Greg Oden Admits 'Draft Bust' Status! Kevin Durant Drafted After Him Is Now MVP! Just How Dominant Was He In College?
The 2007 NBA Draft was known as the last draft worth tanking for. Even the Boston Celtics tanked then. While there are three candidates for this year's first overall pick, there were two names that separated themselves miles away from the pack.
Greg Oden was an absolute beast in college. The 2007 NCAA Championship game was memorable for the star-studded lineups on both sides-Ohio State vs Florida.
Florida won the game and its second straight championship. They had Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer-the first two are All-Stars and Noah just made it to 1st team All-NBA this year. The opposing team had Mike Conley, fringe All-Star and key starter for the Memphis Grizzlies. But the biggest star of that game, almost single-handedly turned the tide for the Buckeyes-the dominant Greg Oden.
Some facts from his Wikipedia page: "Steve Kerr described him as a 'once-in-a-decade player.' Oden, along with Kevin Durant, Arron Afflalo, Alando Tucker, and Acie Law IV, was named to the Associated Press All-American Team. Oden and Durant were the first freshmen voted to the All-American First Team since 1990 and the third and fourth overall. Throughout his high-school and college career, Oden never lost a home game."
Those days are a distant memory. The reality is that Greg Oden has been declared as the biggest draft bust in recent memory. He sadly admits that in a Grantland feature:
"I know I'm one of the biggest busts in NBA history and I know that it'll only get worse as Kevin Durant continues doing big things ... It's frustrating that my body can't do what my mind wants it to do sometimes. But worrying or complaining about it isn't going to fix anything ... I wish the circumstances would let me play more, but I certainly don't regret coming back, and I don't regret signing with the Heat."
That was one of the biggest debates in basketball. Oden or Durant. So-called experts keep claiming that they would have taken Durant but the truth was a dominating center like Oden had GMs salivating.
Oden's body totally gave on him, robbing him of the career he was destined to have:
"It's not that I don't want to play or even that I get nervous. I'd love to play meaningful minutes. It's just that my body is at a point where it takes a process for me to get physically ready to play and a process for me to recover. It's just not worth going through all of that to play a minute or two in a blowout."
It may be the last we'll see of Oden, and it may be for the best. Durant-who was drafted after him, just won the MVP award. The teams involved also changed their destiny-Portland had to release him and had a slow rebuild, Seattle which became OKC, became a perennial contender. That's how important draft decisions are.