10 Worst Back To Back NBA Draft Picks Of The Last 10 Years

4. Greg Oden Before Kevin Durant

New Orleans Pelicans v Golden State Warriors steph curry
By Keith Allison from Owings Mills, USA (Kevin Durant) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

This one actually made a lot of sense on draft night. Greg Oden was a beast in college and led the Ohio State Buckeyes to the NCAA Championship Game in 2007. Even before the season began, Oden underwent knee microfracture surgery, so he had to wait a whole year for his NBA debut. Oden played 82 times for the Blazers, but he needed three years to complete the amount of games that constitutes a regular NBA season. He could never stay healthy enough for so long. In 2013 Oden was signed by the Heat and his team made it to the NBA Finals. Oden appeared in just three games during the playoffs.

The player selected second overall was Kevin Durant. One of the top-five players in the NBA right now, Durant has proven to have the more successful career. During his one year at Texas Durant was phenomenal, but Oden seemed to be the more reasonable choice - teams still preferred to pick size over talent back then. Some still do.

Oden himself isn't satisfied with his career and considers himself a bust. Durant has actually defended the player picked before him, blaming his failed professional career on injuries.

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I write sitting with my dogs on the sofa, which often leads to whole paragraphs being deleted by a single touch of a paw or a nose.