Dad says Oden is going pro

From the Indianapolis Star, posted early this morning:

Greg Oden will enter the 2007 NBA draft, his father said Friday.

And:

“They had an exciting season, but why take the chance on him getting hurt?” [Oden’s father said] Oden and fellow Ohio State freshmen Mike Conley Jr. and Daequan Cook are planning to meet this weekend in Indianapolis. The younger Conley, a 6-1 point guard, and Cook, a 6-5 shooting guard, also are expected to put their names in the draft, Oden Sr. said.

 

 

That much is not too surprising. Oden going to the NBA after one season in college was pretty much a foregone conclusion when he arrived in Columbus last fall. Conley Jr. came on as the season progressed and finished having established himself as one of the top point guards in the nation. Cook will be back to school as soon as he learns that he’s a second round pick at best.

But the most incisive part of the article appears at the end:

 

 

“He’s averaging like nine shots a game, and he’s shooting 60 percent or better. It’s frustrating for him,” Jimmy Smith, Oden’s first coach and one of his closest friends, said prior to the Final Four. “They want him to play all this defense, then they want to go down and shoot the 3,” Smith said. “By talking to him, I know it’s frustrating to him that he doesn’t get the ball as much as he should.”

 

 

Perhaps that rupture between the upper classmen and the Thad Five never really healed, despite all the talk that it did. The fact is, in the National Championship game Oden was the only person doing anything on offense, and the team was certainly hindered by not giving him the ball on every single possession. I wouldn’t be surprised if Oden secretly was dreaming off eating the heads of Lewis and Butler while jogging back down the court to set up in his one man zone defense after they clanked another unwarranted three off the back iron. I’m serious. Have you seen Oden before? Definitely looks like the type of guy who dreams of eating people-heads, but in a very casual Silence of the Lambs sort of way (casual in both how he eats and how he dreams).

Anyway, so long rogue prince. We hardly knew thee.

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3-20: boo! 5-51: yikes!

In last night’s Indians game, a 4-6 loss to the White Sox, the team stranded 13 runners on base and hit just 3-20 with runners in scoring position. One of those hits didn’t even score a run. The team went 0-5 with runners on third base and fewer than two outs. The hitting display was just pathetic, and you hope that things can’t get much worse.

Curiously, 3-20 with runners in scoring position is actually an improvement over where the team had been over the last few games. The Plain Dealer reported this morning that in the last 51 at bats with RISP the Indians have five hits. 5-51. That includes the 3-20, which means that prior to last night’s game the team had been riding a sub-pathetic 2-31 streak with RISP.

Entered the game 2-31.

Went 3-20.

By this time next month the team should be hitting 10-19. Of course by then the Indians will be seven games back in the AL Central and the season will be all for naught. But at least the Indians will be scoring some runs, jacking up that Pythagoras expected record, and in turn confusing the stat heads out there a little more. And when that time does come we can all look back and see that the team just happened to start hitting with RISP, albeit a few weeks late.

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