Big-time NBA draft bust Greg Oden is trying to make his return to the basketball court this summer in the BIG3 summer league, according to Bleacher Report. The first overall pick in the 2007 draft will join the draft pool for the 2018 season.
The Ohio State center was drafted by the Portland Trailblazers in the summer of 2007. Oden did not play due to surgery his first season. He played 82 games, the normal length of a season, over the course of the next two years with the team.
Oden then went three straight seasons without playing a minute, before he finished his career with the Miami Heat, playing 23 games.
When Oden finished his career, he had played just over a hundred games, starting just over half of them and averaging eight points a game. He tried playing basketball in China, but his career failed to take off. Potentially the biggest first round bust in NBA history, Oden, now 30, is trying to make his comeback.
The BIG3 was exactly what NBA fans needed in the league’s absence last summer. Made up of retired players, the three-on-three league was fun and featured familiar places. It’s sure to succeed in it’s second season.
But most of the BIG3 was made up of players who made a name for themselves when they played in the NBA, which Oden failed to do.