You're saying Greg Oden is only going to play 52 games in the NBA and I'm being delusional?
Since Oden is chronologically 20, but appears to be biologically over 30, I figure he'll be retiring in about two more seasons.![]()
52 games for his NBA career???
Oh my. People really need to get a grip.
1) He's already played more than fifty-two games.
2) You're ready to call it a career? Really? Whether he has any hope of playing at a high level again is anyone's guess, but I'll be astonished if he's done.
Hyperbole aside the chance of him having a "remarkable" career seems low..
Hyperbole aside the chance of him having a "remarkable" career seems low..
Zydrunas Ilgauskas was drafted in 1996. He missed his entire rookie season, and the entire 1999-2000 season. Between the year he was drafted and what should have, theoretically, been his fourth year in the league, he played eighty-seven games. I think I'll hold off on declaring Oden done for a little while longer.
Depends on how you define "remarkable." Zo and Grant Hill I would say have both had remarkable careers. Granted, Oden has been injured more frequently and at a much younger age, but if he manages to come back and contribute, if he manages to put together 4+ productive seasons at a 15/11/3 level (not totally absurd) for a good team, his career will be remarkable. Especially because he has so much to overcome at such a young age.
A lot of big guys have been injury prone over their careers -- Yao, Big Z, Smits, Arvydas, Shaq, Walton, the list goes on. For some of them it was a mere annoyance, for others it shortened their careers. But for none of them did it mean they retired at age 21. Mentioned before the kid will return next seaosn basically at the same age as if he had stayed all 4 years of college (and at this point he's probably wishing he did). His career will effectively jsut be starting the same way it did for all the great old centers of the 4yrs of college age. With none of these injuries clearly related to each other its just impossible to tell rihgt now how things will go. This isn't like somebody who keeps blowing out knees or reinjuring the same foot or anle or whatever. You can't predict this stuff. Being injury prone is a strange thing. You can have the body of Atlas and still fall apart.