Greg Oden’s NBA career will always be remembered as one of most unfortunate ones. The former Portland Trail Blazers number one overall pick was never able to overcome injuries en route to a disappointing career.
Oden is now officially retired from the NBA. He recently called himself the biggest draft bust in league history. But there’s at least one person who thinks otherwise.
Kevin Durant, taken one pick after Oden, told ESPN’s Chris Haynes the following:
“Nonsense. That’s nonsense,” Durant adamantly told ESPN on Sunday night. “In order for you to be a bust, you have to actually play and show people that you progressed as a player. He didn’t get a chance to.”
“He didn’t want to get hurt. That was the last thing he wanted to do was to get hurt,” Durant told ESPN. “That wasn’t even in the cards, and he got injured and that was unfortunate. But when he did play, he was a force. Protecting the paint. They were so good with him and LaMarcus down low, with Brandon Roy [and] Andre Miller at the time. They had a nice team. So he was a big part of that.
“He’s not a bust. He just didn’t play a long time because of injuries, and that’s just what it is.”
Durant’s 100 percent right. Greg Oden’s career was not disappointing because he wasn’t good or didn’t work hard. It was disappointing because he could never shake off the injury bug.
