It was hard for NBA alum Greg Ogden to watch other players’ salaries soar right after his retirement.
“The year I retired was the year that Timofey Mozgov — no disrespect — got that 50 mil [contract with the Los Angeles Lakers], and I wanted to kill everybody in the f—ing world,” Ogden, 36, said during a recent appearance on Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller’s “The OGs” podcast. “I hated life, I was depressed. If they threw him 50 mil, I’m like, ‘All I need to do is be on the team. That’s 20 [million] easy.’”
Mozgov’s 2016 four-year contract with the Lakers, which was actually a $64 million deal, drew widespread criticism at the time as some people felt his stats didn’t justify the huge payday. The controversial contract came just after the NBA announced the league’s salary cap had been raised by more than $24.1 million from the previous season, a record increase. The timing was a blow for Ogden, who announced his retirement from the sport that same year.
“It hurts my heart right now. I still feel a little empty when I talk about it. Like, no disrespect, Timofey, but goddamn, y’all could’ve thrown me another 20 [million],” Ogden said. “Literally the next year after I retired.”
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Ogden, who was selected first overall in the 2007 NBA draft, went on to highlight the discrepancies between Mozgov’s salary and his own compensation.
“I played six years, I probably made about 24 mil [total],” he said. “And I cut that s—t in half cause of taxes.”
Miller, 44, then pointed out how much players of Ogden’s caliber get paid today.
“No. 1 [draft] picks now [are getting] 55, 60 [million],” the Miami Heat alum said.
Despite his frustration, Ogden said he has no beef with Mozgov.
“Shout out to him. Get all the money you can get, my brother,” he said.
Ogden was one to watch when he was drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers in June 2007, but from the beginning of his NBA career, injuries interfered with his ability to play. After undergoing knee surgery in September 2007, Ogden missed the entire 2007-2008 NBA season. Although he returned for the 2008 season, his knee problems persisted for the duration of his tenure with the Trail Blazers. When the team released Ogden in 2012, he had played just 82 games over the course of five seasons.
The athlete went on to play for the Miami Heat for the 2013-2014 season alongside Miller and Haslem, 44, before leaving the NBA to play for the Jiangsu Dragons. After one season with the Chinese Basketball Association team, Ogden announced that he was retiring.
Ogden described himself as the “biggest bust in NBA history” during a 2017 interview with ESPN. He stood by the descriptor during his recent appearance on “The OGs.”
“Once I said it, a lot of people came out and [were] like, ‘No, he’s not,’ but at the time, I was a No. 1 pick, I got injured all the time, I rarely played,” he said. “Technically, if I’m looking at it and [Kevin Durant, the second overall draft pick of 2007] is just so great … I’m technically one of the biggest busts of all time.”
Ogden has been open about turning to alcohol to cope with the disappointment of his career-altering injuries, and has since gotten sober.
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“By the time I got back [from playing in China in 2016], I probably drank every day, basically numbed myself to forget those feelings that it was over,” he said during an April 2019 panel discussion titled “When Sports End,” per The Columbus Dispatch. “You never look at the end while you’re playing, but when you see it, oh gosh, it’s like, ‘Did I prepare?’ I was caught off-guard. I would wake up and wonder what to do. I’d go work out and not know what I was going to do tonight. It was a whole lot of loss for me.”
Ogden added that getting sober had allowed him to focus on his daughter, Londyn, whom he and his wife, Sabrina, welcomed in 2016.
“My time that I enjoyed partying is now spent with my 2-year-old baby girl,” he said at the time.
