Former NBA big man Greg Oden was asked to give his ultimate starting five with himself and four former teammates during an appearance on the Knuckleheads Podcast. It didn’t take Oden too long to name the first three players, but his last one took a while and was quite an interesting selection.
“Well, first off it’s B-Roy (Brandon Roy), Bron (LeBron James), D-Wade (Dwyane Wade),” Oden said. “And I’mma say Andre Miller. Man, I love Miller.”
Oden was asked to consider each player in their prime here, and that is an impressive lineup, considering how short his career was. Let’s take a look at each of the selections.
We start off with the last one, Andre Miller. Miller slots in at the point guard slot and is easily the most controversial selection here. He never made an All-Star team and had career averages of 12.5 points, 3.7 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 1.2 steals, and 0.2 blocks per game.
Miller did lead the league in assists in 2002, though, and he was the best pure point guard Oden played with. The big man stated that he wanted to make his team in the traditional way, so he needed someone who was actually a point guard. That meant Miller was somewhat of an obvious pick.
Next, we get to Dwyane Wade, and this was an obvious pick at shooting guard. Wade averaged 22.0 points, 4.7 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.5 steals, and 0.8 blocks per game in his career. He made 13 All-Star and eight All-NBA teams and also won three titles.
Brandon Roy got the nod at small forward from Oden, and that wasn’t all too surprising. You wonder what might have been had these two stayed healthy, as they could have perhaps led the Portland Trail Blazers to glory.
Roy averaged 18.8 points, 4.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 1.0 steals, and 0.2 blocks per game in his short NBA career. He made three All-Star and two All-NBA teams in six seasons and would have made so many more had the injury bug not struck.
Someone who has certainly not seen their career cut short by injuries is Oden’s power forward, LeBron James. James is still going strong in his 22nd season in the NBA and seems to have enough gas in the tank to carry on for a couple more years.
James has impressive career averages of 27.0 points, 7.5 rebounds, 7.4 assists, 1.5 steals, and 0.7 blocks per game. He has made 21 All-Star and 20 All-NBA teams and has won four titles along the way. James is also the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and is as obvious a selection as any.
In all, that’s about the best possible team that Oden could have come up with, going by his rules. If you slot James in at point guard, though, you could put in either Chris Bosh or LaMarcus Aldridge at the four. That’s about all you’d consider changing when it comes to this team.
Greg Oden Played The ‘Start-Bench-Trade’ Game
As is the tradition, Oden also had to play the ‘start-bench-trade’ game here. He got an interesting group to pick from, as the players were Alonzo Mourning, Patrick Ewing, and Dikembe Mutombo.
“You got to start, Patrick,” Oden said. “… You bench Alonzo, and you trade Dikembe.”
That’s about right. Ewing has to get the start, and that leaves you with having to pick who is going to be shipped out of the town between Mutombo and Mourning.
While Mutombo was the better defensive player of the two, Mourning was no slouch on that end of the floor. He was also far better from an offensive standpoint, so you’d just about give him the edge here.
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