Greg Oden has much to prove in 2009

Last year, the discrepancy between Greg Oden and Kevin Durant’s games was sizable; Durant was one of the top scorers in the league while Oden could barely stay on the floor with all the fouls he was committing. As great as Kevin Durant already is, I don’t think it’d be premature to say that the Sonics/Thunder got the better end of the 2007 draft. If I’m wrong, and if Greg Oden really is the better player, then he has to show it THIS YEAR. Take a look at how some of the other bigmen in the NBA progressed (in terms of points per game) after their first several years.

Oden is already a year behind because of the knee injury that cost him his rookie season. And no, that injury does not exonerate whatever slow start he may get off to. If anything, it makes it more likely that he’ll crash and burn. All it could take is one more ailment to sideline him forever.

When you look at this chart, a few things pop out right away. First of all, the only bigmen who immediately averaged 20 points per game -- Shaquille O’Neal and Tim Duncan -- are two of the greatest players of all time. Second, high school players, in lieu of college, usually take longer to develope. Every non-high school player was averaging at least 15 points per game by his second year, and almost every player was averaging close to 20 per game by his fourth year. The exception to the trends was Jermaine O’Neal, who took a whopping six years to develope into a go-to player. However, O’Neal was only 17 was he drafted and had more of a learning curve than everyone else.

The point is this: it’s not practical to think that Greg Oden can pull a Jermaine O’Neal and magically become a star in his sixth season. He has to show progress now. Andrew Bynum may not become a superstar, and now that Artest and Gasol are on his team, he may not have to. But Oden does. Oden needs to have the kind of season Bynum had before the injuries struck him -- a season where you can look at him and say “Man he’s improved. Imagine how good he’s going to be in a few years.”

In his one season, Oden did little to prove that he has any offensive game whatsoever. He needs to find one, and quick, because the Trail Blazers don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell at denting the Lakers if they don’t have a dominant bigman. Not only that, but the Blazers would once again be haunted by their terrible history when it comes to centers: they traded O’Neal, they couldn’t sign Sabonis in the 80’s, they passed on Jordan for Sam Bowie, they drafted LaRue Martin, and they only got one year out of Bill Walton. Obviously, Blazers fans don’t want to hear how their management made yet another mistake: passing on Kevin Durant’s 25.3 PPG.

Hopefully, Andre Miller will be enough of an upgrade at point guard that he can get some improvement out of him, the same way that Derek Fisher’s arrival improved Andrew Bynum’s game.