Remembering Why the Portland Trail Blazers Chose Greg Oden over Kevin Durant | News, Scores, Highlig
Despite “dazzling” the Trail Blazers in his workout with the team, Kevin Durant just couldn’t compete with Greg Oden in a number of areas heading into the 2007 NBA draft.
Strength was clearly an issue, as Durant entered a pre-draft camp as the only player out of an 80-person group who could not bench 185 pounds. Texas Longhorns head coach Rick Barnes had this to say on the matter:
If they are looking for weight lifters to come out of Texas, that's not what we're producing. There are a lot of guys who can bench press 300 pounds in the NBA who couldn't play dead in a cowboy movie. Kevin's the best player in the draft—period, at any position.
Oden looked fantastic coming into the NBA, with better scores than Durant on the vertical leap, agility drill and three-quarter court sprint, but as it turns out, Barnes knew what he was talking about, and Durant has become one of the best players in the league—at any position.
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