Greg Oden

Greg Oden is one of those players who makes you genuinely sad every time you think about what could have been. The guy was the overall number one pick in the 2007 NBA Draft — above Kevin Durant, let that sink in — a 7-foot center out of Ohio State who looked like he'd been sent from the future to dominate the league for a decade. And then his knees just refused to cooperate. Microfracture surgery, more surgeries, more setbacks, more heartbreak. He bounced back with Miami in 2013 and showed flashes, but never got the sustained run he deserved. It's a cautionary tale about how brutal the sport can be, but I also think history's been a little too quick to reduce him to a punchline. The talent was absolutely real.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Greg Oden

Name (Japanese)

グレッグ・オデン

Reading

ぐれっぐ・おでん

Born

January 22, 1988 (age 38)

Origin

Buffalo, New York, United States

Height

213 cm

Occupation

basketball player

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Dragon

High school

Lawrence North High School

University

Ohio State University

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg%20Oden
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B0%E3%83%AC%E3%83%83%E3%82%B0%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AA%E3%83%87%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q313487

Tags

• New York
• basketball player

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.