Everybody's watching Victor Wembanyama just like they were watching Greg Oden. 'Everybody knows who you are,' Oden said. 'Try to still be a kid.'
INDIANAPOLIS -- Greg Oden's high school basketball games at Lawrence North were televised on ESPN. It seemed so strange at the time, at 16 years old, to have people Oden didn't know but had seen him on TV, asking for autographs.
Oden remembers that time all too well. It was a high, realizing a childhood dream of being great, and it was a low. There was no way to really navigate going from an awkward, gangly kid to a guy people were certain was headed to the NBA. Oden feels for him. Oden knows what that is like, to have the weight of the basketball world on your shoulders when you're 18 or 19 years old. And he has advice for Wembanyama.
"People are putting a little pressure on him to live up to all this, and I certainly believe he will. But he has to go through the process," Jack Keefer, Oden's high school coach, told IndyStar in 2004."He's just trying to grow up and have fun with his buddies." That wasn't always easy. Oden wasn't the top pick in 2006 -- but that was his choice. After leading his high school team to two more state championship titles as a junior and senior, Oden decided to play at Ohio State for then-coach Thad Matta.
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