It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Two years ago, the beast lair’s loyalty was divided into two camps. On one side, you had the people rooting for the Celtics to win and develop into a playoff team, and on the other side, you had Team Oden, a sadistic group, if ever there was, who wanted nothing more than to have the Celtics lose every game just for the chance at grabbing the coveted prize of Greg Oden.

Since the beast lair exists only in the margins of the mind of a madman, we never came to blows. However, the pining and coveting reached biblical proportions to say the least. For proof, please look at this post, which to my recollection may be the longest blog post in the history of blogs. Essentially, it’s a game by game transcript of text conversations in the beast lair, during that ill-fated 18-game losing streak.

But, I digress, things are different now. We have righted the ship considerably and now seeing Greg Oden and his Odenettes of Portland is sort of a treat, kind of like a bon-bon, or a good truffle. However, for Kendrick it’s another test to prove to people that, while he doesn’t get the press, he’s one of the best young bigs in the game. Perk never thought much of the Oden hype and I doubt he does now. I always thought this quote was telling, from our exit interview in 2007.

PERK: They strap up their shoes just like I put on mine. So if we get either one of them it’s good, but they still gotta come in. They ain’t proved nothin’ to us, or me. So they still gotta come in and come get it. You know, I know either one of them could be my future teammates, but this is a job man. I’m not just gonna lay down and give a person a spot. They are gonna have to take it!

So, look for Perk to give Oden a couple welcome shots and maybe even a beasting or two. At this point in his career Oden’s just trying to survive, so I doubt he’ll be able to match Perk’s intensity. My guess is Oden goes out with two quick fouls and has a quiet game. Either way, I’ll be watching, you can set your clock on it. This is gonna be fun.