Tag: Greg Oden

Are We Traveling Back to 2007? The Celtics Are Working Out Greg Oden…Sort Of

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MassLive – This isn’t how Greg Oden saw his career going. The 31-year-old should have been angling for one more long-term contract in what most people expected to be a long career.

Injuries robbed him of that, but not of his passion for basketball. Now the former number one overall pick is focused on a new path: coaching.

“I’m done playing. I helped out at Ohio State for the past three, four years. So I just kinda hit the bug on me,” he told MassLive. “I enjoy working with the players. I enjoy that side of it.”

The pursuit of that coaching career brought him to Boston. He was invited by the team to help out and take the floor with players and to help in their evaluation.

“Just to help out with the pre-draft stuff and see what happens from it,” Oden said. “I’ll take that opportunity from it. It’s the freakin’ Celtics.”

Good for Greg Oden. It’s hard to feel bad for millionaires, but I always felt bad for Greg Oden. The guy was supposed to be a generational talent and was poised to dominate the NBA for years, but his body just broke down before he was even 20 years old. Now he might be back.

In what was actually a grand stroke of luck for the Celtics, they got hosed in the NBA Draft Lottery that year and fell to No. 5, which ultimately turned into Danny trading for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in separate deals that same offseason. As we all know those two moves quickly turned a lottery team into one of the most dominant teams in recent NBA history, which never would have happened if the Celtics had landed the No. 1 overall pick.

Of course there are the conspiracy theorists out there that swear Danny would have drafted Kevin Durant No. 1 overall even though everyone in America had Oden the higher rated player. Danny was fined back in 2007 for contact with Durant’s mom and he more recently swindled Philly and the NBA as a whole when he traded down and still got his guy in Jayson Tatum. So who knows.

Either way, its great to see Oden getting back into the NBA, even if its in a different role than he expected.

 

The BIG3 Just Announced Its Team Rosters and Boy Oh Boy They Are STACKED

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The BIG 3 is returning for its third season this summer and it seems to only be growing as it released their team rosters today and they are STACKED.

Just in case you forgot, we are quite fond of the BIG3 here. We even had Mattes go cover a game in person last year. And that was before they stacked the deck with some big time names.

Top names playing in the BIG3 this year include Kendrick Perkins and Greg Oden on the same team to create maybe the biggest “What if these guys never got hurt” duo in basketball history. The Celtics win 2 out 3 NBA titles, the Trailblazers are still one of the best teams in the league, going to war with KD and whatever team he’s playing for at the time.

Mario Chalmers!

Brian Scalabrine returns of course and should probably have equity in this league if he doesn’t already because the White Mamba puts asses in the seats.

Agent Zero himself Gilbert Arenas joins the BIG3 this season and I could not be more excited. Arenas, before all his gunplay problems, practically invented the 28 foot pull up jumper that is so common today. Where you think Damian Lillard learned that move?

Lamar Odom is returning from the grave/the clutches of the Kardashians to play some ball and you gotta think that guy is happy to just be alive at this point. Good for him.

Mike Bibby, Ricky Davis, and Carlos Boozer just seem like a pretty solid, well built team. Plus, if they get into any scuffles Mike Bibby 2.0 will just start beating people up as all he’s done since retiring is lift anything and everything.

Stephen Jackson and Metta World Peace are teaming up to become the bad boys of the league. Coached by the goddamn oak tree himself Charles Oakley no less. Nobody is messing with that team.

The Power will be a trip down elite bench player memory lane for anyone my age with guys like Corey Maggette, Chris Birdman Andersen, Ryan Gomes(!) and Glen Big Baby Davis who somehow avoided going to federal pound me in the ass prison after a drug arrest.

Jason Terry is also playing this year, which raises the question is Jason Terry finally retired orrrr

Nearly spit my drink out when I saw Terry pulling up for 3 in a game for Milwaukee last season.

Former Celtics draft picks Joe Johnson and Big Al Jefferson will be joining forces to be the favorite team of any Celtics fan over the age of 30.

To round it all out we have Jermaine O’Neal, Amar’e Stoudemire and Nate Robinson, but I have to say it is an absolute crime that Ice Cube doesn’t have Nate Robinson and Glen Davis on the same team. Does he not remember the days of Shrek and Donkey??

They even got legit AF names coaching as well with Gary Payton, Rick Barry, Rick Mahorn, Charles Oakley, Kenyon Martin, Lisa Leslie, and Dr. freaking J just to name a few.

How about the BIG3 being the only new sports league to not only avoid going out of business, yet actually thrive? The AAF went out of business before I even needed to refill my car’s tank of gas, the XFL is looking to improve upon its high score of 1 season completed, meanwhile the BIG3 is just adding teams and big time names left and right.

Maybe we’ll send Mattes back out to another BIG3 game this year with a real mic so he can actually get Scal namedropping The 300s Podcast on tape.

Breaking Down ESPN’s Top 25 Athletes With Unfulfilled Potential

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So the World Wide Leader put out an article breaking down their Top 25 athletes that never fulfilled their potential. Instead of rehashing the whole thing, took my liberties and pulled the excerpts from this list for anyone born after 1985.

 

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No. 25 Matt Leinart: This guy was the king at USC, living the absolute life. Winning every game imaginable, taking home National Championships w/ Reggie Bush and co., all while just basically taking elective classes like Ballroom Dancing his senior year. Like I said, living the life. Gets drafted Top 10 into what seemed like a great situation in Arizona except Kurt Warner ends up going on a late career tear so any chance Leinart had of starting in AZ was gone after that. Bounced around a lot after that, but never was able to put it together, got a last grasp as the 3rd string guy for the Houstons and by some freak miracle both guys ahead of him go down and Leinart has a chance to revive is career..immediately gets sacked and destroys his shoulder, career over. It’s a shame because he was great in college, but has parlayed that into a pretty solid career on FS1.

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No. 24 Bo Jackson: On this list for obvious reason. Bo Jackson could have been the greatest football player of all time, and also ya know dabbled in professional baseball making the 1989 All-Star team. A lot of guys talk a big game, and many pros got drafted in multiple sports, but Bo was dominant in two professional sports at once – before the damn hip injury derailed his career. Now he spends his time being a freak athlete in other ways, like being scary good with a bow and arrow. Bo Knows, indeed.

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No. 17 Aaron Hernandez: Goddamn angel dust. Hernandez was so, so good. Just an absolute beast of an athlete, too big for cornerbacks to cover and too fast for linebackers. Belichick was using his as a freaking running back and he was breaking off 30 yard runs. Then someone had to smudge his Puma’s in the club and set him off into a murderous rage, which as it turns out wasn’t exactly a new thing for Aaron..allegedly.

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No. 16 Vince Young: Vinsanity, VY, Madden Cover Boy, Offensive Rookie of the Year. This dude was a stud in college, crushing the absolute soul of the aforementioned Matt Leinart, and then had a great rookie year obviously. Then the league adapted, his accuracy issues caught up to him, or the pressure became too much, or maybe working for Jeff Fisher just drove him nuts. I mean I’d throw all my shit in the stands too if Jeff Fisher was on my ass all day. At least he won’t be known for any outlandish quotes like being on some sort of Dream Team.

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No. 10 JaMarcus Russell: Another mammoth human being who dominated in college, No. 1 overall pick (got PAID before the new CBA smartened up and stopped giving rookies $70 million deals) and then was basically a disaster from the start. Criticized for being out of shape and lazy so it’s hard to feel too bad for his flame out, but he has offered to play for the price of ‘on the house’ to launch a comeback. With such a terribly small crop of decent backup QB’s in the NFL, why not?

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No. 7 Maurice Clarett: This guy just goes to show you can’t fight city hall. Petitioned to bypass the NFL Draft requirements and skip a year of college eligibility after accounting for 1,300+ yards and 18 TD’s as a freshman. A few gun charges later and Clarett’s getting cut by the Bronco’s before the end of camp. Woof.

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No. 1 Greg Oden: Definition of dodging a bullet for any team not named the Portland Trailblazers. Again, absolutely dominant in college (noticing a trend here), and was the consensus No. 1 overall pick. Another guy who’s career was derailed by injuries pretty much immediately with Oden missing his entire rookie year after getting Microfracture surgery. He only played in 82 games TOTAL with Portland, which is legit depressing to think about if you’re a Blazers fan. The ping pong balls giveth and the ping pong balls taketh.