Greg Oden healthy enough to bowl, NOT play for Blazers

Greg Oden is healthy enough to bowl.  To play Basketball? Not so much. Not yet, anyway. But the 7-foot Portland Trailblazers center says he’s getting there. “The doctors tell me I’m on time,” he said Saturday while appearing at an Oregon Mentors’ event in Vancouver. “We’re going at a pace that they’ve got for me. Things are looking pretty good.” Being “on time,” however, does not necessarily mean being ready for the start of training camp in October or the season opener Oct. 26 against Phoenix. “By saying ‘on time,’ means I’m on schedule to heal,” he said. He wasn’t sure when he would actually play basketball again.  “Gotta ask the doctors that,” he said. “Me, I go by what they say. Whatever is my next phase, that’s what I go to.” … Oden was in Vancouver for the Third Annual Team Oden Summer Slam, an event he sponsors to support and encourage mentoring youth in Oregon.  Oden arrived at about noon and spoke to those in attendance about his summer and poked fun at his own lack of bowling prowess. He began by claiming to be “really good.” Then he opened up a bowling ball bag’s worth of excuses about not being able to find size 19 bowling shoes and how bowling balls are too small for massive hands. “I’m a great bowler,” he said. “Don’t let whatever I say fool you. But today, might not be my day.” Oden then set the benchmark for what it would take to defeat him at a modest 98. “That’s my usual,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s good or not. I keep telling myself that it’s great.” When Oden finally hit the lanes, the site wasn’t exactly pretty. He had a few gutter balls but mixed in enough spares and strikes to finish with a 92. — Oregonian