Subscribe Feed (RSS)Nate McMillan probably felt as if he had to talk the entire Portland media corps down off a ledge early Tuesday afternoon. Greg Oden was noticeably limping and instead of practicing with his teammates, he was riding the stationary bike, with his trainer right next to him. It was a sprained right ankle — apparently a mild one.
“He’s going to be OK,” the Trail Blazer coach said over and over, a smile on his face. “He’ll be fine by tomorrow. Everything is fine. He’s OK. He is fine.”
Oden later said the same thing.
“I’ll be all right,” he said. “I will be back for tonight’s practice. I just rolled over it. I walked out. It’s OK. I’ll be back tonight to practice.”
It’s a measure of how important Oden is, of course, that there is such concern over what appears to be a minor injury. And given that he sat out last season after microfracture knee surgery, there is concern whenever he’s seen limping.
“I was just trying to not put a lot of pressure on it,” Oden said. And incidentally, “my knee feels great.”
How did the rest of the practice go? At this point, hard to tell. McMillan — who seemed very loose and relaxed – was pleased and given what the media is allowed to watch, just the last 20-30 minutes, the intensity seemed good.
This is a different kind of season for the Trail Blazers from what we’ve had in recent seasons. When someone asks the coach if anyone had surprised him out there, it had to be a difficult question to answer. After all, this is a camp where McMillan knows what he’s got. And he’s got quite a lot. Surprises? Leave that for the rest of the teams in the league when they see how good this team is going to be.
Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, Nate McMillan, NBA, Portland Trail Blazers, training camp
