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Sixers Oden Their Breath While the Sixers are busy accumulating ping pong balls, Greg Oden is enjoying a season of college basketball and college. Only the stakes have changed since Oden discovered the game, as a fourth-grader in Terre Haute, Ind. Oden, by all accounts, has never changed. His game? That has changed. Jimmy Smith is the executive director of the Terre Haute Boys and Girls Club. Shortly after Oden's parents split up and Oden's mother moved from Buffalo, N.Y., to Terre Haute, Smith became Oden's first coach. Oden is like a member of the Smith family. "Greg was just a tall, lanky, skinny kid," Smith remembered. "He had never played before. He had no idea whatsoever on how to play the game of basketball. It was really kind of funny at the time." The legend is that Oden's first basket came in the other team's hoop. Smith doesn't remember that because, "I don't remember him playing a lot in fourth grade." Oden remembers that first basket. He also remembers that he had no knowledge of the relative difference between his team's basket and the other team's basket. "I just saw a hoop and put the ball in it," Oden said. "I was pretty excited." Smith was coaching a travel team. The best players played. Oden was not one of them. "He learned a lot in practice," Smith said. "And he was playing with some really good players." Oden is the 7-foot, 280-pound freshman center at Ohio State. He turns 19 next week. If not for an NBA rule change that said high school players could no longer apply for the draft, Oden almost certainly never would have set foot in Columbus, where he is one of 52,000 students, standing out from even that crowd. "Greg kind of came into his own in the sixth grade," Smith said. By then, Oden was 6-2. He was 6-8 as an eighth-grader. Smith did not just tell him to go to the low post. He taught all his players, including Oden, all the skills. "He was very eager to learn," Smith said. "He became more or less my adopted son." Oden won three consecutive Indiana state titles playing for Lawrence North in Indianapolis. His point guard then and now was Mike Conley, son of the 1992 Olympic triple-jump champion of the same name. Lawrence North was 103-7 during Oden's career. His AAU team, coached by Mike Conley Sr., rarely lost either. "He'll be special because he's so big, he's so long," one NBA scout said. "One thing I noticed about this kid is that he has great patience. A lot of young players, they want to score 20 points on one possession." Oden, the scout said, waits for the double team. If it comes, he passes the ball out. If it doesn't come, he works his way to the rim, where he usually dunks with such force that you know nobody is going to want his hand up near the basket for fear it will get crushed. He doesn't just block shots. He often controls the ball, like Bill Russell or Bill Walton. "He's like a great winner," the scout said. "He's content scoring six, eight points, but dominating the game blocking shots, rebounding. He affects the game without having to score." Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Oden only looks at the scoreboard to see the score, not the points he has scored. Is there any doubt Oden will be the first pick? "No doubt," the scout said. At a recent college game, this scout was talking to another scout from a team that has been missing one of its better players for weeks, wondering when the player was coming back. "We ain't rushing him," the scout said. "We're in the Oden sweepstakes just like all the rest." Is there any chance Oden won't declare for the draft? "He'd be crazy to," Smith said with a laugh. "When I talk to Greg, I tell him you go to college to get an education to make a living. For him, he can always get his degree. I think he's ready." Smith played at Indiana State when his team played against West Texas State and its point guard, Maurice Cheeks. Smith is fully aware what Cheeks does these days. "I've heard there's been a lot on the Internet out there in Philadelphia how they would like to see him be the No. 1 draft pick," Smith said. That has come up. If the Sixers somehow get the first pick, they just have to hope Oden does not pull a Tim Duncan. Remember the Sixers had the first pick in 1996 when Duncan was a junior at Wake Forest? Duncan decided to stay for his senior season. The Sixers got a very nice consolation prize in Allen Iverson. Duncan has three NBA championships in San Antonio. "After the season, we'll all sit down and talk about this stuff," Oden said. "Right now, I have no idea." If you like college basketball, enjoy Oden while you can. He sure sounds like a typical college student, even if he is a bit more noticeable. When he has some free time, he likes to "watch movies and sleep." He just saw "The Convenant," thought that was "pretty good." He does get stopped on campus, but "it is not as bad as you think. When you have a Heisman Trophy winner, you don't have to worry about much." Ohio State is on the quarter system, so Oden went back to school last week. In the fall, he took math, English and geography. Smith's son Travis, a golfer at Ball State, is Oden's best friend. They talk every day. The Smiths know Oden, the player and the person. "Greg is just so darn humble," Smith said. "He still doesn't think he's very good." The results would suggest he's pretty good on his way to great. "He's got so much talent," Smith said. "I know Greg looks old, but he's just an 18-year-old man. It's hard to believe when you look at him." With his full beard, Oden looks 38. Or 48. How good is he? How good will he become? Predicting the future is an inexact science, as the Sixers have learned. The best bet is to search someone's past to determine what that person is most likely to become. Ralph Scott has been Jack Keefer's assistant at Lawrence North for 25 years. He talks to Oden regularly. If he sees something he doesn't like, he tells Oden. And Oden listens. "Every time I see something on TV I don't like, I usually call him up and say, `You didn't do this or you didn't do that,'" Scott said. "He still respects that. He's a pretty humble kid." Some have called Oden the best college big man since Patrick Ewing, which, of course, ignores the fact that David Robinson, Shaquille O'Neal and Duncan have all played college basketball since Ewing. The point, however, is still the point. Greg Oden represents the basketball Holy Grail - the big man with all the skills, the interest in being taught, the body to handle the schedule and the will to compete, the one player who, like Shaq and Duncan, can take a team from nowhere to a championship. Right now, Oden is still adjusting to the college game. Or maybe it is adjusting to him. "It's just a physical game," Oden said. "I thought I wouldn't get double-teamed, but it's happening. I've just got to play through it. It's a lot more physical. You get a little more freedom, though. I've had a couple of teams that have played me one-on-one." That never happened in high school. "I had minimum two guys on me every time," he said. Illinois coach Bruce Weber no longer has any of the stars from the team that lost to North Carolina in the 2005 NCAA championship game. Still, his team is not that bad. Its 62-44 loss to Ohio State and Oden was its worst margin of defeat at home in 31 years. Oden changed everything Illinois wanted to do. "I don't know if there's been anyone in my 27 years of his size and stature and athleticism that I can think of," Weber said. "He's the rare kid that comes around, like Pat Ewing, Shaq and Bill Russell. The reason I say Bill Russell is because he likes to win. Bill Russell loved to win. That's what he was about: championships. That's what this kid is about. He wants to win championships. He's not about an ego, he just wants to win." That is the recurring theme. Oden wants to win. And he does win. And, if you are in the NBA, you have to think he can make you win. "You hate that feeling of losing," Oden said. "So I go out there and play my hardest. It just happens that my teams win most of the time." He thought his team's high school record was "decent." Ohio State is 14-3. The quite-young Buckeyes' three losses have been on the road against Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin, all in the top 5. Two months from now, on a neutral court with more experience and Oden's surgically repaired right wrist fully healed, it would be no great shock if the results were reversed. Oden has not just gotten bigger since fourth grade. He has gotten much, much better. "He got on a schedule," Scott said. "Monday through Friday, every morning, say around 6 o'clock. He always stayed later after practice. He was very willing. He was one of those kids if he shot 50 free throws he wanted to shoot 100. If I said shoot 50 jump shots, he'd shoot 100. He always wanted to better what he did. You could see his passion for the game." Listen to Oden speak and hear the quiet, humble kid those close to him describe. Watch him play and see the fire. His motivation to succeed is quite human. "You have a lot of pressure on you," Oden said. "I just hate to have people talk about me, especially when they talk negatively about me. I like to be the best player I can be so people really won't have anything to say about me." Oden just plays. He dismisses the rest of it. "You never want to showboat," he said. "You just want to do what you do. People are going to see that. You don't have to tell them." If, for some reason, this basketball thing does not work out, Oden has a fall-back position. Scott runs a lawn-care business. Oden used to work for him in the spring and summer. Scott had Oden using the trimmers and the blowers. He didn't want to chance the bigger equipment. Oden liked it because "you got away; you really didn't have to interact with people. The employees he had working for him were really cool." Oden's senior year, Scott let him get on the big mower. "Can you imagine a seven-footer running around on a John Deere?" Scott said. Scott is kind of amazed Oden has never changed. "I don't know how he does it," he said. Oden's dream job is "just having a job you can have fun with." He had serious fun on that big mower. "I loved it," Oden said. "I don't know how fast I was going. It was slow, but it was fast to me." John Deere, however, will have to wait. Basketball is serious in the Big Ten and even more serious in the NBA. Greg Oden gets that. And when he wants to just have fun every day, the John Deere fleet will be waiting. To read more of this story, Click Here OTHER GREG ODEN NEWS HEADLINES:
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