Hot Prospects

Watch past the part where he's being asked about this party photo of him, and you'll see Greg Oden discussing his new life as a blogger. Considering that he's only 19 years old, I'm a bit surprised to see him noting the difficulty of composing a coherent post when you come home at 2:30 AM after being out somewhere. He's too young to drink, and fatigue alone rarely makes blogging difficult. Do you think some people might break that law? Wild stuff. At any rate, here's the Oden blog. Like me he has some typo issues ("A lot of them talked about their colleges and most of them where from Michigan").

Personally, Brian Beutler's going number one in my blogger draft (tremendous upside), but for putting a basketball team together I think I life Oden.

Photo by Flickr user Tonyvu used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

I'm sympathetic to the typo problem but please tell me "I think I life Oden" was intentional?

Posted by Kramer | July 13, 2007 9:19 AM

Paul Shirley is and always will be the best blogger in the history of professional basketball.

Posted by Drew Miller | July 13, 2007 10:10 AM

It's awfully early in the morning to drink, and fatigue alone rarely makes spelling difficult. Hmm.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 13, 2007 10:12 AM

I'm often surprised nowadays by how well-spoken (yeah, yeah, I know) a lot of bigtime athletes are on camera, especially college athletes. Yeah, they speak in cliches, but they usually don't stammer and are at least minimally comprehensible, which is a major achievement. I don't think I would have been comprehensible at all in a live interview at age 19. Talking on camera is really hard, and unlike, say, the panelists on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, these guys usually don't know the questions in advance. Oden's really smooth and coherent here. I know he's reputed to be a smart guy, but a lot of other athletes out there are less smart and I don't think I've ever seen a single one speak as incoherently as I would have in the same situation. Just goes to show you, it's all about practice.

Posted by JP | July 13, 2007 10:13 AM

By the way Matt - nice photo find. That was from a rally in downtown Portland the day after the draft. Oden ingratiated himself to the City by riding the lite-rail, MAX, from the Rose Center to the rally. Nice touch.

Posted by Tiparillo | July 13, 2007 10:25 AM

Oden is pretty funny. He doesn't really have a filter, and unlike say Clinton Portis* or Tim Hardaway, this lack of filter serves him well because of his good-guy, aw-shucks character.

My favorite filter-less athlete of all time has to Charles Barkley. That guy is smart, funny and has been outspoken on gay rights (doubly shocking as an athlete AND former Republican). Plus, how many other overweight 6'5" power forwards can put up 60 points?

* who to be fair has since reached out to animal rights groups on his own and seems to have genuinely grown as a person from his experience.

Posted by matthew c | July 13, 2007 10:42 AM

Woo-hoo! Chucky Atkins to Denver.

I've a fan of his. The only downside is that he's about to hit 33. Is he still good for 35mpg?

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"Plus, how many other overweight 6'5" power forwards can put up 60 points?"

Regardless of how many others could do it, the Chuckster never did.

He never got 60, and he only topped 50 once, but he does have the distinction of that being in a playoff game on Chris Webber, dropping 56 to close out the series.

Posted by Petey | July 13, 2007 10:54 AM

Please tell me I'm not the only one who finds it questionable that Matt is complaining about typos on a blog. Was that supposed to be a joke?

Posted by Philly | July 13, 2007 11:33 AM

Please tell me I'm not the only one who finds it questionable that Matt is complaining about typos on a blog. Was that supposed to be a joke?

How does "Like me he has some typo issues" amount to any kind of questionable, even if it's not a joke? Doesn't the "Like me" part cover that?

Posted by Antid Oto | July 13, 2007 11:57 AM