"This is great news for Oden and the Blazers, who were very conservative following his surgery and immediately ruled him out for the entire 2007-08 season instead of trying to rush him back late in the year. On opening night, Oden will be 13-and-a-half months removed from his microfracture procedure, marking the second-longest rehab on record (Kittles, one of those two players to improve coming back, sat out 16.5 months, making him the top right dot on the chart)."

"Based solely on the length of his rehab, Oden would be expected to lose 4.7 of his per-minute productivity following the surgery. Add in the training-camp factor and that gets as low as a negligible 1.8 percent. Of course, as the first player to undergo the procedure prior to his rookie season, Oden does not have an established level of performance, but his college numbers project very nicely indeed. Using the translation system I introduced before this year's draft, Oden rates as the second-best prospect to enter the NBA dating back through 2000."

From former Sonics stat guy Kevin Pelton, microfracture doesn't appear to be a huge detriment in both the long and short run.