Quick follow-up to our Greg Oden post from yesterday: the Blazers big man came out and apologized for the pictures that made the rounds on the internet. The long and the short of it is that Oden took the phots about a year-and-a-half ago for some woman; he found about his big moment via 6 AM phone call yesterday. There’s a morning wood joke in there someplace but I’m already running behind today. There’s video of the presser on Deadspin (I like calling them pressers; sue me), but really, his face really doesn’t deviate from this expression throughout the whole two minutes. I guess he’s a man of few words. Many inches, but few words.

I spent the better part of my morning trolling the Series of Tubes trying to find a picture of a black man’s penis and I’m exhausted. How does your mother do it every night? But seriously, Greg Oden’s dick has suddenly become the perfect analogy for life as a sports blogger: I don’t really want to post it, but everyone else is, so I feel like I kind of have to. It’s like Oden’s cock is some nuclear peacekeeping missile defense system, and we’re all in a rush to get our own, uh, piece.

But anyway, if you want to Greg Oden in all his nude glory, for whatever reason, you can find an embeddable slideshow here. And not to sound gay or anything, but the missile analogy hits pretty close to home. And if you do head over there, we’ll have something back here to wash your brain out here very soon.

It happens every year. They start playing NBA games again, three days after the last goddamn season ended, and I look up and say, “Good Lord, they’re playing basketball again?! Jesus.” Not a lot of time off in Davey Stern’s sweatshop. But hey, only eight more months and thirty league-altering trades until you know which random assemblage of players is sort of peaking at the right time! Whee!

Last night marked Greg Oden’s debut as an NBA player, after losing his rookie season to microfracture surgery. And it took a mere 13 minutes for him to sprain his foot and cause Blazers fans to realize that the 60-year-old man their team drafted might have the occasional persistent health problem or two. Oden finished with 0 points and 5 rebounds as Portland fell to the Lakers 96-76. Kobe “Wrong Hole” Bryant went for 23/11/5 in leading the defending Western Conference Champs.

As for the Blazers, they’re left to wonder what other new and horrifying old-guy ailments await their would-be star center. Maybe rheumatoid arthritis will pop up. Maybe Parkinson’s. The possibilities really are quite limitless. Maybe if the NBA gave its players, you know, AN ACTUAL OFFSEASON, this might not be such a recurring issue.

Elsewhere in the league: the fackin’ Celtics beat the LeBron and his LeTeam 90-85. Scar anathah triumph far the hahhhd-warkin’ fans of Celtic Nation! And the Bulls beat the Bucks 108-95 in a game that was watched only by the players participating in it.

For the three of you that give a crap about the NBA right now and want to get your season preview fix, head over to FreeDarko, where they previewed EVERY FREAKIN’ GAME OF THE YEAR. OCD much, gentlemen?

Here's a video of the TrailBlazers deferred-rookie center Greg Oden being funny and not dying.  I don't know what these "ESPY" things are that he keeps talking about, but I sure hope he got to be the host.  I mean, anyone endorsed by their mom HAS to be good.  I'd give anything for my mother's approval.

[Ball Don't Lie] 

Although this photo taken by alleged bigamist Andrew doesn't show Greg Oden's face, it is indeed the TrailBlazers center at the infield of the Indy 500, where he entertained a crowd of young Midwesterners enjoying their youth before they put on the extra 40 pounds they'll gain by their 30th birthdays.  There is also a little person, which creates a humorous situation because he is short, while Oden is tall.  What a wacky juxtaposition!

Anyway, you may have seen this on other websites already, but those posts were probably littered with question marks and statements like "IF it is Greg Oden" because a lot of bloggers are too fucking lazy or stupid or both to do some rudimentary fact-checking.  Don't get me wrong: I HATE fact-checking, but when I saw this, I was like, "Hey, why don't I check Oden's blog at Yardbarker to see if he wrote about it?"  Then, when I saw that there was no post about Indy, I decided to — you'll never believe this — email YB's editor to see if he could verify that Oden was indeed there.  Lemme tell you, it was back-breaking work, but the answer is: yes, it's really Greg Oden.

So was it worth waiting an extra day to get concrete truth instead of rumor and innuendo?  Hell, I dunno.  I'm just here to look at some tits.  Tits, dude.  Tits.

Not much in the way of NBA news for the last week, so I'm ending today with this little bit of whimsy: future TrailBlazers center Greg Oden at the grocery store.  It's good to see such a young man with so much money grounded in reality.  Because seriously, who puts heavy shit on top of light bulbs and eggs?

[Ball Don't Lie]