Greg Oden is one of many former players who chose to go overseas to continue their professional careers when opportunities in the NBA dried up. In Oden’s case, he chose to go to China and spoke about his experience there on The Ogs show.
“I ended up going to China, and I felt like I was good,” Oden said, via Yonan. “It was million dollars tax-free. I was like, this six months I’m over there… I was over in China smoking a pack a day. I was smoking cigarettes right before the game.”
That certainly wasn’t ideal from a basketball or health standpoint. Oden had signed a one-year, $1.2 million deal with the Jiangsu Dragons of the Chinese Basketball Association on Aug. 26, 2015. So, we aren’t going way back in time here. This happened fairly recently. Oden wasn’t the only one smoking cigarettes on game day, though.
“The messed up part…halftime of the game trying to go pee and the coaches be in there just smoke cigarettes all through that b***h,” Oden said.
It’s quite crazy that this was happening in China just over 10 years ago. Now, former NBA player Muggsy Bogues shared on the Cousins podcast that when he came into the league in 1987, he saw his teammates drinking beer and smoking cigarettes at halftime.
Bogues said there was no Gatorade in those locker rooms. It was a right old mess, but things changed over time. Players know better now, and so do the teams. There is a focus on nutrition and ensuring they are in the best shape possible to shine on the court.
Oden did just fine in China despite this habit, but he didn’t get off to the best of starts there. The 38-year-old said he broke his thumb in his first preseason game with the Dragons and was out for a month.
There would have been some worry at the time if this was going to be another injury-hit campaign for Oden, but it wasn’t. He’d stay relatively healthy following his return and finished the season with averages of 13.0 points, 12.6 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.6 steals, and 2.0 blocks per game.
The Dragons failed to make the playoffs, however, finishing 11th in the standings with an 18-20 record. Oden was let go after that, and that was the end of his Chinese adventure after just 25 games. That would also be the last time Oden played basketball professionally. He announced his retirement in October 2016. It’s a real shame how his career panned out.
The Portland Trail Blazers had selected Oden with the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft. He was a highly thought-of prospect and was supposed to be this dominant big man in the NBA.
Unfortunately, injuries ensured Oden never even came close to fulfilling his potential. He required microfracture surgery on his right knee before he even played an NBA game and missed the entire 2007-08 season.
Oden would stay relatively healthy in 2008-09, but it all went wrong again in December 2009. He had played the first 21 games of the 2009-10 season, but then suffered a fractured left patella that ruled him out for the rest of the campaign.
Then in November 2010, Oden needed another microfracture surgery, this time on his left knee. As if all this wasn’t bad enough, he needed arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in February and later another microfracture surgery. Talk about a nightmare.
Oden would manage to fight through all of this and make a comeback with the Miami Heat ahead of the 2013-14 season. He’d make his long-awaited return to the court in January and managed to play 23 games that season. It was a great story, but that was it for Oden’s NBA career.
In an extremely short three-year NBA career, Oden averaged 8.0 points, 6.2 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.4 steals, and 1.2 blocks per game. One wonders what might have been had he stayed injury-free.
