The Blazers tried to put a happy face on
the apocalypse today during
Greg Oden's first press conference since his season-ending-before-it-started knee surgery two weeks ago. Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard spoke first, calling the injury a “
little bit of a setback,” before explaining how the team plans to use this as a “learning year” for the number one draft pick. Here's Pritchard, after a slightly heartbreaking clip of Oden walking to the press podium on crutches:
[youtube qPw6MEc1lpY]
Next came Oden, who seemed to be in pretty
good spirits, although I think I could hear a sigh when he was talking about something horrific called a
CPM machine, whose sole purpose apparently is to move Oden's leg “up…and down…and up” for about six hours a today. Here he is talking about all kinds of stuff, including when he first felt the pain in his knee, his expectations for recovery, how he and his new dog,
Charles Barkley McLovin', are spending their time (
lots of movies—“comedies during the day, at night it has to be scary”), and his thoughts on this year's Blazers team:
[youtube 9cGxNvB4SHE]
Basically, its really hard not to root for this guy to have a
complete recovery and become the superstar everyone is counting on him to be. He seems to have such a pure love for being on the basketball court, and he seems genuinely sad that he won't be able to perform for the team and the city this season. It'll be fascinating to follow the next couple years of his life.
Also, there's this:
[youtube xJzj9qaUamQ]