Former No. 1 NBA Pick Greg Oden Says His Leg Was Falling Out of His Hip in 6th Grade

Former NBA No. 1 overall pick Greg Oden's basketball career was derailed by injuries, but he recently revealed that he had been dealing with significant issues dating back to his childhood that eventually became too much to overcome.

During an appearance on the Out The Mud podcast, Oden explained that his substantial growth during his pre-teen years created a potentially dangerous situation.

"I had a leg length differential my whole life. Basically, when I was in the sixth grade, my leg was falling out of my hip," Oden said (h/t HoopsHype). "When I went to get an X-ray, by the time I took the bus home, my mom literally picked me up from the bus stop by our house and drove me all the way back to the hospital. They said that if I had spent another day like that, my leg was going to fall out of my hip—that’s how fast I was growing."

Oden was eventually able to find his footing on the basketball court and became a two-time Gatorade National Boy's Basketball Player of the Year in high school before attending Ohio State. In his lone year with the Buckeyes, he earned Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors as he helped lead the team to a conference tournament championship and a runner-up finish in the NCAA tournament.

The Portland Trail Blazers selected Oden with the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NBA draft, but things quickly went off track. He missed his entire rookie season due to microfracture surgery on his knee, and he ended up playing a total of just 105 career games across parts of three seasons before he was forced out of the league.

Now 37, Oden said that he still deals with leg issues and explained that the Blazers' attempts to correct the problems that dated back to his childhood unfortunately backfired.

"To this day, I still have two pins in my hip," Oden said. "Because of that, I used to always walk with a limp, and my body got used to it. When I got to Portland, I got orthotics that helped correct it, but I don’t think my body was used to the change. I swear to God, the next day after getting orthotics, my knee blew up. Probably a week later, I was having microfracture surgery—and that was the end of my rookie season."