ChopMay 22, 2023

@NateFederman Exactly. There are plenty of terrible picks that were very defensible at the time. I'm talking about the picks that 1) were questioned at the time and 2) turned out terrible like many expected.

While I think Oden>Durant was even worse than Darko>Melo in hindsight, it was at least a little more defensible at the time.

Show threadMr. Completely
@chopaganda @NateFederman it was. People forget what Oden was like when he was healthy. It was awesome. The one totally healthy stretch of games he had with Brandon Roy they were dominant. I had heard rumblings about the legs so I was hoping they'd take Durant but it was defensible. That was still in the "all things being equal take the big guy" era (which we might be back to?)
May 22, 2023 at 3:50pmWeb
Show threadChopMay 22, 2023
@mrcompletely @NateFederman My memory wasn't so much that Oden wasn't thought to be a worthy #1, but rather Durant was seen as a unicorn.
Show threadMr. CompletelyMay 22, 2023
@chopaganda @NateFederman oden was seen mostly as a sure bet with an asterisk that maaaybe there could be leg issues. Durant's evaluations were all over the place. He was so skinny! I think it's fair to say he was seen as the higher variance pick, which is ironic in retrospect I guess.