Losing Oden puts macro fracture in Blazers’ plan

Greg Oden: Wait till next year

Blazermania, catch it and wait till next year.

The Portland Trail Blazers’ hopes of returning to contention were rescheduled Thursday with the announcement that prized rookie Greg Oden has been lost for the season.

Oden, the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft and considered the best young center since Tim Duncan, underwent microfracture surgery on his right knee Thursday.

Blazers General Manager Kevin Pritchard, who exclaimed “Rip City again, here we come!” at the lottery in May, was obliged to make the devastating announcement at a news conference in Portland.

“Greg looked at me as he was coming out of his surgery,” said Pritchard. “He and his mom, Zoe, probably said ‘sorry’ 20 times. And I can feel the weight of the world on his shoulders. . . .

“He felt like he let us down and he hasn’t let us down at all. He came here early. He was working on getting in shape and that’s a great thing.”

Dr. Don Roberts, who performed the surgery, said, “There are things about this that are positive for Greg. First of all he is young. The area where the damage was is small and the rest of his knee looked normal.”

Unfortunately for him and his team, everything else goes under the heading of worst-case scenario.

The injury is Oden’s second in two years. He broke his right wrist last year and started the season at Ohio State wearing a cast, shooting free throws left-handed.

Microfracture surgery is supposed to stimulate the regrowth of cartilage but the recovery isn’t speedy.

Experiences range from Phoenix’s Amare Stoudemire, who needed a year to come back; Detroit’s Chris Webber, who was never the same, and New York’s Allan Houston, whose career was interrupted.

With Oden, the Trail Blazers were expected to make a run at the playoffs, even coming off a 32-50 season with little continuity or experience.

Four new starters were projected alongside the lone holdover, second-year guard Brandon Roy, in a lineup with a total of 11 years of experience, but no one could miss their promise.

The draft that sent Oden to Portland and Kevin Durant to Seattle was one of the things that tripped out Kobe Bryant.

On May 24, the Trail Blazers, with a 5.3% chance to get the top lottery pick, designated Roy to represent them and pulled out the plum.

Three days later, as Lakers teammates Lamar Odom and Kwame Brown underwent surgery, Bryant noted, “I’m still frustrated. I’m waiting for them to make some changes.”

Those comments were actually milder than his distress signal during the Phoenix series (“We definitely have to get to that elite level, and get to that elite level, like, now.”)

However, this time they were met by media criticism. Angered, Bryant dialed up his complaints, which drew more criticism, making him still angrier in a week-long media blitz that saw him demand to be traded.

Not that it’s expected to be enough to reassure Bryant but at least the Portland threat is gone, for the moment.

Of course, the old elite remains: San Antonio with three titles in five seasons; Dallas, which finished nine games ahead of the Spurs in the regular season, and the Suns, who finished six games ahead of the Spurs and signed Grant Hill this summer.

Then come 50-game winners Utah and Houston and Denver, which went 10-1 in April after Carmelo Anthony and newly acquired Allen Iverson figured it out.

That leaves the Lakers, Golden State, New Orleans and, perhaps, the Clippers fighting for the remaining playoff slot.

Meanwhile, Oden and the Trail Blazers face a long season. The talk shows are already aflame with second-guessing, ESPN’s Skip Bayless claiming Oden has “an old body.”

Showing what a calamity this was in Portland, Pritchard was asked if this was like drafting stress fracture-plagued center Sam Bowie with the second pick in 1984.

In the organization’s crowning embarrassment, Michael Jordan then went to Chicago at No. 3.

“We talked about that internally,” conceded Pritchard, showing just how bad a day it was within the organization as well as without.

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Wounded knee

Greg Oden’s rookie season with the Portland Trail Blazers ended before it started when the 7-footer had knee surgery Thursday. The top pick in the June draft went in for an exploratory procedure on his right knee and ended up having microfracture surgery, which means he will sit out the season.

MICROFRACTURE SURGERY

The surgeon makes a tiny, quarter-inch incision on the affected knee and inserts a long thin scope (arthroscope). This scope allows the surgeon to work directly on the joint area. The surgeon uses an ice pick-like tool called an awl to drill very small holes (microfractures) into the bone near the defective cartilage. The injury prompts the body to make new, replacement cartilage. Bone marrow seeps out of the holes, creating a blood clot that releases cartilage-building cells.

SOME NBA PLAYERS

WHO HAVE UNDERGONE

MICROFRACTURE SURGERY

*--* Rebounded well Jason Kidd John Stockton Amare Stoudemire Zach Randolph *--*

*--* Jury still out Chris Webber Kenyon Martin Darius Miles *--*

*--* Struggled Penny Hardaway Brian Grant Allan Houston Terrell Brandon Jamal Mashburn *--*

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Sources: National Library of Medicine ( www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus)

Associated Press and Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times