Greg Oden: Breaking Down Big Man's Career Contributions to Trail Blazers

Oft-injured center Greg Oden has been officially let go by the Portland Trailblazers. The 24-year-old center’s career contributions to Portland are tough to nail down.

Back in the 2007 NBA Draft, there were two players that everyone was talking about. Both were freshman phenomena who had taken NCAA football by storm that season. Oden was a legit 7-foot center who led the Ohio State Buckeyes to a berth in the NCAA championship game.

The other guy was Kevin Durant, who had basically established himself as the best player in college basketball in just one season, averaging 25.8 points and 11.1 rebounds per game.

Portland decided to go with the big man, Oden, which left the talented scorer for Seattle to take with the No. 2 pick. Fast-forward five years and the two players careers have taken drastically different paths.

Durant has become a Top 5 player in the NBA who has won two scoring titles and led his team to the best record in the Western Conference. Oden has played in just two of his five seasons due to injury and is a man without a team.

It’s easy to cop out and say that Oden hasn’t contributed anything to the Trail Blazers, and that really isn’t a position that can be argued against.

Oden played in just 82 games during five and a half seasons. During the 08-09 season, Oden had a good year, appearing in 61 games and averaging 8.9 points and seven rebounds in just over 20 minutes per game.

The next year, he appeared in just 21 games, and then there is an abrupt end to his on the court contributions. Oden missed his entire rookie campaign of '07-08, and the entire '10-11 campaign last season. He also hasn’t played in any games this season.

Is Oden a bust? Yes and no. He is in the sense that he never really helped the Trail Blazers become what he was brought in to help them become. He never became the franchise-changing center that we were so sure he was destined to be when he was at Ohio State.

He missed 246 games during his first four seasons as an NBA player. During that time, he continued to be paid like a contributor to the team, even though that team and its fans never got to reap the benefits of that payment. Most would say that is a bust, and they would be right.

In another way though, Oden was not a bust. If you look at the short amount of time he was able to play in this league, you’ll see that the talent was all there.

Oden shot a career percentage of 57 from the field for Portland. He averaged 9.4 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game. The talent was all there. Oden was not a guy who couldn’t make it in the NBA because he didn’t have what it took. He was a guy who couldn’t make it in the NBA because his own body couldn’t handle his own talent.

That’s the most infuriating part of the whole ordeal for Portland and their fans. They made a good draft. Granted, Durant now appears to have been the better choice, but Oden has shown that he could have been a franchise center in the NBA. Portland and Oden suffered, not because either made a bad decision, but simply because Oden’s body couldn’t handle his own size and talent.

As for his contributions, Oden will always be the guy who Portland fans were waiting on. Waiting for him to come in and be who they needed him to be. Waiting for his body to finally be ready to do what it needed to do. And Oden was there the whole time, waiting with them.