[EmpireWF]

The Portland Trail Blazers received some awfully bad news this afternoon. #1 draft pick, center Greg Oden is slated to be out until March and probably will miss the entire 2007-08 season. Oden underwent surgery on his right knee.

"Greg had an arthroscopy and a micro fracture surgery today," said team physician Dr. Don Roberts, who preformed the surgery. "He was found to have articular cartilage damage in his right knee. The area of injury was not large and we were able to treat it with micro fracture, which stimulates the growth of cartilage. There are things about this that are positive for Greg. First of all he is young. The area where the damage was is small and the rest of his knee looked normal. All those are good signs for a complete recovery from micro fracture surgery."

Ouch!

[vincesanity82]

Man, Blazers cant catch a break can they..I bet theyre saying "sure glad we didnt get durant"..

[Lefty Noob]

Wow, they first made it sound like it was going to be a minor scope. Now he's done for the year. Can Portland contend without him?

[ThePundit]

Wow. This is beyond devastating. Check out this Yahoo column:

Just this week on the telephone, there was an Eastern Conference executive studying Greg Oden’s pre-draft physical in his office. Even now, this report still didn’t look like the body of a 19-year old prospect, but that of an older, worn veteran.

“From our (trainers and doctors), there were red flags everywhere,” he said.

The executive started listing the troubled spots – the bulging disc in the back, wrists, the ankles, the hands, a right leg that was an inch longer than the left, and yes, the knees. He wasn’t alone. Several pulled files this week with news of impending knee surgery, and kept wondering if maybe the breakdown of his body was just a matter of time.

Damaged goods? - NBA - Yahoo! Sports


I'm not buying this. Where was this Eastern Conference Executive before this news?

[EmpireWF]

Oden was going to be the #1 pick no matter who was picking.

[Gotham Dark Knight]

Literally following in the foot steps of big Bill Walton huh?

[Lefty Noob]

Originally Posted by EmpireWF

Oden was going to be the #1 pick no matter who was picking.

Yeah, lots of GMs trying to make themselves look smart - "Oh yeah, we knew about the knee. We would've never drafted him." Uh-huh, yeah, right.