Author: katadmin

Oft-injured Oden expected to receive one-year extension with Portland

The Portland Trail Blazers apparently aren’t ready to write off injury-prone center Greg Oden yet.

The professional career of Oden, the first pick of the 2007 NBA draft, has been a massive bust with his frequent injuries. He’s played in only 82 games in his first four seasons, a time during which he’s made $21,795,444 to play in 82 combined NBA games.

That’s a whopping average of $265,798 for each game he’s played in a Blazers uniform.

But the Oregonian reports that the fear of Oden finding success with another team for a one-year qualifying offer to a contract extension.  

The team will have the period between the end of the NBA Finals to June 30 to make him an offer. If he wasn’t renewed, Oden would become the first NBA No. 1 draft pick since Kwame Brown not to re-up with his original team.

Oden’s pro career has been dogged with unfortunate injuries. Before he played his first game, he underwent microfracture surgery on his right knee and  missed the entire 2007-08 season. He left his first NBA game with a foot injury and played in only 61 games in his rookie season.

And on Dec. 5, 2009, less than four days after setting a career-high with 20 rebounds, he injured his left knee in the first quarter of a game and taken off the court on a stretcher. Later, he underwent surgery for a fractured left patella and missed the rest of the season.

The Trail Blazers announced on Nov. 17, 2010, that Oden would have microfracture surgery on his left knee, ending his 2010–2011 season. He has slowly started his rehab work in the Portland area from that procedure.

While his career has been frustrating for  the Trail Blazers and been compared to that of 1980s-era Portland draft bust Sam Bowie, the team can’t let him go now. It simply has too much invested in him.

The Oregonian reports that Oden told the newspaper he would like to resume his career playing at close to 270 pounds. He played his college career at Ohio State at 250 and his short NBA career at nearly 300 pounds.

Marcus Camby tells the Oregonian that Oden retains his “freakish” body. Think of the current-day NBA and the only other centers that compares when Oden is healthy is Dwight Howard.

“Only Dwight Howard is like that,” Camby told the newspaper. “Andrew Bynum is big, but he’s not strong and bulked up like Greg.”

Portland has to bet on keeping Oden around. They couldn’t handle the chance that Oden would regain his health and then come back with a franchise like the Spurs, Chicago or Boston and haunt his old team by fulfilling his promise somewhere else.

Oden turned 23 in January. He’s more than three full years younger than Spurs rookie Tiago Splitter and even more younger than Gary Neal.

That youth remains his salvation for the Trail Blazers if he ever can regain his health.

It’s also a sobering realization to the Spurs franchise, which hit the jackpot on its only two times with top picks in the NBA lottery when it picked David Robinson and Tim Duncan – arguably two of the top 30 players in the history of the league.

And it leads to this question for Spurs Nation: If Oden doesn’t sign with Portland, would the Spurs be advised to take a shot at him if he lands on the open market?

Would it be worth the gamble of investing in Oden for the post-Duncan era to surround him with the current young nucleus the Spurs could pair him with in the future?

How would Oden look wearing Silver and Black?

Tiago works extra tweaking his foul shot

Spurs rookie forward Tiago Splitter spent a few minutes after his teammates left  the court experimenting with different foul shots under the watchful eye of Spurs assistant coach Chip Engelland.

Splitter is struggling from the line, hitting 55.9 percent from the foul line. He’s hit only 6-for-17 (35.3 percent) from the line in his last six games, including a critical air ball late in the Spurs’ loss to Portland.

The shot Splitter appeared to have the most success with Thursday morning had a distinct movement where he placed the ball in his right hand and then shot the ball. It completely removed his left hand out of his shooting motion.

It’s a curious looking stroke, but one where improvement is important. His chances of playing more in the fourth quarter will depend on him not being a liability from the foul line in latter stages of the game.

Blair continues to toggle with Tiago in a reserve role

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

ATLANTA — One game after not playing at all in the first half, DeJuan Blair was back as the Spurs’ second-unit center in Tuesday’s 97-90 victory over Atlanta.

Rookie Tiago Splitter was back to taking a DNP-CD.

Blair responded with a performance that was solid, but not spectacular, logging seven points and five rebounds in 13:06.

“My role is just to be ready at all times,” Blair said. “Because you never know.”

Blair admits not knowing hasn’t been easy over the past month, after he went from starting the first 53 games of the season to earning sporadic minutes off the bench.

“With the change in the lineup, I go back to thinking again — what do I do?” Blair said. “I’ve got to get that out of my head, somehow.”

Blair said Spurs coaches have offered him one standard piece of advice: Be a pro.

Asked what that means to him, Blair repeated himself: “Just be ready.”

For the season, Blair is averaging 8.7 points and 7.3 rebounds as a starter, and 6.3 points and 5.2 rebounds in 14 games as a sub.

“Bench minutes are something you have to get used to,” guard George Hill said, “but I think he’s handling it well.”

Asked after Tuesday’s game how he thought Blair was handling his new role, coach Gregg Popovich chose his words carefully.

“DeJuan’s working at it,” he said.

POP, MEET RED: Tuesday’s victory gave Popovich 795 for his career, matching Boston’s Red Auerbach for second on the NBA’s all-time wins list with one team.

Jerry Sloan, who retired in February after racking up 1,127 wins in Utah, is first.

Even though he grew up in Argentina, Manu Ginobili is aware of the magnitude of Popovich’s feat.

“Red Auerbach is a myth in the NBA, he’s huge,” Ginobili said. “I’m glad for Pop. He’s a great coach. He deserves big honors.”

POP PRAISES WORM: The man who traded Dennis Rodman from San Antonio gives his recent election to the Hall of Fame two thumbs up.

“I think it’s great,” said Popovich, who inherited the mercurial Rodman when he took over as Spurs general manager in 1994. “He’s one of the top rebounders we ever had, and the rest of his game was probably even better than we all thought. He’s been important to teams winning championships. In that sense, he deserves it.”

Rodman, who played two productive but tumultuous seasons with the Spurs in 1993-94 and 1994-95, was announced Monday as part of the Hall’s 2011 induction class. Rodman averaged 17.3 rebounds his first season in San Antonio and 16.8 his second, and was an integral part of a team that lost to Houston in the 1995 Western Conference finals.

But Rodman’s flamboyant personality clashed with coaches, management and players. After the 1995 season, Popovich dealt him to Chicago for Will Perdue.

Rodman still holds Spurs franchise rebounding records for a game (32) and a season (1,367 in 1993-94).