Why does greg oden get hurt

He was going to be a Hall of Famer. The pressures grew when his body failed him. Over the course of a decade, he developed a dependence on painkillers and alcohol to sleep, and he was arrested on domestic violence charges. He reaches the top of the first flight of stairs at the academic support center, breathing too hard for the distance, and says, "Dead lifts are catching up to me!

He places just two pound weights on a bar -- "I've got nothing to prove," he jokes with a shrug -- and deadlifts it, bending and straightening his fragile knees. In between sets, he describes himself as the "biggest bust in NBA history," as if saying it out loud will give him some kind of dominion over the pain of it.

Before the NBA, Oden never had a serious knee injury. Not at Lawrence North in Indianapolis, where he won three consecutive championships and was a two-time Parade All-American. And not during his single season at Ohio State, where he was a first-team All-American. Dave Richardson, Ohio State basketball's longtime strength coach, runs out of his gym office. He crouches down and lifts Oden's right leg, gently shaking his foot, then pulling hard as if he were tugging a rope, his face reddening, Oden wincing for almost a minute before they both feel a pop of relief.

Still sweating, Oden explains that when he was in sixth grade, he grew so volcanically -- 6 inches in less than a year -- that his right hip detached from its socket. After surgery to place two pins in the joint, Oden enjoyed swinging his gangly legs on crutches down the hallways at school.

But though the procedure worked, it left his right leg 8 millimeters shorter than his left. He walked with a bit of a dip, leaving people to assume that he was strutting, acting hard. Over time, his body adjusted, but the hip required the occasional heavy tug when it jammed. After Oden was drafted first overall by the Trail Blazers in , one pick ahead of Kevin Durant, the team outfitted him with a special orthotic insert to even his legs.

Oden can't prove that the orthotic is the sole reason his body collapsed in the NBA. The wheels were in motion for his body to fall apart the moment he hit his first growth spurt on the way to 7 feet.

Everything in his life since has been governed by it. He's slightly hunched over and for a moment doesn't seem that tall -- then he straightens himself and you wonder how anyone ever got a shot off.

He's wearing his own shoe: Nike size 19 in the Trail Blazers colors of white, red and black, a logo of his last name etched into the heel. Once an embodiment of a bright basketball future, it's now a relic.

Oden's friends worried when he was drafted by Portland, not just because he had to move to the Pacific Northwest after spending most of his adolescence in the Midwest.

His personality always seemed miscast for his body. He was an introvert -- a self-described loner who "goes with the flow" -- who had pictured himself as one day being a dentist or a movie critic. There was a lingering sadness you felt in his company a decade ago, a fragility as he told you he felt "expected and obliged to be the best. Oden always had tried to reckon with what his body was and could be, its power and potential.

When he was a year-old junior, he drew up a plus-minus list about whether to enter the NBA draft or go to college. NBA: "Set for life. Play against the best.

Could be all-time leading scorer. Win national title? Love Ohio State. But he also "wanted to hide and wanted to be a kid," says Reginald Shelt, an assistant coach at Lawrence North in those years. Oden couldn't disappear off the court, so he sometimes would try to do so on it, content to rebound and block shots. Jack Keefer, Lawrence North's head coach, instated a touches-a-game rule for him. Yes, he played basketball. But basketball didn't define him in his mind. Former Ohio State assistant Alan Major remembers a jump shot Oden made against Georgetown in the Final Four because it was the Buckeyes' 38th game and Oden had taken just a handful of jumpers all year.

GMs nitpicked that Oden didn't dominate the way a 7-footer should, but a perceived red flag was actually a teenager's coping mechanism. When Oden got to Portland, his isolation wasn't just that of the introverted.

It was the isolation of the injured. But seeing that this number is out of a possible games that have been played since he was drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers in , that's rather problematic. Now that the big man has found a new home with the two-time defending champions, let's take a look at how we got to this point. Portland fans, you may want to avert your eyes or at least prepare yourself for blast of depressing thoughts.

This complete timeline of the big man's injury-plagued professional career can get ugly. Back in , there was a legitimate debate about whether Greg Oden or Kevin Durant should be drafted No.

The big man was coming off a dominant freshman season for the Ohio State Buckeyes, while the future-scoring champion Durant had thrilled crowds at Texas, but ultimately failed to live up to expectations in March Madness. When Durant couldn't even bench pounds a single time at the draft combine—could you with those lanky arms? The latter writer's argument closed with the following quote that nicely summarized the argument of most in the pro-Oden camp:. Oden is poised to be a franchise center, someone you can build a team around.

Franchise centers usually win championships. His name's already being mentioned in the company of Russell, Robinson, Olajuwon and Shaq. Lot of rings on those fingers. Some people project him as a combination of the two.

That's pretty darn good—but I don't see any rings on their fingers. It was an understandable overreaction to a great—albeit brief—college career. Lest you forget just how dominant the center was in Columbus, take a look at the video just below.

DraftExpress ' Jonathan Givony:. For the second year in a row, Portland gets an A for effort, an A for creativity and an A for going out and finding value when the rest of the league was content on twiddling their thumbs. Rudy Fernandez is an absolute steal at No. Landing Oden alone gets them an A.

But GM Kevin Pritchard didn't rest there. He also acquired two late first-rounders, including Fernandez, who is quickly becoming a star at the highest levels of the Euroleague. Both he and Koponen likely will play in Europe for one more season before heading to Portland. For the second straight year, they were bold and aggressive. Oden was the safe and logical pick at No. He had some dominant stat lines that year: vs. Tennessee, vs. Michigan, vs.

Ohio State entered March Madness as a 1-seed and a tournament favorite. Oden had a game-winning block on the final play against Tennessee to preserve a one-point win in the Sweet 16, the sort of play that would have led the championship DVD and the Hall of Fame video in an alternate timeline. The Buckeyes made it all the way to the national title game against defending national champion Florida, where Oden had his best game as a collegian.

The Buckeyes came up just short of their championship dreams, but the future seemed limitless for this talented young big man. That was the last great game of basketball Greg Oden ever played. You know the story by now, but you may have forgotten the ugly details. Less than three months after being drafted, Oden had microfracture surgery on his right knee, which caused him to miss his entire first season.

The next year, a foot injury delayed the start of his rookie season, but he played 61 games before another knee injury cost him the end of the campaign. Oden only scored 20 points in a game three times for Portland.

He had 15 rebounds three times, and five blocks twice. He played in three NBA Finals games but failed to score, tallying just one rebound and one block, and the Heat lost to the San Antonio Spurs in five games. Oden never played in the NBA again. Between all of the surgeries and medical rehab, Oden reportedly struggled with alcohol problems, both in and out of his time in the NBA.

During the Summer of , he had an ugly domestic violence incident with his girlfriend , and was charged with battery and placed on probation. Oden went through counseling and worked to get his life back in order. The following summer Oden tried to revive his basketball career in China, averaging a double-double for the Jiangsu Dragons in 25 games, mostly off the bench.

It appeared the Greg Oden everyone was expecting had arrived. Finally, during the season, Oden experienced the best season of his career as a member of the Miami Heat when the team reached the NBA Finals losing in five games to the San Antonio Spurs. And last year, he played in the Big 3 League. Greg Oden admitted recently that upon his return from China, he fell into a depression and began drinking and taking opioids to numb his body.

He was in a downward spiral until former coach Thad Matta reached out to his former star and invited him to the gym to practice. In fact, it was a life-changer. The classes gave him a path forward. He also knew he needed to change for his daughter.