| Freshmen Faceoff- 3/29/07 Kevin Durant lost. He had a great game but he lost. Not being a winner is the death of superstar. It is a tag that will curse you with millions of dollars that do nothing but mock your annual disappointment. Luckily for Durant and the basketball watching world, just because you lose doesn’t mean that you aren’t a winner. Everyone loses. The second round though? Admittedly USC has been rolling. They looked like the better team for much of the game against North Carolina. They looked hungrier. They looked more athletic. They looked like they were clicking the way you need to if you want to make a run at the national championship. But Kevin Durant is stunningly special. Watching him play is an experience in transcendental talent. Kevin Durant was supposed to take his talent to the big stage of the mainstream where even the nonfans would know his name. The Final Four was going to be that stage. Beating North Carolina was going to be the upset he willed with his superior talent despite playing for an inferior team. His legend was going to be made. In the end it didn’t happen. That’s the way the tournament goes sometimes. Destinies go unrealized, forever altering the course of basketball history like with Chris Webber, or fading into the forgotten background. Only time will tell where Kevin Durant will go. Only time will tell whether he will be doomed to gaudy numbers, millions of dollars and a lifetime of disappointment. The lottery works both ways. Teams who win get the player of their dreams. The players who win get a team who can take them to their dreams. See you in the NBA Kevin Durant. Greg Oden won. Greg Oden the massive stoic, who blocks shots, makes jump hooks and shoots free throws with whichever hand is working better. He’s a solid seven footer who plays on the inside but is still an elite athlete. He’s a physical specimen that comes around once a generation. They say he’ll be a force from the beginning once he jumps to the next level. Nothing happened this year to make that seem untrue. Still it felt like Oden hadn’t quite reached that level of awe-inspiring ability to seize a game and exert his will. None of those stretches where you feel special, where you feel like you are witnessing something you’ll remember forever. This may end up being Oden’s curse. He’s so efficient and so within the flow of the game that he rarely needs to take over, rarely needs the spotlight to be great. Then he made that block at the end of the Tennessee game. He used two hands while he was jumping through the roof. It was one of the most impressive blocks I’ve ever seen. I will remember it. I will remember Greg Oden did it. I will remember being stunned at what I had seen even if it didn’t look like the shot was going to go in anyway. The block was so emphatic, so powerful, so no-nonsense. It was as if Oden had just decided that he wasn’t going to leave anything to chance, this game was over because he decided it was. And it was. There was no chance. The game was over. Ohio State won. Greg Oden may not be all that exciting to watch. He’s certainly no Durant but with that block he made me a believer. See you in the NBA Greg Oden. Greg Oden made the block and snagged most of the headlines but he isn’t the Ohio State player who really got me thinking. Mike Conley is my version of saving best for last. I know he came in highly touted. I know he’s one of the top PG prospects in the country. I know he plays on an elite team that is in the Final Four. I know he’s always been Greg Oden’ s teammate. Still, this is the kid on Ohio State who takes it over. Everyone had Ron Lewis’s names on their lips after his big shot against Xavier. Mike Conley can run a game when he wants it. He can score every point in overtime to put a team out of contention. He can dribble out the clock and still get the layup. He can hit the open man with a pass. He can operate in the shadow of Greg Oden without a peep but with a little more attitude. He’s the one I can’t wait to see in the Final Four. I want to see more so I can believe in him more, so I can write about him more, so I can experience him more. He’ll never be Oden or Durant. No top two draft pick for him. No franchise savior tag. Maybe that’s good. Maybe he’ll sneak under the radar to greatness. For now I’ll just enjoy the excitement he provides me in the Final Four as my go-to freshman. I’ll be rooting against his team in the Final Four but after that I’m all his. See you in the NBA Mike Conley (if you decide to follow Oden out). |
The Gospel of Luke
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