Greg Oden is a rookie

Much has been made in recent days of #1 pick Greg Oden’s summer league forays, the thrust of said makings being that he’s not doing very well.

We’ve not seen either of the games he’s played – we’ve only read this write-up on NBA DOT COM, followed up by Marc Stein going all ESPN on young Greg.

Being that summer league is just summer league, and we can remember being unimpressed by LeBron in his one go-round in it, we’re not overly concerned for the Trailblazers franchise center of the future.

Besides, just listen to fellow Vegas attendee Desagana Diop of the Dallas Mavericks, who is out there swatting kids like Greg left and right.

“I told him [later] at the free-throw line he’s stronger than a lot of guys in the league right now,” Diop said, declining to crow too much about putting Oden on the same Swatted Team with Durant. “He’s going to be all right.”

There, see? Greg Oden will be fine, although the kids over at Lakersground have already used this as a reason to declare Andrew Bynum worthy of a place in the Hall of Fame.

You want something to be concerned about, it’s Desagana Diop, a six-year vet, playing in summer league. Isn’t he a rotation player? What’s he doing picking on little kids in Las Vegas? It seems like this should be illegal, or at the very least, someone should pull him aside and tell him he looks like a high school senior going to play at an eighth grade scrimmage and feeling good about dominating.

Not that he is dominating. Word is he’s working on his offensive moves, which don’t yet exist. Who knows – we just think it’s weird, plus there’s nothing else to talk about.

Free agency has been a bust, much like the entire 06-07 season was. Rashard Lewis to Orlando, and then…nothing. Kobe backs off, KG backs off, the Zach Randolph/Eddy Curry Non-Defensive Turnover Show doesn’t kick off until October…we almost read about baseball the other day.

We’ve got USA BAsketball action starting up in 11 days, but still – you get the feeling August of 2006-August of 2007 is going to be blacked out in the history books as some kind of anomalic (we just made up that word – it’s supposed to be a version of “anomaly”) dark age.