GREG ODEN: NEEDS WORK

I've noticed something. Greg Oden is great at "being a giant dude", but he's very, very poor at "playing basketball". Kwame Brown now has a challenger for "Worst Hands In The NBA". Next rebound off the face wins.

Andrew Bynum is so far ahead of this guy it's not even a conversation. I'm not sure I'd trade Andris Biedrins for him straight up. In fact I wouldn't--honest to god. Biedrins, at 22, is averaging 16.8 ppg, 13.5 rpg, and 1.5 blocks--it'll be years before Greg Oden can score 17 a game.

I know, I know, he's coming off a major injury, he's never played an NBA game in his life, etc., etc. That's true, but it doesn't change the fact that he has no skills whatsoever--he literally doesn't know what to do with the ball when he has it. It reminds me of Josh Moore, this giant 7 foot reject who played at Michigan and looked as if he'd never seen the sport of basketball before he first came onto the court for that particular game you were watching.

It also doesn't change the fact that he has terrible, horrible hands. This is no small thing, good hands are one of the most underrated aspects of being a successful big men. Shaq had the greatest hands of anyone who ever played. Tim Duncan has great hands, as did Hakeem and David Robinson. Andrew Bynum has a sweet pair of mitts, and so forth. I don't know if there's ever been a successful big man who had hands as bad as what Oden's showed so far this year. He seriously reminds me of Kwame Brown, who may well have been a decent player if not for this one major shortcoming.

AND it doesn't change the fact that he's the worst conditioned player in the NBA. You might chalk this up to the year of rehab he just went through, and so would I--if I hadn't noticed the exact same shocking lack of fitness in his year at Ohio State. I watched the game tonight and--I swear to god--he was huffing and puffing, grabbing his man, and cheating down the court Shaq-style within *6* minutes of the start of the game! Six fucking minutes! This guy is in unbelievably bad shape, and he was as an 18-year-old at OSU too. This is a problem. It's a really big problem. He may have a serious medical issue, and whether it's small lung capacity or chronic laziness syndrome, either one is a killer of promising big men.

I know, it only makes sense to watch and wait at this point, I'm not saying I'd write the kid off, not by a long shot. He's so goddamn big, and so goddamn athletic, and so goddamn strong that he almost has no chance of outright failure. At a minimum he'll be a Tyson Chandler type, getting 10-12 ppg on put-backs and lobs, along with controlling the boards and the lane, and that's a valuable player to have around. And there's a good chance he'll grow up the way Bynum did and get his ass into the gym in the offseason once in a while, and work on his fitness and his game the way even the greatest NBA athletes need to if they ever want to be all-star caliber players.

But the first seeds of doubt are creeping in for me. The hands thing in particular is making me wonder. I've seen so many balls go off his hands, would-be rebounds, passes for would-be dunks, etc. If you don't have a killer skill game, you better make the most of your athletic gifts and you can't do that as a big man if you aren't excellent at securing the ball. Maybe it's just the speed of the game right now, he's having trouble adjusting to the skill, athleticism and speed of the NBA and it's affecting him in all areas of the game. The rebound comes off the rim, everyone's grabbing at it, guys are holding your jersey, pushing you in the back, etc. You get a nice pass and you put the ball on the floor to gather yourself up for a monster dunk, and some little fucker is swatting it out of your hands. The NBA in 2008 is a fast, fast game, and Oden is playing George Mikan speed right now. I guess that's probably the most likely explanation, that he just needs to get used to this level of play, but I've gone from a full blown Oden bandwagoner to someone who's real, real happy to have Andrew Bynum on his team.

I hope he makes it, he seems like a really nice guy, and interesting too, in a league full of cliche-spewing bores. But brother, he needs some work. He needs a lot of work. If I were a Portland fan, I'd be starting to worry the tiniest bit.