Bill Simmons Was Right, Yet Insists On Being Wrong

I have laid off Bill Simmons lately because he hasn't annoyed me as much as he used to. His columns have not been overly terrible and when he talks about the NBA, (which is what he is doing lately) generally he knows what he is talking about. In fact, I would call him an expert on the NBA and I am sure he would as well (which isn't saying much since Bill believes himself to be an expert on nearly anything he gives an opinion on).

Let's get this out of the way...Bill Simmons was right about the Greg Oden v. Kevin Durant "battle" in the 2007 Draft. He chose the right side. Durant was the right pick, there's no doubt at this point. Bill just can't be satisfied with only being right, he has to include a new chapter in his "Book of Basketball" paperback edition as one of his useless "what if" discussions about the Durant v. Oden pick.

So while acknowledging Bill was right about the Durant v. Oden argument, he gets off track a little bit in this posted excerpt on ESPN.com from his paperback version concerning the Durant v. Oden chapter of the book and this annoys me.

What if Portland had taken Kevin Durant over Greg Oden?

Would Barack Obama had been elected President? Would the polar ice caps stop melting? How would this affect the war on terror? More importantly than any of these issues, Bill has updated his Hall of Fame pyramid, so please shell out more money to find out what kind of backhanded compliments he gives Kobe Bryant in this version of his book.

Here's what we knew about Oden heading into the 2007 Draft: owned Ewing-like potential as a rebounder and shotblocker

Here's what I know about Greg Oden going into the 2007 Draft: Bill Simmons watched maybe 2-3 of the games he played in. I just feel like this is true and I will show it is true based on statements about Oden's performance at Ohio State.

… struggled with a broken wrist during his freshman year at Ohio State

This is especially relevant given his history of knee problems in the NBA...wait, no it isn't. What it is relevant in discussing is whether Oden is just injury-prone or not, which he obviously is, but I wouldn't say a broken wrist necessary should be a concern to NBA GM's as far as future injuries are concerned.

… only played one "Wow!" game (the '07 NCAA Championship: 25 points, 12 rebounds, 4 blocks in defeat against Florida's Joakim Noah and Al Horford)

First off, this isn't true at all. I will show you that in just a minute. Second, assuming this is true isn't it a sign of a good player that in the biggest game of his entire career to that point he played the absolute best? Shouldn't this be an omen of positive things if Oden can go up against two lottery picks and solid NBA players and more than hold his own? I would think normally if a player played his absolute best on the biggest stage of his career, Bill Simmons would see this only as a positive. If Oden became a great NBA player, then this great game in the National Championship would show his potential in the NBA. Basically, some of Bill's analysis depends on the outcome. He wants us to believe Oden NEVER showed the ability to be the #1 overall pick, which is untrue.

Regardless, it isn't true this was the only "Wow" game of Oden's college career.

Here are some other "Wow" games that eluded Bill's apparent inability to do a search for Oden's Ohio State 2006-2007 season statistics:

December 30 against Coppin State: 18 points, 16 rebounds, 2 blocks.

January 13 against Tennessee: 24 points, 15 rebounds, 3 blocks.

January 20 against Iowa: 29 points, 10 points, and 2 blocks.

January 24 against Northwestern: 17 points, 17 rebounds, 1 block.

February 3 against Michigan State: 16 points, 11 rebounds, 4 blocks.

March 9 against Michigan: 22 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks.

March 10 against Purdue: 17 points, 19 rebounds, 4 blocks.

There were other good games during the season where Oden posted a double-double. Remember, he was a freshman center. Freshmen centers aren't exactly known as a group of individuals who progress at a rapid rate out of high school. Sometimes it takes 1-2 years for a center in college to start putting up numbers like this and Oden did it immediately. Really, the only thing holding him back from being even better was the fact he committed fouls at a really alarming pace...which is another problem with freshmen centers.

So while acknowledging the best game of Oden's season may have been the Florida game, that was also the biggest game of his career at that point, and Oden had more "Wow" games (whatever the fuck those are) during the 2006-2007 season. Bill Simmons is incorrect in saying otherwise.

openly admitted that he didn't love basketball and once wanted to become a dentist …

Which naturally led to this lack of love for basketball turning into debilitating knee injuries that affected his career. See, Oden's knee knew he didn't like to play basketball so it just quit on him. Is that the explanation?

frightened everyone in Portland with a jittery pre-draft workout …

If there is anyone who doesn't trust a pre-draft workout then it is Bill Simmons. How many times did he joke about Yi Jianlian dribbling around chairs before the 2008 draft? I guess Portland wasn't scared enough of his pre-draft workout to back off drafting Oden, so the workout couldn't have been that bad.

looked and walked like a thirty-six-year-old man.

This isn't really a fact, but is based more on Simmons' perception of how Oden walked. He is turning his perception into fact. Oden performed fairly well during the brief time he was actually able to play in the NBA over the past three seasons. How old he looks really doesn't have much to do with anything. How he walks, probably could maybe predict future back problems, but this is still more of an observation than a fact.

Meanwhile, Durant lived and breathed basketball, became a national phenomenon during his only Texas season, crushed his Portland workout and had no conceivable offensive ceiling.

Which we know now. At that time, maybe this wasn't so much known. Who is to say Durant had the strength to score on NBA defenders? That was a question about Durant coming out of Texas. Every scouting report asked the question of whether he could bulk up or not. We know now that Durant had no conceivable offensive ceiling but at the time there were questions about whether about how adding muscle would affect his game. Obviously it didn't hurt him at all.

Throw in Portland's tortured history with fragile centers

Which is completely and utterly irrelevant, no matter who tries to tell you differently. Does this mean the Trail Blazers should never draft a center? Centers sometimes have injuries when they are younger. Oden's injury was a wrist injury, which wasn't indicative of knee problems in the future.

and, as the years pass, it's becoming harder to fathom that the Blazers willingly decided, "Screw the sure thing, let's take the big guy with uneven legs who played one great college game."

This is the revisionist history of this whole thing. Oden had more than one great college game. To insinuate that Oden was a player who had one good game and then skyrocketed up the draft board based on that one good game could not be more incorrect. Oden had plenty of good games at Ohio State.

Because we love revising history over time, owner Paul Allen and then-general manager Kevin Pritchard have been protected by the "Come on, anyone would have taken Oden, you always take a franchise center, it's not their fault he keeps getting injured" defense.

If anyone knows anything about revising history in this current discussion it is Bill Simmons. Yes, he was right about the Durant v. Oden argument, but he is wrong to suggest Oden wasn't a dominant college player. It's not enough for him to be right, Bill Simmons has to let everyone know they should have known he was right in 2007, when there were no obvious signs that Greg Oden's body would break down like it has.

That presumes Oden was considered a sure thing -- like Kareem, Ewing or Hakeem -- and ignores those six months everyone spent wondering about him before the 2007 Draft.

This script could easily be reversed and if Durant went first and averaged 8 points per game his first three years in the NBA then we would be saying we should have known a player who dominated on an above average (yet underachieving) Texas team would struggle scoring in the NBA because he didn't have the upper body strength.

I don't see how anyone could have wondered about Oden. He had a freak wrist injury that affected his play and he still dominated in college.

Like me, Boston GM Danny Ainge liked Durant as the top pick for one reason: Durant was the sure thing, not Oden. If you followed Durant in college (and Ainge fell head over heels for him, as did I), you knew about his work ethic, leadership, character and scoring DNA.

After reading this, let's see what Doc Rivers had to say on November of this year on this same issue...here's a key quote from Doc Rivers:

Had the Celtics landed the No. 1 pick, Rivers said, Oden would have been the choice.

"Even though everybody changes now, we were all for Oden, and I think 98 percent of the league,'' Rivers said. "But now I hear it all over our staff, I hear it everywhere, ‘Oh, no, we were Durant guys.' I don't believe that. I think we would have drafted Oden.''

Sounds like Rivers was under the impression Ainge didn't like Oden better. Bill could possibly be full of shit. If you follow college basketball, you would know Durant was a decent leader on that Texas team, but this also doesn't predict future NBA success. You would also know that a question about Durant was his work ethic in the weight room. That was pretty much THE question. So he had great work ethic on the court, but there is more to just that when it comes to playing in the NBA.

I thought Durant was a genetic freak: like Tracy McGrady crossed with Plastic Man, someone God created to make baskets and get to the line. Oden left you hoping he stayed healthy, hoping basketball would become more important to him, hoping his spotty college year wasn't an aberration,

"Spotty college year?" This is the biggest crock of shit I have read in a while. It's just a lie.

As a freshman, Greg Oden averaged 15.7 points, 9.6 rebounds and 3.3 blocks in 29 minutes per game.

As a senior, Patrick Ewing averaged 14.6 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 3.6 blocks in 31 minutes per game.

As a junior, Shaquille O' Neal averaged 24.1 points, 14.0 rebounds, and 5.2 blocks in 32 minutes per game.

As a senior, Tim Duncan averaged 20.8 points, 14.7 rebounds, and 3.3 blocks in 37 minutes per game.

As a junior, Hakeem Olajuwon averaged 16.8 points, 13.5 rebounds, and 5.6 blocks in 34 minutes per game.

I'm not cherry picking either. Pick nearly any great center and then see what his college statistics were and compare them to Greg Oden's freshman year. They are scary comparable and if you project Oden to his junior/senior year he is very close to being on track with these players.

Oden's one year college career was not at all spotty. The numbers put up were on pace with college statistics other great college and NBA centers put up. Bill Simmons is just outright lying when he says Oden's college career was spotty.

How was that any different than the Bowie/Jordan dilemma 23 years earlier?

I am kind of tired of the Jordan/Bowie comparison, though it is a really easy one to make. Greg Oden is an injury prone center that was taken in front of a much, much better player, but he wasn't Sam Bowie in college. He was projecting to be better than Bowie was at Kentucky.

As a junior, Bowie averaged 10.5 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks in 29 minutes. His best season was his sophomore year where he averaged 17.4 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 2.9 blocks, which was much more Oden-like. Concerning the year each player had coming into the NBA Draft, it appears Oden was a much better prospect. Of course Kevin Durant looked (in terms of statistics accumulated) like a better prospect coming out of college than Michael Jordan did.

So what if the Blazers picked Durant instead of Oden? They become the fledgling Western Conference juggernaut of the 2010s (not Oklahoma City); Portland becomes a legitimate 2010 destination for LeBron;

I can't imagine LeBron playing with Kevin Durant in any capacity. Maybe I am just not very good at these "what-if" scenarios.

any successfully unconventional decision would be called "a Pritchard";

It wouldn't be called "a Casserly" after the Texans GM who took Mario Williams over Reggie Bush and Vince Young in 2006? That pre-dated the Durant v. Oden 2007 draft discussion.

Instead, we have to start bracing for the 2029 or 2030 Draft, when Portland wins another lottery and finds itself stressing between Sure Thing Potential Superstar Scorer X over Possibly Fragile Franchise Center X as everyone else wonders, "Wait a second, we're doing this again?"

Here's the problem...that problem is that Oden had a wrist injury. Contrary to however Bill Simmons describes Oden's walk or anything, Oden had no knee problems until he entered the NBA. So he wasn't a possibly fragile franchise center, he was a center that put up great college numbers despite having a wrist injury during his freshman year.

One of these generations, the Blazers will get it right.

I can't argue with the conclusion. Durant over Oden was the best call in retrospect. Bill's attempt to paint Greg Oden as a college center that wasn't dominant is completely false though. Oden was a great college center, especially for a freshman.