This is the 3rd season ending injury in 4 seasons for former #1 pick Greg Oden. He was supposed to lead the Blazers to relevance and possibly an NBA title, but in 4 seasons, he’s played the equivalent of 1 (82 games).
I’ll be honest. I’m a Lakers fan and I hate the Blazers, but even I feel bad for them. Their star Brandon Roy recently was diagnosed with having no more cartilage in his left knee, will probably lose his explosiveness and will have to play the rest of his career (he’s only 25) on reduced minutes. I don’t like them, but I can sympathize. They’re not as bad as the Clippers as far as luck goes, but they’re right up there
There’s a lot of talk about how Portland’s going to not resign him, and that his price will be too high, but also talk about how many believe some other team’s going to take a chance on him and Portland will have to watch as he becomes a star somewhere else. As the #1 pick, he made something like $20 million in the last 4 years, much more than the bottom dwelling role players who get less than $1 million a year. I think Portland and any team would be crazy to resign him to a scale that pays him on potential, he’s shown that he’s injury prone and brittle
Question for those who follow the NBA: Do you think Oden should accept that he has to prove he’s capable before he gets a big contract, or go for the max? I mean, from my position, given the amount of games he’s missed, I think Oden should resign with the Blazers, but give them a huge discount, something like $1 million per year, and work on proving he can be durable and that all these injuries have been simply the product of bad luck. His rookie scale was something like $4 or $5 million per year, and if you divide that by the amount of games he’s played vs. how many he should have played, it comes out to about $1 million per year.
Do the right thing Greg, don’t go for the max, give back a little to the team that drafted you and supported you. Get the minimum salary and go for the big money once you prove that you can play for more than 45 consecutive games
Why does he owe the Blazers anything? He didn’t choose to play for them, they chose him. It isn’t like the Blazers would have given him extra money if he overachieved his contract. I fail to see how taking less than he is worth is “doing the right thing”
Being a tOSU alum, I root for Oden, and it’s a bit heartbreaking to watch him struggle with health and durability. I hope he can turn it around, but it’s looking like he’s just fragile. That, or he was really 34 when he was in college.
Oden is not going to get that much money from any team “on potential.” He happens to be a former #1 pick, but about all he has proved, unfortunately, is that he can’t stay healthy. It’s not bad luck. His knees are structurally bad. The theory now is that one of his legs is shorter than the other because he broke his hip when he was young. Even if he goes on to have a decent career, it’s unlikely he’s going to be injury free or become the kind of force people thought he might be. Portland made the wrong pick, although that’s not Oden’s fault. The prevailing wisdom in some quarters at the time was that even if Durant obviously had more potential and skill you “have to” draft a potentially dominant big man if he is available because, well, you have to. We can see how dumb that was.
And I don’t see why Oden needs to reward Portland by taking less money. He doesn’t owe them anything and I don’t see what they did for him that another team wouldn’t have done. He would’ve been a major investment for whoever picked him. In any case he probably owes it to himself to make as much money as he can if injuries are going to cut his career short. I do feel bad for the guy.
If there is a lockout next year he will have a long time to recover, but it will be a very long time since the last time he played. The only upside to his situation is that it seems like it’s a new injury, the old ones aren’t coming back. The poor guy looked like he was 50 when he was in college, he will have the body to match soon.
But this injury is probably related to his previous injuries. He hurt his left knee a few times and that probably caused greater stress on his right knee, leading to this injury. I think that’s pretty much how it went for Kenyon Martin. I don’t know if it’s possible for him to get to a point where both knees are fine and in stable condition. At this point I think you’d have to expect the knees are just going to get worse over time.
You know I see what you guys are saying, but I can’t help but see sports as a whole other entity apart from your traditional employer/employee roles. For most jobs, there’s thousands of people who can do it, and no one person’s going to make that big of an impact, and if they do, there’s almost no way to track it using stats.
You know what this reminds me of? When Shaq was with the Lakers, he would always show up to training camp out of shape, fatter than he was, and use the season to play himself into shape. Then when he had his injuries, he would still spend the summer slacking off and take games off to rehab. His excuse was that he got hurt on company time, so he should heal on company time
But sports isn’t just a company. His presence makes a huge impact out there, and he can only do it 82 times a year plus playoffs, for a few minutes at a time. Even though we’re not paying him during the summer, sports is different, it’s a year long committment. Whatever teams you guys support, you would be pissed too if a player deliberately didn’t work out during the summer and came into camp 30 pounds overweight. It’s a lack of respect. Even though he’s essentially hurting himself in future contracts, it’s still expected that when the team’s not paying you during the summer, you are still part of the team and you keep yourself in shape
So that’s why I think Oden should give back. He’s gotten $20 million in 4 years for doing 1 season of work. That money is more than 99% of the people will ever see. If another team offers him more money he needs to turn it down and give the Blazers another chance at a minimum price. I’m hoping he doesn’t get offered that money and will have to stick with the Blazers because they’ve got a good team and would be fun to watch, but I know that some stupid GM like in New York will probably overpay him on potential.
Shaq stopped trying to keep himself in shape early in his career and (other than maybe in Phoenix) never really tried again. I don’t know what that has to do with Oden, who is much younger and is hurt worse than Shaq ever was. From what I can tell, he’s tried hard to come back and get healthy. He’s not stealing money from the Blazers, and while the team definitely did not anticipate this, he was a known injury concern. They made the choice to draft him anyway. And his next contract will take his injury history into account for sure. Nobody’s going to guarantee him a ton of money. It’ll include a lot of incentives for playing time.
Call me when Oden slacks off, refuses to stay in shape or refuses to rehab over the summer, and I’ll start to buy into the idea that he owes the team something.
As it is, he seems to be giving his level best to be on the court and help the team. That’s all I can expect from him, and is all the team should expect from him. When his contract is up, he should be free to explore any options that are open to him, secure in the knowledge that he fulfilled the terms of his contract to the best of his ability.
He’s also still under his rookie contract. The Blazers could have given him a new deal at any time, but (very sensibly) they haven’t. So he’s been severely injured three times before entering the prime earning part of his career, and those injuries will almost certainly curtail the length of his career and the amount of money he makes as a professional athlete. And because of all that … he should take less money from Portland because he owes them something? Assuming he is able to come back, he’ll take the best offer he gets. That’ll probably be from whoever offers him the most money, but maybe it will also include whoever has the best medical staff and facilities among the interested teams. Who knows - maybe another team will provide better rehab and extend his career.
Quick question for those who know about how NBA contracts work, because I’m not even sure if my wish of him playing for $1 million is feasible.
I was reading a story about him on foxsports.com today and in it the article mentioned that a qualifying offer, which I’m guessing is the minimum that can be offered Oden next year when he goes into restricted free agency, is $8.8 million. If I’m interpreting the article correctly, Oden can’t be offered less than that next year? I’m assuming that from the tone of the article and the fact that he’s a former #1 pick which means his starting salary begins at a rather high point. This was why up until last year, the Lakers were still paying NBA washout Adam Morrison, former #3 pick, something like $5 million per year
The qualifying offer is the minimum he can be offered by his current team in order to keep his Bird rights, meaning the right of his original team to match any competing team offers no matter what the wishes of the player are. He can be offered as little as whatever the league minimum salary is, but he would have the choice of going where ever he wanted at that point.
Oden wasn’t that great even without the injury problems. He’s a bit undersized for the NBA, so unless he had Olajuwon skills he was never going to be a superstar. And he really doesn’t have anything near Olajuwon skills. It always surprises me how the NBA draft consistently overvalues big men (Olowokandi, Kenyon Martin, Kwame Brown, Andrew Bogut). Centers almost never get better in the NBA. If they aren’t an unqualified superstar in college like Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, Mourning, they aren’t going to be one in the NBA. Guys that have been the biggest man on the court since they were 12 years old are suddenly being guarded by a 7’2" guy every night, often someone who is quicker, stronger, and more skilled than they are. Oden was a solid defensive center, averaging only twelve or thirteen points a game in college, only third in scoring on his own team, far from a superstar, played pretty mediocre in the NCAA tournament, got his ass handed to him by some 6’6" nobody from Butler or Xavier (I forget the guy’s name), but for some reason the press had a wild hard-on for the guy. Durant was a better player in college, and athletic guards always seem to step it up in the fast-paces scoring and ole defense of the NBA. I really thought Oden was going to be a flop, and he still managed to underperform my expectations.
So $8.8 if the Blazers want to keep him for certain, or go cheap if they don’t…
Given that Roy’s left knee is shot, I hope the new GM Cho doesn’t make a huge mistake and saddle the team with that kind of contract. I think Oden’s worth taking a chance on with a low offer, nothing above $2 million a year, but you just know that there are dumb GMs from NY or Memphis willing to take a chance.
I’d have to disagree with most of what you said. I think you’re looking at it from a rookie season’s standpoint, which is essentially what Oden’s played so far. He may not be a high scorer in college, but his team went to the championship game. They didn’t need him to score 30 a night, only to be a defensive anchor on a good team. And while his stats didn’t blow anyone away once he was in the NBA, you have to give a rookie some time to adjust. For his size, he’s very athletic, he kind of reminds me of what Blake Griffin’s doing this year. I see no reason why he can’t play backup center or starting power forward on a good team.
You know Isiah doesn’t work for the Knicks anymore, right? And I’m not sure Memphis would do it either. I am sure there is some team that would take a chance on him at the right price. A team that has a little money to spare and could use another backup center (because you can’t assume he’d be more than that). I’m not sure who that is exactly. Maybe the Spurs, for one?
I’m not seeing the comparison. Oden doesn’t have a fraction of Griffin’s offensive game. The expectation was that Oden could be a force on defense, and that he’d give you some points on putbacks and maybe gradually develop some moves over the next few years.
