Trail Blazers Win Oden Sweepstakes
Greg Oden is headed to Portland. Luckily, he won’t have to play alongside former “Blazers” such as J.R. Rider and Reuben Patterson. The Trail Blazers won tonight’s NBA Lottery despite having just a 5.3% chance while odds favorites Memphis (25%) and Boston (20%) fell all the way to the 4th and 5th, respectively. A quick peak at the Portland roster reveals an extremely young team with a few solid pieces in Zach Randolph and and ROY Brandon Roy. Both can score which should take some pressure off Oden at the offensive end as he continues to develop his shot and footwork.
In other Oden news, the big fella withdrew from school before the end of spring quarter but Bob Baptist and others report this should not lead to a lost scholarship since Oden was eligible dating back to the end of his last completed quarter. Additionally, Conley and Cook are still attending classes and are on track to be eligible at the end of the quarter which will give the current 902 APR score a boost.
13 Responses
Did you see Chad Ford’s mock draft?
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draft2007/insider/columns/story?columnist=ford_chad&page=MockDraft-070522
frosty - May 23rd, 2007 at 12:39 am - #
#1 - Oden to Portland
#3 - Conley to Atlanta (wow!)
#27 - Cook to Detroit (!?!?)
frosty - May 23rd, 2007 at 12:41 am - #
Portland is the perfect place for Oden. The media attention won’t be nearly as bad as it would have been in some of those other cities.
TLB - May 23rd, 2007 at 8:44 am - #
I see Daequan is 27th on Ford’s latest mock draft…
Al Powell Jr. - May 23rd, 2007 at 8:50 am - #
Oregon is such a beautiful place to live with the Cascade Mountains and visually stunning Willamette Valley. A place you can snow ski in the summer on Mt. Hood and fish the wild streams in the winter. Greg will absolutely thrive in this environment with their abundance of hazelnuts, potatoes, peppermint and hops. A place you can grow your own for personal use.
Bill Walton - May 23rd, 2007 at 9:14 am - #
I’m glad Oden is going to a cool area of the country, although I was hoping he would end up in the East. I don’t know about anyone else, but I am 0-45 this year, when is comes to staying up for a west coast NBA game. Hopefully Zach Randolph gives up the ball enough to give Oden some touches. Did you see Oden’s comments on ESPN today?
“He said all we do is run and I looked at him and said, ‘really?’ and then he said if you like to play go out West, it’s fun out there,”’ Oden said. “It’s going to be a running experience for me. I’m definitely going to be dunked on out there. It’s going to be a challenge.”
At least this kid is realistic.
Corey - May 23rd, 2007 at 10:21 am - #
I guess the lottery isn’t rigged or maybe it is and they wanted to push the “jail-blazers” stigma further away…who knows. Either way Portland got the hook up. They should be pretty good and out west it takes quite a bit of talent to be one of the elite squads.
I was pulling for Redd and the Bucks, but I did get some joy to see the faces at the Celtics draft party.
Travis - May 23rd, 2007 at 10:51 am - #
I think it’s definitely proof that the lottery isn’t rigged (at least these days). The NBA needs talent in the East in a bad way and the top 2 go West..
Jason - May 23rd, 2007 at 11:14 am - #
I disagree. I still think it is rigged and this was David Stern’s way of punishing Memphis and Boston for tanking the season.
TLB - May 23rd, 2007 at 11:19 am - #
Cook is going to go one spot higher with Hibbert announcing that he’s coming back to G’Town next season.
Buzzer - May 23rd, 2007 at 4:55 pm - #
The truth be told find a team as deserving as the blazers you would be hard pressed, i mean lets not forget how they passed on jordan for whats his name? I know one thing as a life long blazer fan even i think its a little unfair that the blazers have this much talent in every position and only average 23 years of age… ITS ABOUT TIME!!!!!!
MORENO - May 24th, 2007 at 2:02 am - #
I think it sucks, I wanted him in our time zone dammit!
Wil - May 24th, 2007 at 8:01 am - #
Cook moved into the 23rd position on the latest mock draft, going to the lowly Knicks. It would serve him right.
Corey - May 25th, 2007 at 9:22 am - #
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