2 Early Reasons Why You Will Soon Forget Greg "Big Country" Oden

The NBA debuted this week and as usual I am more excited about it than I should be and as usual I can tell that my excitement has no chance of lasting through the meaningless (and defenseless) droll that is the NBA regular season. So I guess I'll post about "The League" now why the going is good because in 3 months let's face it... I'm not gonna give a crap... a feeling that reaches the pinnacle of its don't-give-a-shit-ocity right around the all-star-break at which point all truth and virtue seems to be sucked from the teet of the very sport I grew up devoting myself to... like carnation, it just don't taste the same, folks.

I'm not sure if it's the crowds, the lack of defense (or even running/trying very hard) or the uselessness of nearly half of the schedule... due to the fact that it just doesnt matter that much, but (unlike with football, normally) I much prefer NCAA ball to NBA. Regardless, that is another matter for another post. So for now I prefer to bask in the hype that is early season NBA ball. All the drama it (falsely promises) and all the twist and turns that seem eminent just ahead (spurs will win again, I promise). Ok I'll stop with the cynicism. 2 initial thoughts:

1) Kevin Durant is a bonafide stud... seriously, in today's NBA how on earth could anyone pick Greg Oden (who I subconsciously called "Odom" today... how fitting... hahaha) over Durant. The Trailblazers are run by absolute morons. First of all, the game has been getting faster (and less built for pure post players) for a long time now. There is a reason nobody (even shaq) plays like shaq anymore. But even more glaring, Oden is an oaf who's face looks like he should be somebody's grandpa... I mean come on people... even his face screams: 'watch out for the osteoperosis all my bones are about to shatter!' Please I beseach you: look at those two faces and tell me who's gonna be the better player... if you say Oden you're one sick fuck.

But more importantly Durant is MONEY. Once that guy puts on weight he will be the best pure scorer to enter the league since Lebron. He's got Dirk type shots, with twice dirk's speed, and eventually he'll be able to finish with (and over) the big boys. Moreover, when the Sonics had nobody to go to (for good reason) in that Suns game thursday he started coming off screens and scoring over double teams, even when he had to force it he hit a step-back three (and who's gonna block him with that wing span)... in his 2ND GAME! Dust off the kid!

I will personally guarantee that Durant wins rookie of the year at this point... the only rookie that's even close to the scorer that he is is the Clip's Al Thornton (but he's sort of a gunner anyway). If they can keep this young core of players together, the seattle (*cough* oklahoma city) supersonics will be a force to be reckoned with 5 yrs down the line.

I'm just confused because it seemed obvious (at least to me) that Durant and, to a lesser extent, Corey Brewer were the only rookies with NBA type game. Seriously, how can you expect Horford, for instance, to dominate like he did in college without any of the same weight or height advantages. Noah I like purely because he will turn out to be a great garbage man/scrapper for a good team that needs a rebounder/role player a la Dennis Rodman, but Horford and Odom... can anyone say Sharone Wright (actually you can't b/c u don't remember WHO THE FUCK THAT EVEN WAS ... he doesn't even have a picture on file) . Anyway, the point is that oafy big men with nothing but slow low-post game are known to be draft busts... yeah we all wanted Eric Montross, Shawn Bradley, Bryant "Big Country" Reeves, Lorenzen Wright, Tony Battie, Adonal Foyle, Michael Olawakandi, Raef LaFrentz, Robert "Tractor" Traylor, Christian Laettner and Emeka Okafor (you know I'll be right about this one too) to be good... but we all knew they wouldn't be. Maybe there should be a rule put in place that if your name includes a nickname about how fat you are... then you shouldn't be drafted in the top 10... just a thought. Perhaps the only player to disprove this theory of oafy 6'11 forward/centers that are appraised way above their NBA value because of how much they wrecked shorter guys in college, is Elton Brand. But you'll notice that Elton has had to completely change his game in order to become a star-- now his go to move is a mid-range fade-away whereas in college it would be a shaq-like post up into a monster dunk.

2) One really surprising name to look out for this year: (as if the Warriors need more guys that can score) did anybody catch Kelenna Azubuike drop 33 last night on the Clippers? Holy lord that guy has game, and for the past 2 seasons he's been cut by two teams in training camp and played D-league ball. Wow! Somebody made a mistake somewhere because he's a stud, and extremely aggressive (and that's considering he plays on the warriors) but without forcing the issue. He went 12-17 with 8 boards. Again... Wow! He even made more than half of his 3-pt. attempts (2/3) is that the first time that's happened in the history of the Nelly-ball Warriors?

All that and GS still lost. There's a good analysis of how much better he looked than the rest of his typically Wyatt Earp-ing teammates in this blog. Then again, Earp of all Earps, Steven Jackson wasn't playing due to his 7 game suspension, but come on he's by far the most entertaining (and streaky/self-destructive) player in the league I think he should be able to shoot a gun into the air outside a nightclub if he wants to. But back to Azubuikeabahs boomshe-boomshe....

The best part of this whole tale is his backstory. The kid had to enter the draft a year early to support his family after his dad apparently went to jail in Nigeria for fraud charges. Crazy! But it gets better. According to wikipedia this is how he got signed by the Warriors midway through last year:

"On January 2, 2007, the Golden State Warriors signed Azubuike to shore up their injury-plagued backcourt. Details on the contract are not yet known. Warriors head coach Don Nelson joked that he didn't know that he was signing Azubuike, claiming that he was called by Warriors general manager Chris Mullin, who asked if he liked sambuca and when he replied "yes", Mullin signed Azubuike."

All that and the guy (despite the fact that nobody can spell his name) might just be the most promising player on your squad... ridiculous. Some call it "Nelly-ball" I call it "Nelly-Magic." Of course Nelly Belly did lose to a ridiculously depleted clippers team last night but just wait til April when he'll use some secret voodoo trick to turn Golden State's season miraculously around... again.