Durant??

So I was looking over Draft Express, and noticed they had Durant going first to Portland in their mock draft.

First, let me say that yes, this is yet another blog entry by some random guy about Oden and Durant. And yes, this is yet another blog entry talking about why Oden is the better pick. I understand this is not a particularly controversial position. I just hope I can provide a couple fresh arguments for why Oden is the better pick.

Common Sense

I cannot for the life of me figure out why the Trailblazers would select Durant over Oden. I mean, it's hard to say either decision is the wrong one, especially this early in the game, but I just cannot understand why, at the forefront, a team would think Durant is the better pick.

I'll voice some concerns I have for Durant. First, he's skinny. I know he's young and will get stronger... but I think he's probably got that kind of bodytype that doesn't put on weight very easily. For Durant's first handful of seasons he will be best served as a jumpshooter probably. The size and physicality of NBA interior defenders will wear on him quickly if he drives, and I don't think he has the strength to post up on decent sized NBA power forwards. The great upside about Durant is that the kid is sort of a freak in terms of a mix of size (including knuckle dragging primate arms), skillset and athleticism. When he gets bigger, he will be a force, but does Portland really want another perimeter player offensively? Even when Durant fills out and gets used to the rigors of the NBA season, he will be a perimeter player first, and an interior player second. The answer, of course, is no.

The problem really is that you are probably not going to win with two superstar perimeter players unless one of them is named "Jordan." Look at Denver, for instance. They have a good, solid team built: Blake, Iverson, Carmelo, Nene and Camby as their principle five. Two perimeter superstars, a solid, quick PG who can defend and hit some 3s, and two good interior defenders/rebounders, but no scorers. Now, maybe Denver will mature into a complete and consistent team, but as for now, their dependence on the perimeter game for offensive production severely limits them. Portland would see the same problem if they picked Durant. Randolph is a problem anyway, and they should deal him no matter what, leaving Aldridge as their main inside option if they picked Durant. Aldridge will probably turn into a solid player, but I don't really think he'll carry a team offensively in the middle like Elton Brand or Carlos Boozer or Tim Duncan (notice how I put 2 Duke players first?).

So again, why would Portland pick Durant? If they pick Oden, they can deal Randolph and they are left with an imposing interior defense with immense upside on the offensive side. Brandon Roy has all the right tools to become a legitimate perimeter star with some good coaching and some good teammates. That's called balance, and balance wins.

Stats and Effect on Team

Durant was the golden child of the NCAA this year for his gawdy stats, but it's easy to forget that his team lost in the 2nd round and went 25-10. Some might argue that Texas just wasn't very good without Durant. Well, maybe, but Durant headlined an excellent recruiting class and there were a number of very promising players on that Texas team. In fact, they will without a doubt be a pre-season top 25 team even without Durant.

Meanwhile, Oden's team went 35-4 and lost in the NCAA title game (which was, as we all know, not any fault of Oden's). Some might say that OSU was just a better team than Texas outside of Oden. A lot of people even went as far as to say that Ohio State played better without Oden on the floor. Now at this point we all know that's wrong. In the 10 games before the NCAA tournament, Ohio State had a net +27 points per 40 minutes with Oden on the floor. In the NCAA tournament, with only two exceptions (Florida and Xavier), Ohio State dominated the opposition with Oden on the floor, and... well, didn't with him on the bench. The fact is that the Buckeyes were a rather... average team without Oden near the end of the season as Cook stopped producing. They relied too heavily on Lewis to score, but though he was a pretty solid support for Oden and Conley, he couldn't carry a great team. Cook fell off towards the end of the season after having a solid early season. At any rate, Ohio State was as good as they were precisely, and primarily because of Greg Oden.

The difference was not necessarily offensive (though, and I will get to this, I believe Oden was a better player to have on the floor in order to open up offensive options for other players than Durant was). In fact, I think it's safe to say that Oden's biggest impact is defensive. Keep in mind that Oden only played 59% of the total minutes that Ohio State played this year (missing 7 games and being a big man limits minutes), and he still logged 105 out of 218 blocks for the team. He blocked 12.7% of all opponents' 2 point shots while on the floor, and I have no idea what kind of atmospheric number he altered. The paint was virtually impossible to score from while Oden was on the floor. Furthermore, he grabbed well over 23% of the possible defensive rebounds (although, to be fair to Durant, he grabbed about the same percentage).

Now about the offensive side, obviously Durant scored more and scored in many more ways than Oden did, but Oden scored more reliably. I look here to floor percentage (essentially a stat used to estimate how often a player scores when he tries to score) and find that Oden's is an impressive 61.8% and Durant's is 55.1%. Furthermore, since Oden played in the paint and was such a dominating physical presence compared to the other college big men, he was able to net 15% of all possible offensive rebounds: a tremendous number in itself. To summarize, Oden increased his team's chances to score by dramatically increasing the team's ability to get offensive rebounds, and was a constant threat because he scored nearly 2/3rds of the times he tried. One other stat not to be overlooked is Oden's FT rate vis-a-vis Durant's. While Oden shot about 64 free throws for every 100 FGA, Durant shot about 39.6, but against different competition. I think the implication here is that Oden will almost always get an opposing big man in foul trouble and open up the middle for easy, predictable (but much less exciting) baskets while Durant will mostly be scoring with less reliable midrange jumpers and 3s (Oden shot 61.6% from the field while Durant shot 53.6% - eFG% of course).

There has long been a sort of wisdom in basketball that a great big man will bring you championships, but for some reason people have gotten away from this. My best guess is that the most hyped center of all time (Ewing) brought home zero rings to the Knicks in his long hall of fame career. Of course, that was primarily due to a freak named Jordan standing in his way, because the Knicks had championship caliber teams with Ewing in at least 2 years (and probably more). Kareem, Russell, Wilt, Walton, Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan - all these guys anchored (multiple) championship teams offensively and (most importantly) defensively, and within 10 years I imagine Oden will be added to that list.

So I ask again, Durant?? Really??