Travis Outlaw Feels Greg Oden Was 'Pushed Too Hard' by Blazers to Return

Injuries derailed Greg Oden's NBA career, and former teammate Travis Outlaw wonders whether the Portland Trail Blazers played a role in the 2007 No. 1 overall pick falling out of the league so quickly. 

During an episode of Talkin' Blazers with Channing Frye (h/t NBC Sports Northwest's Dylan Mickanen), Outlaw said Oden "was like an anomaly of a human being" on the practice court when healthy.

However, he thought the team didn't handle the former Ohio State star as carefully as they should have given his durability concerns.

"I felt like they tried to push him too hard," he said. "I really thought, like, let him feel his way out first and then you feed him."

Oden missed his entire first season after undergoing microfracture surgery on his knee in September 2007. He made 61 appearances in his second year but played in just 21 games in 2009-10 before fracturing his left patella.

Oden's last regular-season game for the Blazers was Dec. 5, 2009.

It's easy to contrast the start of Oden's career to that of Joel Embiid.

The Philadelphia 76ers selected Embiid third overall in the 2014 draft and he didn't make his full NBA debut until the start of the 2016-17 season.

Philadelphia took every precaution with the former Kansas big man due to his persistent foot problems. Even now, the Sixers continue to be proactive when it comes to managing Embiid's workload.

The team's front office had a few luxuries that weren't afforded to Portland, though.

The Sixers were in the midst of a full-scale rebuild, so they could afford to keep Embiid on ice without it hurting their on-court fortunes. The Blazers, on the other hand, were a playoff team the season Oden first stepped on the court. They obviously would've benefited from having him in the paint alongside LaMarcus Aldridge.

Kevin Durant's rapid rise may have placed some indirect pressure on the Blazers as well, a point to which Frye alluded in the interview.

"But, you know when you pick somebody number one, right away you're trying to show like 'This is why we picked him,'" he said. "I was kind of like, give him that Joel Przybilla role first and then he would have blossomed into something good but they sped his process up."

The 2014 draft didn't have the same kind of transcendent star to serve as a foil for Embiid, giving Philadelphia even less impetus to rush his introduction into the league.

As much as anyone wants to second-guess the Blazers' handling of Oden, his NBA career might have been doomed before it even started based on how few players have been the same after having microfracture surgery.