by Alex Richi

Created on: April 05, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

There are many reasons that Greg Oden will be a better pro than Kevin Durant. Durant did have an excellent season this year and his numbers were far better than Oden's but look at the teams that surrounded these guys. Durant had AJ Abrams and a couple other guys but that team pretty much needed him to go out and get at least 20 and 10 for them to beat most of the teams on their schedule. On the other hand Oden had Ron Lewis Jr.(12.7PPG), Jamar Butler(8.5PPG, 38% 3FG)Daquan Cook(9.8PPG, 42% 3FG), and of course Mike Conley Jr(11.3PPG, 6.1APG, 2.2SPG, and 52%2FG) who will be a lottery pick in the draft if he declares so it is not surprising that Oden only averaged 15.7PPG and he still did hit 62% of his shots from the field. Also another knock on Oden is that he gets in foul trouble too often which he does but we are talking about the pro's where he will get much smarter and having 6 instead of 5 to foul out is actually a big diffence that he will benifit from. Oden plays far better defense than Durant which not many people talk about. Did you see those blocks Oden had against Florida in the title game those blocks sent a message to Florida that he was ready to play unfortunalty all those wonderful guys i mentioned before decided to hit 2 of there first 23 3-pointers so Florida prevailed despite 25 points, 12rebounds, and those 4 huge blocks from the man in the middle. But back to the defense Oden will block 3.5 shots a game next year as a rookie because from a shot blocking perspective i think he is about as good as Sam Dalenbert right now. Also his presence will change countless shots and in the post he does play pretty good post man on man D. Unlike many centers who block most of their shots on help defense when they see an unsuspecting guard to block where as Oden D's up guys like Roy Hibbert,Jeff Green, Joakim Noah and Al Horford and sends the ball back in the face, not to say that Oden isn't a good help defender also. Oden's offense is not spectacular right now but his jump hook with time will become a deadly weapon that nobody will be able to stop(think Kareem's sky hook). Another thing that makes Oden the easy decision is another on that people really don't think about the center position in the NBA is really thin. The second Oden is drafted he will become the 3rd best center in the league behind Yao and Shaq. And Shaq is amazing but sooner or later he is gonna have to retire and then Oden and Yao will destroy every center in the league until somebody new comes in. The forward postion has many more stars and so they are more common and less valuable. My example would be that since Jordan retired teams with BIG MEN have won. 3 titles for Duncan and 4 for Shaq. Big guys win championships and that is what Oden will do in the pro's. Durant will be unbeliavable and he is the best player to come out since LeBron and in almost any other year he would go #1 but just not in this class of Superstars.

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