Oden Out For the Year

Greg Oden had micro fracture surgery yesterday and will miss the entire 2007-2008 NBA season. The rest of the sports-writing world beat me to the "Sam Bowie" punch, but this truly is a sad and shocking development. Like most basketball fans, I was excited to watch the Oden/Durant rookie pairing this year, but now we are left with only Durant.

I really hope this is not a sign of things to come with Oden. He is the most likable young basketball player to emerge in a long time. Despite being saddled with LeBron-like hype during his high school years, he comes across as down-to-earth and vastly different from the typical AAU basketball prospect of today. Oden seemed to really enjoy his one year in college at Ohio State, not using it as a farm system but actually getting something out of his classes and the entire experience. There have been reports of Oden shunning his new "friends" who are looking for a piece of Oden's pie. He continued to drive his mom's Ford Taurus after getting his big rookie deal. In interviews, he is charming and funny. He openly admits to wanting to be a dentist someday - what athlete admits to wanting anything outside of the sports world?

Last year, Oden had wrist troubles and now the knee surgery. Who knows how he will recover from this operation? Amare Stoudemire seems to be right back to being his dominant self after micro fracture surgery, but guys like Jamal Mashburn and Antonio McDyess never fully recovered from it.

Here is hoping Oden comes out as his former dominant self. There has been much sadness expressed toward the Portland Trail Blazers over this injury, but the young man is the one with whom we should be most concerned.