Oden… the NBA’s New Mr. Glass
Greg Oden was questionably the best player in the NBA draft this year. The Blazers had a choice of Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. After Greg Oden was clearly outperformed by Durant in the summer leagues and nearly making the Olympic squad, the Blazers could have been questioning if they made the right choice with that selection. However a recent injury and surgery has to alarm the Blazers as they look forward to the coming season.
Greg Oden recently announced that he’ll be having surgery done to one of his knees that has been bothering him for quite some time. Let’s put this in perspective, Oden is only 19 years old and not even in his first season yet and in the past two years he’s had a major wrist injury, tonsillitis and now knee surgery. What’s that about? I know that many people have these things happen but this has to bring up some red flags. I remember another high pick the Blazers had that got hurt right away and it has cursed the franchise ever since. Sam Bowie. Now I’m not saying that Oden will fall the way of Sam Bowie at all but this has to make you question if this is a pattern following the likes of Marcus Camby.
I’ve had Marcus Camby on my fantasy team for a number of seasons and he’s great to have until you see the DNP-ripped fingernail. I hope that Oden gets healthy because he is as exciting a prospect as I’ve seen in a while. Defensively he could have played in the NBA when he was in high school. He will develop offensively but anyone who watched the national championship could clearly see that he was head and shoulders better than Noah and Horford down low. He dominated two of the better big men in college last season.
But just like I’ve called Marcus Camby Mr. Glass for the past few years I may have found a new nickname for Greg Oden…Lladro. For those that don’t know it is the real expensive porcelain that is hand carved from Spain. Very expensive and a big money loss when broken.
September 13th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
I’m updating my own blog. Oden had microfracture surgery and is lost for the season. This is the same surgery that was performed on Amare Stoudemire. It took him over a year to come back and some argue that he still isn’t the same. This is getting to be a more common procedure but this is devastating news to the Blazers no matter how they spin it.