Much has been made of the fact that during the preseason, the Blazers' Greg Oden was a marked man. Kevin Martin of the Sacramento Kings collected $1000 for dunking
in the vicinity of Oden, and the Clippers' Ricky Davis offered up a $500 bounty if one of his teammates could get one on Oden (although that one went uncollected).
So did the Lakers have any similar reward on the table for the season opener? I asked Trevor Ariza about it before the game, and here's what he had to say.
Brett Edwards: A couple teams in the preseason had bounties for dunking on Greg Oden, did you hear about that?
Trevor Ariza: Naw.
BE: Sacramento did it, Kevin Martin got a thousand bucks from Mikki Moore for dunking on him, and then the Clippers tried it too. Ricky Davis offered up five hundred, but nobody could do it.
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TA: Oh really?
BE: Yeah, you guys got anything like that going on tonight?
TA: Naw, we're just worried about winning the basketball game, we don't have anything like that, that's not how we get down.
BE: Because you'd be, probably the guy to collect, if there was something like that going on ...
TA: (Laughs) You know what? If it happens, I'll probably come laugh at you or something, but, other than that, our whole focus is just to win the basketball game.
Unfortunately, Oden played just 12 minutes due to a foot injury, so Ariza didn't get his chance. But he did have a baseline dunk on Joel Pryzbilla that was pretty nice. If only that was Oden in the game instead, ah, the post-game laugh we could have shared.
In Case You Were Wondering, the Lakers Had No Bounty Out for Dunking on Greg Oden originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on 2008-10-29T08:30:00+00:00. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
