I know, I know. You’ve probably heard it said already. I mean, wasn’t it too good to be true? The Blazers, blessed with the number one pick in the NBA draft, did not want to repeat their infamous 1984 mistake of passing over basketball legend/god Michael Jordan for one of the biggest disappointments in NBA history, Sam Bowie. And seemingly, they did everything right this time. They took their time and held workouts with Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, but eventually picked Oden, who even seemed genuinely excited to start his career in Portland. Seeing that most Blazers don’t even live in Portland during the off season since Rasheed left town, it seemed as if the Blazers were turning a new leaf, leaving the old Jail Blazers moniker behind them.

But don’t go running to the nearest Dairy Queen just yet for your free Rip City cups; Oden, the wonder kid and personal savior of the Blazer Nation is out for the season. After dealing with mysterious pain and swelling in his right knee, doctors performed exploratory then microfracture surgery to repair cartilage, which will take Oden out for the entire 07-08 season as his knee heals.

While other notable NBA players have had this same surgery and gone on to have succesful careers, such as Amare Stoudemire and Jason Kidd, other injury-plagued NBA stars such as Chris Webber and Penny Hardaway have struggled to gain traction in the league after going under the knife.

A New York Times article about the situation quotes Oden as saying “I’m sorry” multiple times immediately after the surgery was completed. Are the Blazers going to be as sad this year?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 10:31 by Blaser and is filed under Oregon, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.