Bob Cook

How are we supposed to wrap our heads around hearing you are out for the year, Greg Oden? This does not happen. No. 1 picks do not NOT play for a whole year.

How could you not be there in a time of need? The Trail Blazers need you. The NBA needs you. You were going to single-handedly win a title (maybe not quite single-handedly, not with LaMarcus Aldridge and good-luck charm Brandon Roy there). You were going to leverage your self-effacing, nice-guy, “shucks-I-know-I-look-50-years-old” humble Hoosier personality into megabucks endorsements and an image makeover for a team and a league that has reeled from bad publicity brought by knuckleheaded players — like Zach Randolph, the guy Portland shipped out to make room for you. You could save the NBA in the Pacific Northwest, where it lost Vancouver to organizational incompetency, and where it’s going to lose Seattle to organizational avarice. You are the only hope!

What are we supposed to do? Of course it’s not your fault that the pain in your right knee you started feeling sometime after the draft — the knee you don’t remember hurting — is going to keep you out for the year. Maybe you will be back next season. You haven’t even turned 21 yet, so there’s time to heal. But doctors, even though they’re positive about you, are throwing around scary words like “articular cartilage damage” and “microfracture surgery.”

Ask Jonathan Bender, who you watched with the Pacers while you grew up in Indianapolis, about cartilage damage in the knee — that made him an old man by your age. Ask Kenyon Martin, Kerry Kittles, Antonio McDyess, etc., about microfracture surgery. Sure, Amare Stoudemire, Jason Kidd and some others came back, but a lot of guys didn’t, or at least were never the same.

Oden likely out for season Oden likely out for season after knee surgery Opinion: Blazers are cursed franchise SN: Oden, and Blazers, will recover from this Vote: How good will Oden be?  |    Discuss Complete NBA coverage

Do you realize you’ll be the first No. 1 pick since 1951 not to play his first year? And that guy, Gene Melchiorre, didn’t play because he got busted in a college point-shaving scandal. The only other No. 1 pick not to play in the NBA his first year was the first-ever No. 1, Clifton McNeely, who decided he’d rather coach high school ball in Pampa, Texas, than play for the BAA’s Pittsburgh Ironmen. (He was pretty good, too, winning four championships in seven years.) That’s your company. Tim Donaghy’s spiritual godfather, and a guy who bailed before the NBA was even called the NBA.

MSNBC video Oden's injury is 'very disappointing' Sept. 13: Trail Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard holds a news conference to talk about Greg Oden's season ending knee surgery.

Do you hear the laughter of insensitive know-it-alls who, say, see, Portland, you should have picked Kevin Durant? We all know you got picked first because Durant is the next Kevin Garnett, who has zero championships, and you’re the next Tim Duncan, who has four. Big men win championships. Championships! We saw you on the floor during the NCAA championship, dominating when no one else on your Ohio State team could.

Can you blame Portland fans for panicking a little? Just a teensy bit? When they dreamed of you being the next Bill Walton, they didn’t think it meant watching you on the sideline in a suit and a cast. (Well, Walton was a hippie, and there was no David Stern to require suits, so maybe the comparison isn’t be so obvious. Just don’t wear tie-dyes and quote Grateful Dead lyrics, or it will be.)