Greg Oden (photo. Scott Spychalski)

He’s gone from a No. 1 pick and a city’s great hope to an injured star whose career is in jeopardy. But to Greg Oden, that’s in the past – he’s looking up, and for good reason.

Jumping was still uneasy, and the agility hadn’t returned all the way. A timetable for his return? Most estimates didn’t even begin until the start of 2011. But there was Greg Oden, the No. 1 pick in 2007 NBA Draft, attempting to swat away the only thing he could: Doubt.

He’s spent more time in street clothes than a Portland Trail Blazers uniform, but Oden can still play defense. When he did see the court last season, 21 times to be exact, the seven-footer notched 8.5 rebounds and 2.3 blocks in under 24 minutes per game. So his thoughts on that b-word that rhymes with rust? He doesn’t let it bother him.

“I kind of let it wash off my back,” says Oden. “All those people go, ‘Well he needs to stop getting injured, he’s a bust.’ I’m not going to go out there and say, ‘I’m not going to get injured today.’ … Don’t try to judge me because of my unlucky streak with my injuries.”

He felt good, he emphasized, chatting casually by phone in late October, adding that he changed his rehab approach this summer while hiring a chef, losing 20 pounds and working out with a purpose. His voice spoke with confidence, if annoyance, at the keywords of the conversation: injury, injury, promise, potential. He was engaging, talking offhand about taking a trip on a whim to watch Oregon and Stanford play in a top-10 football game on a fall weekend. Back talking basketball, he spoke as good a game as he knew he could play. If you listened carefully, it sounded like, just watch.

Two weeks after we first spoke, it turns out, he hadn’t lost a step. Rather, it was his season that was gone. And now, the League waits to see if he’ll be just as quick after a third major knee injury.

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Portland turned its back on the Jail Blazer squads in the middle of the decade, with fans leaving in droves from the ranks of season-ticket holders. Then, buoyed by a younger team that found the playoffs led by Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge, the old passion was back. The capper was supposed to be Oden.

It hasn’t quite turned out that way.

Once fed up with the problem of a team that was largely indifferent, Portland now has a team that is largely injured. And Oden, the centerpiece of the rebuilding effort, is still in the middle of it all – no matter how far the rehab facility is from Portland’s One Center Court.

In fact, Oden’s career summary is more of an orthopedic surgeon’s cruel bingo card than the resume of a No. 1 pick three years into his career. Right wrist. Microfracture surgery. Right knee. Foot. Chipped left knee cap. Fractured left patella. All together, it’s as stop-and-go as a career has ever been for a player as highly touted as he was as a one-and-done from Ohio State. The thinking is he’s three-and-done now with his trio of major injuries. The thinking, anyway, of those not named Greg Oden. His goal? To prove, again, that he can be more than just a salary-cap contributor once he returns. It’s not just a matter for his pride; he’ll be a restricted free agent this summer and can test the market, such that it is for a player with his history. It’s a very serious probability few, if any outside the Trail Blazers, could offer him the chance. But that’s all Oden wants.

Says Oden, “I want to get out there and be able to dominate.”

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Oden is the guy who came to Portland with a welcome rally the size of a city block, the keystone to a title run with shoulders big enough to carry a team for a decade or longer. He dreamed out loud of a dozen Larry O’Brien trophies, and the only mention of “bust” you could hear in Portland then pertained to the ordained superstar’s expected likeness in the Hall of Fame.

A crack in his foundation changed that. The second major injury, the patella fracture in December 2009, deepened it. It also changed Oden the player, he said, still a teenager at the time.

“It’s tough to be the happy-go-lucky guy you are with all the pressure from people who want to see me play,” says Oden. “And our fans haven’t had the chance to.”

Even his childhood friend and college teammate Mike Conley – who signed a five-year, $45 million deal with Memphis this November while Oden failed to sign an extension – could notice the evaporating expectations surrounding him.

“It bothers him a lot and you can see it in his face at times,” says Conley. “You can’t not root for the guy, because he’s putting in the work.”

Sixteen-year NBA vet Grant Hill sees a similarity in the bizarre stretch of non-stop injuries that’s hit Oden, and the wondering of how to stop it. Hill’s career nearly was ended by botched ankle rehabilitation from 2000-03 after six superstar years in Detroit. Hill had the advantage of being a star before his injuries, but the setbacks came out of the blue nonetheless. The only ankle injury he ever had, he said, was a sprain when Christian Laettner accidentally pushed Cherokee Parks into him at practice his sophomore year at Duke. His first four years in Orlando, he played a combined 47 games, including missing the entire 2003-04 season.

Hill and Oden spoke together in the month after Oden’s latest injury, to discuss their shared stretches of injury and misfortune.

“It’s one thing when you get hurt, but when you get hurt with a season-ending injury year after year after year, that’s when it becomes extremely difficult to make sense of it all,” says Hill. “He’s been so young and had this misfortune and not really had a chance to establish himself and understand the NBA game. Your heart goes out to anybody with struggles like he’s had.”