing, then he's just as likely to get hurt walking around his house (or getting up from the couch, as seems to have been the cause of his original injury) as by playing basketball.

I think everyone needs to just relax.

[I believe that commenter Louis played basketball with Rasheed that day, so hopefully he can add some details in the comments.]

[Late Update- 4/14/08- Just came across this CNNSI.com article that includes Oden's description of his pick-up basketball excursion, for what it's worth:

"I just wanted to get out there, I haven't been out there in so long,'' Oden said. "But the thing was, it wasn't as deep as people made it to be. It was a jog, a couple of jump shots, maybe one or two dunks. It wasn't that big of a deal. At least not to me.''

Is Etan Thomas going to call out Greg Oden and the Blazers?

Henry Abbot, over at Truehoop, points us to a blog post about how much easier it is to root for the Blazers now that they have shed their "Jailblazers" image.

The first line that Henry excerpted caught my attention:

[Greg Oden] plans to live on a reasonable stipend and not partake in the typical excesses of the NBA lifestyle.

I can already hear you saying "What's the big deal?" Normally, I'd agree with you, but it caught my eye because I thought it had particular resonance with the mini-brouhaha that erupted in mid-June over some comments by Andrew Bogut that were quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald. Basically, Bogut said that he wouldn't want to raise his children in an environment where you're supposed to flaunt your money, and he strongly implied (actually, he more or less came right out and said) that the majority of NBA players are arrogant, like to spend money (often foolishly), and have multiple girlfriends.

About a month later, Etan Thomas (currently on the Washington Wizards) responded to Bogut's comments in a piece posted on Slam Online. He took Bogut to task for not knowing what he was talking about and making generalizations, and possibly implied that Bogut's comments might be the result of racial bias (From Thomas' response: "You're equating bad decisions with "ghetto upbringing," leading me to believe that you are referring to an exclusive group of players. Interesting..."). I thought Thomas' response was a bit uneven, but I certainly agreed with (what I took to be) his main point that Bogut had made some very sweeping assertions without any (non-anecdotal) evidence to back them up.

Especially since Truehoop had been the first site to really bring Bogut's comments to the forefront (or, at least, Truehoop was the first site where I saw them covered) and Henry had predicted that Bogut would probably receive a rude reception from some of his fellow NBA players this season as a result of his comments, I expected any post on Truehoop to be especially sensitive to comments that might be interpreted as being similar in substance to Bogut's statements. So when I saw the first line in the blog post quoted by Truehoop, my antennae was raised.

It isn't surprising for a puff piece on a rookie to talk about how the rookie is planning to live responsibly and not let the hype get to them. In that context, the line about "excesses" could have been nothing more than filler (it should also be noted that this line was used to summarize a longer article, not a line from the article itself). However, in reading the article that the original blog post references, I think my initial sensitivity to resonance with the Bogut situation turned out to be well-founded.

The quote from the article that really caught my eye was this one:

"How many No. 1 picks would be driving a Ford Taurus?" said Blazers assistant coach Bill Bayno, who ran Oden's workouts last week. "He's not really caught up in all the hype. And that's nice. I think the NBA needs that. A lot of these guys are caught up in the wrong things: money and cars and bling. Greg's just a good dude; a down-to-earth kid. I don't think he'll let the money or the fame change him, which is rare in the NBA."

I was expecting the article to have some comments that made the same point as Bogut, but with a much different tone--talking about how Greg Oden was living responsibly, and only implicitly contrasting this lifestyle with that of other NBA players (after all, there's no need to talk about a player living responsibly if people assume that most players are living that way). And, for the most part, the article follows this script. Oden's budget and down-to-earth lifestyle are described, and Oden is certainly never quoted saying anything negative about other NBA players. The quote by Bayno, however, strikes me as basically the same as Bogut's comments in both tone and substance (even down to the focus on cars and "bling").

Somehow, I don't expect Bayno's statement to get the same attention as Bogut's statements. I think the reaction to Bogut's comments was less about what was said (since these types of comments about NBA culture have been around for years), and more about who said them. People (myself included) tend to have a circle-the-wagons mentality when people outside of "their" group criticize some aspect of the group's behavior. Bogut, despite having been in the US for six or seven years at this point, still qualifies as an outsider. He is a high-profile, white non-American in a league whose culture is defined by black Americans. Bayno, as an assistant coach, is much lower profile than Bogut. And while he's white (at least when I googled him the picture that I found was of a white guy--I had no idea who he was before I looked him up), he is American, which I think counts for a lot in making the insider-outsider distinction in this context.

If someone makes uninformed comments, then let's hold their feet to the fire. But let's not pretend we're upset with the message (or that the message must clearly be wrong) if we're really just unhappy with the identity of the messenger.

High profile offers for Greg Oden

Via TrueHoop, we get directed to this article by Jason Quick in the Oregonian from this past Sunday. In it, Quick describes some of the offers that Kevin Pritchard (the Trailblazer's GM) received for the number one pick (i.e. Greg Oden) in this past draft, and apparently some of the offers were quite substantial:

• From an Eastern conference team: A five-time All-Star and this year's lottery pick in exchange for the No. 1 pick and the Blazers' 2008 first-round pick.
  
• A team within the Blazers division proposed a trade involving a future Hall of Famer and a standout rookie for the Blazers' No. 1 pick.
• From a "Western conference power": The general manager wanted the Blazers' No. 1 pick. And he was willing to offer a player that will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Quick leaves the details on these proposed trades a bit thin, most likely to protect his sources, but I think it isn't too hard to figure out the identities of the involved parties, particularly in the first two trade scenarios.

In the first trade offer, I think it's clear that the offer was Paul Pierce and the Celtic's lottery pick (5th overall). There are only six Eastern conference teams that were in the lottery this year (Atlanta- twice, Milwaukee, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago- from New York, and Philadelphia), and Paul Pierce is the only five-time all-star on any of these rosters.

In the second trade offer, I think the offer must have been Kevin Garnett and Randy Foye. The teams in the Blazer's division are Utah, Denver, Minnesota, and Seattle. Of those teams, only Denver (Iverson) and Minnesota (Garnett) have players that I would consider certain Hall of Famers at this stage of their careers, and of those two teams only Minnesota had a standout rookie this past season.

The third trade offer I think is a bit trickier. Over at TrueHoop, Henry Abbot identifies San Antonio, Phoenix, and Dallas as the Western conference powers, eliminates Nowitzki from consideration as not a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer, eliminates Nash because the Suns attack only works with him running it, and comes to the conclusion that the Spurs offered Tim Duncan for the right to pick Greg Oden. I'm not sure I agree.

First, I find it hard to believe that the Spurs would offer Tim Duncan in a trade under any circumstances. He is, in my opinion, currently the best player in the NBA. His teams just win. And the Spurs have a very real chance to win another 2-3 NBA titles before Duncan retires. Why make a trade to get someone who may or may not one day be as good as Duncan is right now? I don't think it makes much sense, especially since the Spurs are already stockpiling talent (drafting players who continue playing overseas) for the day when Duncan is no longer the dominant force in the NBA. In addition, the same article by Quick mentions Popovich having a conversation with Pritchard, apparently before this third trade offer was made, in which Popovich talked about Pritchard having the chance to put together a twin-towers tandem even better than Duncan and David Robinson had been. I highly doubt he would have given such fulsome praise to Oden and LaMarcus Aldridge just before trying to get Pritchard to trade Oden.

If not Duncan, then who? I really don't know, but I think Henry Abbott might have read "Western conference power" too restrictively. In my mind, the two current first ballot Hall of Famers playing in the Western conference are Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant. While they aren't currently a powerhouse, the Lakers are still a playoff team and they are certainly a traditional Western conference power. Especially considering all the Kobe Bryant fireworks that have gone on this summer, I think it's more likely that the mystery general manager was Mitch Kupchak (the Laker's GM) rather than RC Buford (the Spur's GM). But I guess we'll never really know.