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With all due respect to Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley, the consensus-turned-actual Nos. 1-2 picks in the NBA draft six weeks ago, they are consensus nothings when it comes to projecting the league's likely Rookie of the Year for 2008-09.
Greg Oden still lists that honor among his unfinished business from last season, a rookie year wiped out by surgery on his right knee. Which makes Rose and Beasley -- in addition to being fortunate not to be the Nos. 2-3 picks in the draft, had Oden come out this year -- definite underdogs for the trophy you only get a shot at once.
Oden, the old/young face of an exciting Trail Blazers team bursting with potential, hasn't played a minute more of legit NBA ball than either Rose or Beasley. But as Samuel L. Jackson purred coolly in Shaft after he had lost his cop's badge, Does that make him less dangerous, or more dangerous? His year in physical therapy, in the swimming pool and in the weight room has left Oden stronger, bigger, healthier and hungrier than ever. He's been forgotten about a little bit, too, always a good thing for a highly touted player; it either motivates him to reclaim his crown or allows him to work with less glare from spotlights.
Oden took the most public, significant step yet Monday in his long comeback, participating in full-contract drills on the Blazers' practice court in Tualatin, Ore., with teammate Channing Frye and assistant coach Dean Demopoulos. Three-quarters of an hour in duration, the workout was open to the media -- a simple but smart marketing move, given the interest in Oden from fans in Portland, nationally and globally -- and the reports were largely ecstatic.
"I've got tingles,'' Blazers assistant general manager Tom Penn told beat writer Jason Quick of The Oregonian after witnessing the sweat session. Quick described a few Oden dunks, one of them so ferocious that it threatened to redefine "shot-clock violation.'' What Oden lacked in conditioning (the easiest thing for him to improve in the two months left before training camp), he more than made up for in agility and strength. Romping at less than full speed, with mild intensity on halfway-ready game legs.
"It is an amazing phenomenon, what's going on here with him,'' Demopoulos told The Oregonian. But why take Dean's 11 words for it? Pictures, we've been told, are worth a thousand, and there was one floating around on OregonLive.com that, in time, might rival that grainy 1967 alleged photograph of Big Foot striding through the forest, in the subcategory of frightening man-beast candids from the Pacific Northwest.
In this one, Oden appears to have met Frye in a full-frontal defense of the basket. His right arm is raised straight up to intercept the basketball in any possible flight, but that's academic because Oden's left hand is cupping the ball -- which is still in Frye's grasp but is being shoved downward into the more experienced player's face. Frankly, Frye himself is being stuffed, further evidence of Oden's left-hand development at Ohio State while he recovered from ligament surgery on his right wrist.
In the background, Demopoulos appears to look like he's just seen a real Sasquatch.
Get used to that expression, too, as Oden continues his comeback. What was meant to happen a year ago now appears to be more on track than ever, a rebuilt and restocked team that faded last season boasting both experience and youth, centered on an undisputed once-in-an-NBA-generation big man.
If Oden's knee is as sound as reported and holds up to the basic rigors of the Blazers' schedule, he soon might have the league's mere mortals running for cover. The quickness of a man six inches and 60 pounds lighter, with the thunder of a skilled, athletic post player, all in a king-sized package surpassed only by relative plodders such as Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming.
Add that to a squad with LaMarcus Aldridge, Brandon Roy and others who prospered from last year's learning season, and newcomers such as Rudy Fernandez and Jerryd Bayless, and my early (and hardly out-on-a-limb) pick for ROY might be busy well into May. Which is more than we expect to say for Beasley and Rose.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/w ... den.notes/
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