Greg Oden

Gregory Wayne Oden, Jr. was born on January 22, 1988 is an American basketball player at the center position. Oden is a member of the Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA. He played for Ohio State University for one season, during which the team was the Big Ten Champion and the tournament runner-up in the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship. He was selected first overall in the 2007 NBA Draft by the Trail Blazerson June 28, 2007. He missed the entire 2007-08 NBA season because of his knee injury in September 2007. He made his NBA debut on Opening Night 2008. He is currently the “Team Oden” spokesperson for Oregon Mentors, promoting mentoring for kids.

On Saturday night in the Trail Blazers’ victory over the Houston Rockets he fractured his left knee cap and he will likely to miss the rest of the season. General manager Kevin Pritchard said,

“He’s a strong kid.”

He added,

“He’s going to bounce back from this.”

Midway through the first quarter he collided with Aaron Brooks, trainers and physicians rush towards him immediately. For 7 minutes game was stopped, during that period the whole crowd at the Rose Garden chanted “Oden! Oden!” He was taken out from the court on a stretcher, he underwent an MRI.

A statement released by the team in which Oden said,

“I’m obviously disappointed having worked so hard to get to where I was. This is a setback but I’ll be back. It’s in God’s hands now.”

He added,

“I want to thank the fans, my teammates and everyone in the Blazers family for all of their good thoughts.”

Trail Blazers went on to win the game 90-89. Blazers guard Brandon Roy said Oden spoke to the team at halftime. Roy said,

“He told us to keep fighting, he feels like he’s letting us down.”