Subscribe Feed (RSS)Kid took a tough situation and made the best he could of it. Loved his honesty and willingness to admit his mistake. So many people told me they listened to him talk about it and liked him more afterward than they did before.
His poise was extremely impressive.
Keep your jokes out of the comments please, but if you’d like to talk about how you feel about Greg Oden now, compared to when you first heard about this, feel free.
Stand up guy..just made a silly mistake, who hasn’t? He has had a tough year, and remained positive, mature and genuine. Looking forward to seeing him back asap!
A rookie mistake, figuratively and literally. If he didn’t know that hell hath no fury like a jilted ex, he knows now. But this whole affair and his handling of it has made him more human and, yes, even more likable. Like the knucklehead kid brother that’s trusting to a fault.
If there’s any upside for him, I’m sure he has a few more female admirers today than he did yesterday (and made more than a few of us guys just a little envious:))) Sorry Dwight, couldn’t resist the jokes!
The young man has a lot of class.
Thanks for keeping it classy, Dwight. A lot of other local blogger can’t seem to hold themselves to any standard of respect for others.
Greg has been in the league for 3 years now and his career can be summed up in one word, disappointment. Sorry folks but he’s well on his way to becoming one of the all time biggest busts in the NBA.
get over yourself sal… did you see the way he played during the beginning of the season? i tell ya you oden haters will use any excuse to bag this kid. you mark my words, greg oden will be a hall of famer before its all over. stop critisizing and start supporting or move to smell-a.
Sal, watch some basketball before posting. Oden was leading the league in FG% and blocks when he got hurt.
Sam Bowie was pretty damned good too except for the nagging injury thing. Oden has played about 30% of the games that he’s been eligible for and that = BUST!
Greg Oden is like the Antonym of Tiger Woods. Doesn’t crash his car, or get all “IM HIDING FROM THE MEDIA” type, he just acknowladges his mistake, and apologizes very sincerly, and tries to focuse on basketball. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone do that in my entire life. Good job, Greg!
with the freedom of today’s internet and the ease with which one can communicate by both pictures and text, its not surprising that someone of prominence would be caught sending “spicey” pictures to someone. lets not get all wrapped up in our collective underwear over this. it’s really no big deal…no pun intended! lets get by this and let greg rehab and get ready for next year and not put any pressure on him. let it go! its over. not even a news story.
I’m glad there were no cell phone cameras when I was young!!!!
Greg handled this very well. Kudos to Greg for that. However, I still have my doubts that, in the long run, his career will amount to much. I sincerely hope it will. Please Greg make me wrong.
im huge
roflmao!!!
First, Greg made a mistake and admitted it. As a person Greg is. Stand up guy.
As a basketball player Greg will NEVER be a HOFer. I will put money on it. He will be a 10 and 10 NBA center who will play about 10 years and end his career with the question “what could have been?”.
There is no harm in this however you are a fool if you don’t realize we made a mistake taking Oden over Durant. I was a Oden guy at the time and am admitting my mistake.
Durant is a great person AND basketball player. Portland, it’s possible to have both.
I don’t think Oden will be a hall of famer either, and probably not even an all-star. He has talent and size, but his body just won’t cooperate.
But…I think if he can actually stay healthy, he’s shown a presence on the court that could make him an all-defensive team mainstay. For the limited amount of time he’s in the game, he rebounds like crazy and is an excellent shot blocker — he was fourth in blocks before he went down, and that was playing only 24 minutes a game (his fouls and nate’s dumb substitutions). He was also leading the league in field goal percentage at the time.
Durant was the better pick, that’s obvious now. But if Oden manages to string together a couple of healthy seasons, provides defense and just a small measure of post play that would enable this team to contend for and win a title, I would have no regrets with taking him at number one.
Gregs should watch how Andre Miller moves. I know they don’t play the same position but ‘Dre has managed to stay healthy his entire career. It seems to me he only uses his athleticism when absolutely necessary and relies mostly on his mental game.
the difference is size.
The human body just isn’t meant to be 7 feet tall.
that is a difference not the difference. Watch the way ‘Dre moves. He is not pounding his body much at all. Just saying.
If he gets and stays healthy, it is hard to imagine how he could NOT be an all-star, for the reasons you listed.
My two cents: silly, unimportant mini-/non-scandal, handled well. Yawn, move on.
(Apologies for the “mini.”)
It is funny how everyone smack talks Oden for how great Durant is then you have Tyreke Evans putting up numbers better than Durants rookie numbers and no one is smack talking OKC, Memphis, or the Clips. The even funnier part is Thabeet didn’t even get hurt he just sucks.
Well said. Love the part about Thabeet. Too funny,
There’s nothing wrong with being a 10 and 10 guy. The Blazers don’t/wont ever need him to lead the team in scoring.
10 and 10, with a few blocks a night and the occasional night where he goes off for 15-10 points is fine.
So on draftnight 2007 you would have been just fine knowing you got a 10 and 10 guy w/ injuries over Durant.
Its fine to admit we were wrong, we just need to admit it Portland and move on. Oden is NOT taking us to a championship. And he will NOT be a HOF.
I think most people have admitted it but at the same time unless we get a ridiculous offer for GO we got to keep him.
Your leaving out a key point, a 10/10 center who also plays D at the level Oden does when healthy?
You bet, every team in the league would make that choice.
The question was/is can he stay healthy.
Thats not true though. Aldridge is not a number two guy, and Oden is the mostly likely choice to become that guy. I’m still hopeful he can grow out of his injuries.
From a fellow Duck … I’m not sure how many people are saying Portland, knowing what they know now, should have still picked Oden over Durant.
I thought the same of him before and after. He’s still young, still maturing, but he handled the situation very well. Unfortunately, it gave that nitwit Colin Cowherd another opportunity to slam on him, and Blazer fans. I was about ready to crawl through the radio and punch him out. I should learn to stay on 95.5 for all my sports talk.
I learned long ago, never ever switch to the fan when colon (yes I spelled it correctly) is on. Even if the subject is tolerable, it still sounds like nails on a chalk board.
Cowherd (SP?) is a jackass and it’s best to switch channels when he’s talking NBA because he only has a peripheral knowledge of it. He was speaking with Kenny Smith the other day and was praising Orlando as the favorite to win the title, how fantastic they are and how well coached and focused they are, and how every jump shooter wants to play there because of Dwight Howard.
Meanwhile, the Magic were in turmoil at the time, slumping, not listening to their coach and totally ignoring Howard on offense.
Cowtird was especially annoying tuesday. Comparing how the Lakers have enough sense to get rid of Bynum instead of holding on to him.
He shoulda looked at how many years Bynum has been in the league-4 years, 1 more year than Oden.
Still a first round first pick bust with piss poor decision making abilities….
Every team in the NBA would have picked Greg Oden over Kevin Durant.
Wrong
I hope Oden keeps in mind all Portland has done for him when it comes time for him to negotiate a contract and accept a reasonable offer. I wish the kid luck but I feel like he is saying he wants to live up to the No. 1 billing but not seeing it in effort (maybe I am wrong and he is working super hard behind the scenes)… I hope he is not like LMA were he says he wants to be an All-Star every year but then doesn’t go out and do it.
My fear is when his contract is up that he’s gonna think he’s a max contract guy.
I like Oden and all that but I would NEVER even consider giving him a max contract, at least not at this point in his career.
Well then you let some other team “steal” him away.
‘Behind the scenes’ is the ONLY place Oden can work on it now.
Having hardly any idea what this is all about- because I really don’t care, good on Greg for manning up.
It is very unfortunate that celebrities have to walk around with their underwear on the outside.
This will be non-news in about a week. Stupid thing the kids do these days. Compared to past Blazers and other current NBA players, this is as bad as a stubbed toe. I am already over it. How is his knee doing?
Unfortunately thats not true. Anything, and everything about Oden will be news. Far or not, nntil he matches Durants success, he will have undue negative exposure, and this situation only make its worse.
I love the guy, but in the end, the pick should have been Durant.
Every team might have picked Oden true. And every team would have been 100% wrong.
sad but true.
And ten years from now they will both have the same amount of championship rings………..ZERO!
Portland would have had rings with Durant in the lineup.
Silly boy.
Seriously, what is the point of all this saying “pick should have been Durant”? We can’t go back, and everyone agrees that the pick was correct at the time, so why go over that again?
How is any of this Oden’s fault? Blame the skank ho that leaked the picture. What, like none of you have ever done nasty $h*t w your wife/girlfriend/paid escorts? This puritanical posturing is complete BS.
Oden handled this perfectly. It should be a lesson to every teenager out there that sexting is a bad idea.
Oden handled it well.
I know its a dead horse, but man I wish we had Durant instead. sigh
Like Jay-Z said, gotta learn to live with regret
It doesn’t effect the way I feel about Oden one way or the other.
It was a stupid mistake by a 20 year old kid (the age he was when he took the photo). Who here didn’t make stupid mistakes when they were 20.
Given millions of dollars at 20 years old I am pretty sure I would have done something far stupider then what Oden did.
My 20 year nephew makes some pretty stupid decisions also…………but I think he might be smoking weed..hmmm
What an intelligent and classy decision to immediately get out in front on this, come clean, apologize, offer no excuses, blame no one but himself, and put it where it needs to be – in the past.
It continues to amaze me how come other professional athletes are soooooo incredibly stupid about the best way to handle something like this – i.e. Tiger and virtually all of professional baseball. Somebody should give Tiger Greg’s number so he could learn a thing or two.
I agree that Oden handled it with class but let’s be clear- athletes don’t owe the public anything. Greg Oden’s sole responsibility to the team and the fans is to train and play basketball. The rest of it’s PR crap.
I hate Hannah Blondtana, but right now she has a really good point: Nobody’s Perfect, You live and you learn.
C’mon people, you really don’t think NBA stars are gonna screw up every once and a while? It’s not for money or fame; I mean, how would you like to be woken up and find out everyone knows what you look like naked? KneeJerkNBA, it’s Oden’s fault, but like I said before, he didn’t become a Tiger Woods. He came out flat and Apologized, like a good, porfessional sportsman with a smart head. Now Tiger, that’s a whole nother story.
Whats with this “we should’ve picked Durant over Oden” non sense. This blog post has nothing to do with that, stay on topic.
While I agree in hindsight Durant was the better pick I agree this is dumb. It is like the guy that says “man I should have invested $1000 in Microsoft when it started up”. Well you didn’t so move on.
I would have picked google. Should we start a new debate to take the place of Oden/Durant?
Microsoft hands down… if we’re talking about sustained growth over time. Google is a
get rich quick scheme.
I can understand how someone would be embarrassed but there’s nothing to apologize for. I just wonder how much time will pass before he’ll laugh at himself about it.
Greg got caught with his pants down. Figuratively and literally. Who here hasn’t done things that were silly when they were young? Its no big deal. I’ve seen a lot of people say they were sorry and you could tell that the only thing they were really sorry about was being caught. Greg was humble. Greg was real. Greg was genuine. I respect him for that. Everyone makes mistakes. Successful people learn to move past them. We’ll see Greg do that with this.
Whatever class he exhibited yesterday is more than negated by the original sexting.
More important, however, is why Brandon won’t play with him.
Well, to be perfectly frank with y’all, it’d be hypocritical of me to criticize Greg Oden for this apparent slip-up of his, which is due in part to the old idiom about how “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
Yet, regardless of my own personal indiscretions, I feel that everyone — no matter if they’re an uptight prude like some folks or a free-wheeling individual such as myself — should cut Oden some slack for what ultimately amounts to a harmless incident.
In the grand scheme of things, there’s bigger fish to fry.
It is funny how the Oden apologists are stating that he is more of a stand-up guy than Tiger is….
Tiger has proven how good of a golfer he is….
Oden hasn’t proven anything, other than how long his trouser snake is….
Notwithstanding the vast differences in career athletic accomplishments between Greg Oden and Tiger Woods, their respective scandals are entirely different situations.
Woods, who’s a world-renowned celebrity with an empire that’s estimated to be worth more than $1 billion, had crafted a career based on being a clean-cut family man that turned out to be a façade. Once that crumbled after it was leaded that Woods had numerous mistresses, he took a major financial hit and his own personal life went into turmoil.
On the other hand, Oden is just a 21-year-old basketball player with little fanfare outside of the realm of basketball fans, so his marketability wasn’t adversely affected by the leaking of an innocuous nude photo of himself.
Now, as far as I’m concerned, Oden and Woods’ own personal business shouldn’t be an issue to anyone outside of their respective circle of family and friends. I, however, am not naïve, so I grasp why the media, fans, and other outside observers — including myself — glue our eyes to these captivating stories.
All else aside, though, there’s no denying that Woods’ salacious fall from grace is a more marketable tale for the sports media — as well as tabloids — both nationally and worldwide compared to Oden’s relatively minor gaffe.
Sooner rather than later, I expect that Oden will come away from this whole hullabaloo no worse for the wear. For Woods, it’ll likely take some time for him to restore his image; yet, my bet is that good ol’ Eldrick will come out clean — although not spotless — on the other side.
Apologists? Please. Since when does athleticism equate to being a “stand-up guy”? Plenty of great athletes are anything but “stand-up guys”. He made a semi-stupid decision and took responsibility for it. That’s “stand-up” enough for me. He had a rough start, but when he’s healthy he does well. Before he went down he looked reinvigorated and aggressive. He’s got the support of most people. The rest can take their average sized wieners and paychecks and go home.
Well, we all know now how he REALLY hurt his knee!
Couldn’t he use his 3rd “leg” and play this season?
Is he a man or a horse? Wow, gives a whole new meaning to “hung like a horse!”
Tip the wait staff well folks! Goodnight Portland, you’ve been great!
Greg Oden isn’t hung like a horse. Horses are hung like Greg Oden!