Oden’s ominous beginning

In my last column, I wrote about the Patriots and their head coach, Bill Belicheater, and… In my last column, I wrote about the Patriots and their head coach, Bill Belicheater, and referenced the events that unfolded at CameraGate 2007. What can I say? I love scandals and controversy.

I’d like to use this opportunity to banter about another dubious development in sports – Greg Oden’s knee. Was his pre-draft MRI in fact “pristine,” as Portland Trailblazers general manager Kevin Pritchard conveyed?

Evidently, it couldn’t have been. Yahoo! Sports columnist Adam Wojnarowski – who first broke the story of the season-ending surgery – quoted a league executive who, speaking of Oden, said, “There were red flags everywhere.”

There weren’t only concerns about Oden’s knee. He also missed a good portion of his freshman year at Ohio State with a wrist injury.

I’m not a doctor, nor am I an NBA talent scout, but to me that sounds more like a red alert than a red flag.

Even more disturbing to me is that Oden is 19 years old, but looks like he’s 40. Oden resembles somebody who’s about to retire, not a player just entering the league. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention he has two different-sized legs.

Everyone’s already heard the comparisons of Oden and Sam Bowie, but I can’t help but reference it. It’s a precise representation.

In 1984, Portland selected Bowie, another seven-foot phenom and the second pick of the NBA Draft, instead of “His Airness” Michael Jordan. Bowie played 12 injury-plagued seasons and Jordan emerged as the best to ever play the game.

Kevin Durant likely won’t quite evolve into MJ, but with Oden’s injury concerns, he was the closest thing to a “can’t miss” player that there was in the 2007 Draft.

With Paul Pierce on the bench in the midst of a 4-13 losing streak, I couldn’t have been a happier Boston Celtics fan. For the first time, head coach Doc Rivers was showing that he wasn’t as useless as the bloodthirsty Boston sports columnists would have you believe.

He was marvelous at one thing: tanking games. It was obvious, and no one in New England, including myself, seemed to care that our team was being embarrassed night in and night out. After all, the Celtics were on a crash course for the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft, which consequently meant landing Oden or Durant, two of the most freakishly talented athletes that college basketball has ever seen.

I wanted Durant.

Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about a 6-10 swing man who can handle the ball, run the floor, create his own scoring opportunities, shoot, block shots and jump out of the building. If you’re into someone who averaged 28.9 points and 12.5 rebounds per game in the Big 12 – as a true freshman – Durant’s your man.

Let’s get back to the hapless Celtics for a moment. It was disgusting.

I was rooting for my beloved C’s to lose, but it would’ve all been worth it just to land one of the two monsters. As it would turn out, the Celtics went into the lottery with the second best odds to land the No. 1 pick. The worst it seemed they could do was to inherit the No. 5 pick, and even that appeared unlikely. There was only a 12 percent chance they would do worse than No. 4.

Of course, in typical Boston sports fashion, the Celts drew none other than the fifth pick.

Ironically, it was the luck of the Irish, not a new installment of the Curse of the Bambino. Boston would go on to trade the fifth pick for Ray Allen and then trade everyone else on its roster for Kevin Garnett.

Along with the 15 other teams in the lottery, the Celtics sidestepped a landmine.

Oden’s injury requires microfracture surgery, the same procedure Phoenix’s Amare Stoudamire underwent in 2005. It took Stoudamire almost two years to return to action, so the Durant-Oden argument is going to have to wait at least a year.

The Oden situation is unusual but not unprecedented. He will become the second player in NBA history to be drafted No. 1 overall and not play in a single game the year he was drafted. David Robinson was picked first in 1987 but opted for the Navy instead of the league.

One final note, a rumor has surfaced that Oden may have hurt his knee playing the arcade game “Dance Dance Revolution.” At this point, it’s only speculation, but I think it’s a rumor worth spreading.

Maybe Oden could use some advice from Ben Roethlisberger on what not to do in the offseason.

The road back won’t be easy for Oden – who’s a 19-year-old trapped in a senior citizen’s body – but if he needs some guidance on how to rehab from a video game-related injury, perhaps he could be coached by Tigers pitcher Joel Zumaya. Zumaya injured himself prior to the MLB season playing “Guitar Hero.”

If Oden never fully recovers from surgery and, as a result, doesn’t reach his potential in the NBA, at least there will be an opportunity for an appearance on “Dancing With the Stars” in the future.