Hawes or Oden?

[Insomniacal Fan]

If health is not a consideration, obviously Oden.

Outside of fantasy land, Hawes.

 

[SacTownKid]

What Oden does best is what a dominant big man is supposed to do: rebounds, blocks shots, intimidates...just generally changes the tone of the game. Even though he is clearly not yet adjusted to the NBA, when he's in the game..you KNOW he's in the game. His presence is felt. His offensive game will come. Will it ever develop into dominance on the offensive end? Not sure. However, I do know if healthy (and I would put the risk of injury for Hawes and Oden about equal) he will ALWAYS be a beast defensively.

This is not a knock against Hawes who has greatly impressed me, but just trying to be objective.

Yeah but dominant big men have to do much, much more than that. Justin Williams does these things but he is far from a dominant big man.

 

[Kev.in]

Hawes had a season to get used to the NBA, take his knocks and then over the summer he worked hard on strength and conditioning.
We can come back to this question in a year when Oden has had the same learning opportunities and spent a summer on getting stronger rather than just getting healthy.

 

[JoMama]

I'll take Hawes because he too can block shots (6 blocks last night) AND rebound. Plus, he's a far superior outside shooter, much quicker, can run the floor AND is smarter than Oden. Well, he looks smarter, anyway.

 

[bloom]

I’m a little (or a lot) surprised that more people haven’t voted for Oden.

I do think that it’s a little early to judge Greg right now. He needs time on floor to get his body back and improve his game (give him a year or so). Isn’t it way too soon to be judging which player is better at this stage in both their young careers? Plus I don’t see how we can compare the two; Spencer is a different player/body type then Greg.

 

[SLAB]

Yeah but dominant big men have to do much, much more than that. Justin Williams does these things but he is far from a dominant big man.

Key word there was intimidates.

Justin Williams intimidated no one.

 

[kupman]

It's pretty remarkable that this is even a thread. I think back to the day after the '07 draft and how we "just missed" on Noah. LOL - Today, it seems like a very fortuitous bounce of the ping pong ball.

 

[Aenadin]

petrie wouldnt pick Noah... no offensive game plus petrie loves Shooters

 

[kupman]

Life is so much more unpredictable than this. There are no slam dunks. Destroyed knees, car accidents and all the rest make everything uncertain.

...maybe I should have also included "accidentally shooting oneself in the leg."

 

[VF21]

How pathetic is it that they felt obligated to add the word "accidentally"? As if they had to make sure no one thought Burress had intentionally shot himself in the leg...

It boggles the mind.

 

[Prince_XY]

If we can have both, then both.