Follow@cimini

Once upon a time an injury coming out of college did not harm an athlete. NBA team doctors knew about Greg Oden’s injury history. Team’s do a thorough job and surely knew his back and knees were in poor shape. Even in college he had issues. Yet, the size and talent was too much to pass up for the Portland Trailblazers.

Oden’s plight as the number one pick was unfortunate. His comeback attempt this past season looks like it may be his last on the NBA floor. His knees are so bad that he couldn’t even practice on a regular basis for the Heat. Yet the Heat saw an opportunity to perhaps squeeze a little bit out of Oden for playoff basketball. It just wasn’t meant to be.

Nerlens Noel saw his sure-fire position of a number one pick crash to sixth last season. No longer were teams willing to say will wait on your future based on injury recovery.

Joel Emblid and Julius Randle could find themselves dreading the injury bug. Their soon to be million dollar pockets could be missing an extra number in front of the comma. Randle states that his foot injury from high school has healed fine. Rumors state that is not true. Around the NBA teams will let their medical technology give them the answer versus Randle’s.

For Emblid it is unforunate. The spotlight was already on him in the last phase of Kansas’s season. In contention to make a strong run in March Madness, Emblid was not able to go with a back injury. Now another development has occurred just a week before the NBA draft. It appears that Emblid has fractured his foot.

The injuries for Emblid aren’t debilitating to consider his career in jeopardy. Luckily they haven’t involved main ligaments in his knees. But being injury prone is surely a label attached to him now. Teams are not going to go out on a limb to draft him at number one. Cleveland or a team willing to trade up has likely cancelled those thoughts.

Now Emblid’s future rests on how far he will slip in the draft. It’s a sad situation for an athlete that has worked his butt off to get in this position. Two to three years ago he was just beginning to play the game. He came to Florida to finish high school without a clue that he would rise to the level he is at now.

When it’s all said and done next week, Emblid should still remain a top ten pick. When the dust clears maybe this is a better result for Emblid. The mindset from the fan base and team that drafts him is recovery. Let Emblid recover and practice his way onto the court.

After all he is just 20 years old. In all likelihood he would have had a tough time dealing with being the number one pick. Now people will have the mentality that he is injury prone and fell in the draft.

The Greg Oden factor could end up being exactly what Emblid needed at the beginning of his career.