Greg Oden Apologizes…For Real #NBA

And that is how you do that. I hope that every dirtball politician, lying athlete, and regular guy who finds himself in trouble after doing something stupid heard, read, or watched Blazers' center Greg Oden apologize for his nakedness on the internet yesterday. That is how you do it. Succinct, honest, heartfelt, and not some scripted piece of crap that was crafted by a team of handlers and means nothing. It was real.

Oden:

“I want to apologize to everybody, Portland, fans, the organization. It was very embarrassing. It was something that happened over a year-and-a-half ago. It was taken and sent over a year-and-a-half ago. I’m very sorry and I’m definitely embarrassed for my family and everybody around me.”

There you go. It’s that easy. And it wasn’t just the words, but the way the words were delivered. They were heartfelt, sincere and you could feel that Oden was embarrassed and sorry, not just saying he was embarrassed and sorry.

Oden realized what so many other people do not. That those pics are not ‘nothing’. They are more than ‘no big deal’. It has nothing to do with the nudity (as impressive as it may have been) but rather what the picture represents. It doesn’t matter that ‘sexting’ is a regular part of life for most 20-somethings. It is irrelevant that ‘it happens all the time. When you take the giant sack of money on draft day the rules change. You can’t cash the checks if you want to be like everyone else and Oden, to his credit, understands that.

Oden knows he is a representative of his team, his owner, and of his city. No one cares if some psych major from Portland St. sends a crank shot to his girlfriend, he is free to embarrass himself all he wants. Oden is judged by a different set of rules, a set of rules that starts being enforced the second you take the money. It may not be fair, but it’s a fact. With fame, and with money, comes a different set of rules. One guy’s silly picture to his girl is your national scandal, photo included. You give up privacy. You surrender you anonymity. Your actions are public domain. If you don’t like it, become a checker at the super market.

As for the women who forwarded the pics and the creep who published them; they are both reprehensible and irredeemable. Oden definitely should have known better, should never have taken the pics, much less have sent them to anyone, but the people involved in their publication are far worse. Oden was naive and stupid; the unidentified woman and the loser who published the photos are just bad people. Period.

Oden learned his lesson, the hard way, and I don’t think we are going to see too many additional three legged shots of Oden. Hopefully some athlete somewhere saw what happened and immediately went into his photo file on his phone and started deleting. More importantly, I hope the next athlete who does something stupid (start the clock) saw how Oden handled the situation and follows suit. Oden’s apology and sincerity will be the apology against which all others are measured.

Good job G.O., now get your pants on and get that knee right.Greg Oden Apologizes...For Real

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