The Return of Greg Oden: 'I'm Happy'

📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — On Saturday, Greg Oden attended a Trail Blazers game for the first time since his career was derailed by injuries.

Before the game, which the Blazers won 126-122 over the Dallas Mavericks, Oden met with reporters for about 15 minutes and was thoughtful, reflective and seemingly genuinely happy.

He also had a lot of jokes.

On being welcomed back to Portland by the Blazers organization:

“I'm very thankful they brought me here and put me courtside, because as we all know, those seats aren't cheap.”

On whether he still thinks about what could have been if he’d stayed healthy:

“There's a Marvel show on Disney Plus called What If, and I watch that all the time.”

On recently completing his master’s degree in sports coaching at Ohio State University:

“That’s probably one of the best things I’ve done. But I will not read another book. I'll do an audiobook, that's it. And not the full book.”

On his regrets at how his career went after he came into the NBA with sky-high expectations:

“I felt a little bad that I didn't get those $100 million contracts like everyone else.”

On what he anticipated his emotional reaction to be when he inevitably got an ovation from the crowd:

“I'm not gonna cry, because I'm a G. I'm just going to try to enjoy that moment with my daughter. I'm going to look down at her, and she's going to be like, ‘Whatever, daddy.’”

Oden even half-seriously worried what the crowd reaction would be given that the Ducks play his Buckeyes in four days in the Rose Bowl. He wasn’t worried about getting booed for not being able to stay healthy during his playing career—he was worried about getting booed for his allegiance to Ohio State.

“The game hasn't happened yet, so they shouldn't hate me until Thursday,” he said.

Of course, he was never going to have anything to worry about. The Blazers’ game-ops department gave Oden the full video-tribute treatment in the first quarter, and the crowd roared. He joined Kevin Calabro and Lamar Hurd on the TV broadcast during the second quarter. He stayed for the entire game and got stuck for a while in the tunnel signing autographs and taking pictures with fans.

In another timeline, Oden is getting this reception at the end of the Hall of Fame career many envisioned him having back in 2007, before all the injuries. That, of course, didn’t happen. Oden played just 82 games over five seasons in Portland, and then one more season in Miami. To most people, he’ll always be the answer to the trivia question, “Who was drafted ahead of Kevin Durant?”

At a different time in his life, Oden would have run from that, understandably so. He admitted on Saturday that he wouldn’t have been as happy to be back in Portland several years ago, when he was still coming to terms with how his playing career went. He’s been through a lot since then—not just the injuries, but a painkiller and alcohol addiction that he detailed in this must-read profile by Mirin Fader at The Ringer a couple of years ago.

Knowing all of that, it was striking—in a good way—to see how grounded, how genuinely at peace with his life, he seemed on Saturday.

“I'm happy,” Oden said. “This is the place where my life changed. I was thinking about it—would I feel some type of way? But all I feel is, I'm so thankful. I'm so honored to be back. It's my first time coming to a game since I was on the team. I'm walking through this building, thinking about when I used to drive my van to the loading dock, and I've just got good memories. We won a lot when I did play. That's what I'm thinking about.”

Since he hit his low point, Oden has rebuilt his life and rediscovered his love for basketball. He returned to Ohio State in 2016 to finish his bachelor’s degree and his old coach, Thad Matta, brought him on as a student manager for the basketball team, his first foray into coaching. Six years later, when Matta took the head coaching job at Butler, he hired Oden as an assistant coach. Oden still lives in Indiana, but he and his family are planning to move back to Columbus soon. He wants to coach again eventually, when his daughter gets older (more jokes: she is currently “8 going on 25,” and “Hopefully when my daughter is 16 and she doesn't want to spend time with me anymore, I can go back into coaching.”)

Right now, he’s focusing on mentoring high-school basketball players and putting on camps and clinics for young big men.

On that topic, Oden was most insightful on Saturday. He was a force of nature at Ohio State and was effective in the limited games he did play for the Blazers before he got hurt, but his archetype of center is not the one that’s favored in the version of the NBA that exists 17 years after he was drafted.

He knows that, but he thinks he still would be able to play in today’s league.

“I think my power would have translated,” he said. “I would have had to evolve like everybody else. I'd love to say [like] the Brook Lopezes of the world, I hopefully would have been able to hit that corner jump shot, even though I never shot one in my career. But if I was still playing, I would have shot it a bunch.”

Oden plans to meet with the Blazers while he’s in town. He would have joined them at practice yesterday but his flight was delayed twice—former NBA players aren’t immune to the same holiday travel nightmare that plagues the rest of us. He had high praise for Chauncey Billups, who was at the tail end of his prime in Detroit and Denver when Oden was in the league. And he has some advice for the young, rebuilding Blazers.

“When it's raining out and you feel a little sad, go to the gym,” he said. “You're learning from one of the best coaches, that's done it. He took a team and made it the best team in the NBA. Learn from that Hall of Famer. Go to the practice facility. You can get in there 24 hours a day. Use it. Get extra shots. I'm just saying that, because that's something I wish I would have done in my off time, when I was rehabbing. I wish I would have taken advantage of it, instead of just trying to be a young kid and have fun. I wish I would have put more time into my craft, went back two or three times a day and got those extra shots up.”