Photo. Jonathan Mannion“Are you f***ing serious?!?”
That was the general reaction over here when we heard the news out of Portland that Greg Oden will most likely miss the entire ‘07-08 season after having microfracture surgery on his right knee — and it was the same reaction we got from everyone who called wanting to know what was up. In yesterday’s Smack we weren’t joking when we said Thursday could be the most important day in the history of the Blazers franchise with Oden going in for “exploratory” surgery, and this was almost the worst possible outcome … One thing that immediately jumped out at us: The team had to know that Oden’s knee was bad enough for microfracture well before Thursday. So was the whole “exploratory” thing a smokescreen? Was it an outright lie? … Oden is, of course, on the cover of Dime #35 (on newsstands now) with the now-cryptic tagline “Great Expectations.” In the cover story, our Editorial Director, Pat Cassidy, hits on the one thing that has dogged Oden his entire life in the mainstream spotlight: that most of the basketball world has never seen the “real” Oden, the 100 percent Oden. He came into college with the wrist injury, and even after he came back, he was still playing with a cast the rest of the season. When that apparently healed up, Oden went into summer league with the tonsil thing, which effected him there. And now with that out of the way, a few weeks before training camp this happens. So we have to wait another year to see Oden, and even then, how healthy will he be? … People are already jumping on the “next Sam Bowie” bandwagon (for which we admit we didn’t help matters), but it’s a little early for that. Once you get past the initial shock of the news, this isn’t the worst thing in the world for the Blazers or Oden — he’s not done. Amare, J-Kidd and Zach Randolph have shown that microfracture isn’t a career death sentence (although Jamal Mashburn and Chris Webber might argue otherwise), and K-Mart is supposedly gonna be at full strength this year. Oden can absolutely come back in ‘08-09 and still grow into a dominant center. Let’s say he goes on to have a Kenyon-like career. Is that such a bad thing? Really, a lot depends on Kevin Durant. If KD becomes a superstar/Hall of Famer and Oden doesn’t match that, the Blazers look bad … We caught some of the Blazers press conference, where Nate McMillan, GM Kevin Pritchard and team exec Larry Miller all looked like they were trying to put on a strong face, but still sounded like they were announcing a death in the family. Pritchard said that the same doctor who did Randolph’s microfracture did Oden’s, which is a good sign … The Blazers brass kept comparing Oden’s situation to when they didn’t have Darius Miles last year. Come on, now. Everyone knows the Blazers didn’t even want D-Miles around … We’re not 100 percent sure, but it sounded like one reporter in the press conference asked if Oden was awake during the procedure … If anyone benefits from this, it’s Channing Frye. He was looking at a season of backup duty behind G.O. and LaMarcus Aldridge, and now he’s probably gonna start at the 4 while LaMarcus takes the 5. Speaking of LaMarcus, he goes from complimenting Oden to being the team’s No. 1 option on the block … One silver lining that a few of our readers pointed out right away: If Portland puts up another poor record without Oden, they could land another future star like O.J. Mayo, Derrick Rose or Michael Beasley in the ‘08 Draft … The MSG Network showed a replay of that Knicks/Jazz game from this season, the one where Steph dropped the game-winner over Mehmet Okur. (With the whole Isiah trial dominating the NY papers, guess they wanted to remember thee good times.) We still can’t get over how on Marbury’s shot, Memo went up and for some reason decided to cower when he could have went for the block … DerMarr Johnson signed with a pro team in Italy … One of our guys was at American Christian School in Astor, Pa., yesterday, better known as Tyreke Evans‘ school. Apparently a ton of college coaches were at the ACS practice to watch Tyreke, including UConn’s staff and Texas‘ Rick Barnes. Word is that ‘Reke is taking his official visit to UConn today … If you’ve ever wondered why coaches can get into the Basketball Hall of Fame when they’re still active (Phil Jackson was inducted last week), the rule says that while players have to wait 5 years following their retirement to make the ballot, coaches are eligible once they’ve logged 25 years in the business. Honestly, we think that skews the opinion of voters, but at the same time, some coaches stay in the game for so long it makes sense to let them have their glory while they’re young enough to enjoy it. But that brings up the question: What if a player puts in 25 years? Can he get in the Hall while he’s still active? Someone dust off Cliff Robinson and let’s test this out … We’re out like Oden …
September 14th, 2007 at 4:36 am
jalanc says:
“In the cover story, our Editorial Director, Pat Cassidy, hits on the one thing that has dogged Oden his entire life in the mainstream spotlight: that we’ve never seen the “real” Oden, the 100 percent Oden. ”
we could actually argue that we will never ever see Oden at 100%… Kidd’s not as quick as he used to be( maybe age has something to do with that), Amare’s not as explosive as he used to be before his operation, and lets not even discuss Randolph in the quickness department… still, Oden IS still young, and maybe he WILL recover from this to become a dominant center. MOre importantly though, we should start questioning his longevity. Maybe he’s not gonna be a Sam Bowie, but how about a Marcus Camby? Not so bad, but not so good either…
Silver lining: Centers don’t have to be as quick as guards, and Oden’s game wasnt about explosiveness anyway, and he’s still young enough to develop moves that will compensate for his eventual lack of explosiveness and quickness
September 14th, 2007 at 5:59 am
E-ROC says:
There is more to being a basketball player than explosiveness. I hope Greg Oden knows that. I think he’ll be fine. Blazers said he was perfectly healthy when they worked him out. Greg Oden said he hurt his knee trying to get up out of his chair. Go read this article:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/ian_thomsen/09/13/oden.surgery/index.html
That is a good read. Good luck to him. I hope he makes it back and produces. I don’t think the Blazers made the mistake of drafting him, IMO. I would have done the same thing. Oden compliments Roy very well, better than Durant would, IMO. That’s just me. Hopefully, Oden comes back.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Marcus says:
Anyone saw the Germany-Spain game? I could catch some action and even the Blazers draftee Fernandez was stickin’ 3s on Dirk’s grill. What a rout
September 14th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Alf says:
You cant dust off Cliffy’s case because the HOF assumes the coaches are consistently performing well over that 25yr. span. I’m assuming the same rules apply to players were it 25 yrs. as well.
If that’s the case, Cliffy’s numbers, drug cases and getting shot-over by MJ [while he was with Portland] don’t do him any just for the HOF.
September 14th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Tom Toronto says:
Kenyon Martin’s name was mentioned a couple of times there and, in my opinion, if Oden ends up like K-Mart the Blazers will be very disappointed. K-Mart needs to come back and have an amazing year right now or to me he’s a total bust. He had one sick year catching lobs from Jason Kidd and Flagrantly Fouling guys, and he was just bananas. Other than that, he’s been in for surgery after surgery. He was supposed to be 100% healthy last year too, but not so much.
If Greg works hard at it like Amare, he’ll come back and be lethal. Otherwise, he’ll be that guy everyone mentions when they say “If only …”
PS - Durant is looking real good for ROY now!
September 14th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Preston says:
Oden’s issues were known well before the draft. Bulging disk, still has problems with the wrist, one of his legs is an inch longer than the other which will likely cause problems the rest of his life (I think Bowie had this problem as well?). Not to mention that he is 19 and gets winded whenever he plays more than 20 minutes. Great physical specimen, but has never really shown to be healthy. I believe he COULD come back, Amare did, however Oden doesn’t strike me as a gym rat. I think that is what makes all the difference.
September 14th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Jules says:
Marcus - how can you watch the Eurobasket games? I’ve been looking all over and can’t find them on TV.
September 14th, 2007 at 11:02 am
jay says:
i am not goin on the sam bowie wagon just yet but you really have to wonder..who is the med staff on portland. he played with torn knee minicus all year?? he did not log major minutes his freshman campaign…just makes ya wonder..at least for me…not a lot of mieage and a lot of problems already….not good!!!
September 14th, 2007 at 11:32 am
João says:
What ? Season ending ? Oh my, thats terrible ,,, I was looking foward to see some “mano a mano” like, GO vs Shaq, Mourning, YAO, Bynum, Okafor, DH, Duncan, Stoudmire … among others ,,
September 14th, 2007 at 11:58 am
DOC says:
how the hell is one leg longer than the other. I thought that was some bullshit. He do look like he got a little down syndrome though.
September 14th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Sam Boobie says:
I heard that this whole thing was a late April Fool’s joke and he’s not really hurt. Is that true?
September 14th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Mr. Incredible says:
If Oden goes on to have a career like K-Mart, will that be such a bad thing? Hell yea it will, considering they coulda had Kevin Durant. Kenyon’s draft class was weeeeeeeeeak, so the Nets ain’t look too bad from drafting him. He prolly woulda won ROY if he hadn’t broken his leg AGAIN.
September 14th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
djKianoosh says:
is Pritchard pulling a Duncan? by that I mean, the Spurs got Duncan after a year where David Robinson was out and the Spurs stunk. Imagine if next year they add another top 3 pick/impact player. with the way sports medicine is these days, Oden will be back stronger and will have had a year of mental maturation (if everything goes well). The blazers won’t win a lot this year, especially in the West, but if they can build some cohesion/chemistry this year with the guys they have, then next year they’ll add two studs and be really good. long term this might actually work out well.
September 14th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Rob says:
Preston you said it best…Oden isnt a gym rat, thats why i dont think he will ever live up to the hype. The man plays the game just cause he is physically bigger than everyone else. and those physical tools have a lot of question marks.
September 16th, 2007 at 4:19 am
Amar says:
I think everyone should take it easy on oden, it’s hard enough to be a #1 draft pick when your above 50 years old . . . it’s remarkable at all that he only has this problem . . . and the tonsils one . . . and in college the hand thing . . . and you get the picture.