PORTLAND -- The thing about a No. 1 overall pick is he's supposed to be a sure thing. At this point, Greg Oden is still more of a question than a solution, one of many uncertainties as this group of Portland Trail Blazers prepares for its maiden playoff voyage.

Oden is eager to help, but he doesn't always know how. It's like watching a baby deer struggle to stand on its own feet. The Rose Garden fans still greet him warmly when he checks in, explode with pent-up cheers when he makes a good play. Still with only 51 games to his career, the "what if?" outweighs what's happened.

For example, the Trail Blazers put up 129 points in a blowout victory over Phoenix on Thursday night, and Oden wasn't one of the six Portland players to score in double-figures. So imagine how much damage the Blazers could inflict if Oden turned into a double-double machine, if he contributed more than the eight points and one rebound he did in this outing.

For now it's still flashes. Backing in for a dunk, spinning for a hook, elevating to block a shot, leaving the rest up to the mind's ability to project.

"I know he can do it," said Brandon Roy, the Blazers' team leader. "We're just kind of waiting for him to realize what he can do. Things he was doing out there tonight, I've seen that the first time I played with him. I'm like, 'This dude can dominate a game.'"

"Can" -- a word of possibility. Kind of like "if." With Oden, the most familiar usage is "if he can stay healthy." He lost an entire season to injury after he was drafted, and 21 games so far this season. His body hasn't allowed him to have an extensive body of work. We don't know how good he can be, we don't even know where he will be. Portland coach Nate McMillan is debating whether to return him to the starting lineup. Joel Przybilla can provide the same things as Oden at this stage -- defense and rebounding -- and with more regularity. On Thursday, he even gave some back talk to Shaquille O'Neal.

Ten games until the playoffs, so there's not much time to experiment. McMillan isn't quite as overprotective of his center these days, and some of the people who provide the cocoon around Oden seem to want to push the ignition switch themselves.

Every time I'm back at ESPN headquarters, I see a blown-up ESPN The Magazine cover with Oden proclaiming his wish of acquiring 15 championship rings. These days his hopes are much more modest.

"I'm just trying to get it back," he said. "When it feels good, it feels good."

With scant information to follow in the box scores, the new thing in Portland was to gauge Oden's mood, turning every utterance and facial gesture into a Facebook status update.

"I hear it each day," Oden said. "If I'm not smiling, if I don't have the biggest grin on my face, then it's like I'm always down. Everyone else has days when they don't want to smile, when you just want to come in and be regular.

"I'm perfectly fine. I can be fine and not smile. I'm just enjoying life, enjoying the season, I'm happy we're playing good and we're making the playoffs."

McMillan was asked about Oden's demeanor a couple of different ways before the Blazers played Phoenix, and all he could go with was he liked what he saw from Oden in the most recent game against Philadelphia (an overtime loss at home on Monday).

"He had a bounce," McMillan said.

That earned Oden some minutes in crunch time. The Blazers gave him the ball in the final minute against the Sixers with the score tied. He seemed as surprised as anyone else. So he tried a hook shot in the lane but missed. Philadelphia didn't score, the Blazers got the ball back and called timeout, and Oden hung his head, then looked up to the rafters, as if he were wondering how he could have let his team down. He got another chance when Steve Blake drove and dished Oden the ball for a go-ahead dunk. That's when he showed some of the emotion Roy wants to see.

"The thing I'm happy about is he's starting to smile," Roy said. "Last game, he was pumping up the crowd after a dunk. I'm like, OK, now he's starting to enjoy it. At first, he was out there kind of like, 'Man, I've got to be here.' Now it's 'OK, I'm happy to be here.' If he plays with that kind of attitude, he's a beast."

While McMillan can gush about things Oden does right, he also slips in, "We need to see more."

So it still feels like it's just the beginning.

"Tonight, I'm watching, I'm like, we got two legitimate centers we can throw at people," Roy said. "I think that can really wear on people. It's not a matter if Joel starts or Greg, you guys have got to both play as hard as you can while you're out there and put that pressure on them. And I think Greg's comfortable with coming off the bench. If that's where he feels comfortable right now, that's where we should keep it. And we can continue to build on that. He's playing great basketball."

If Oden feels so much pressure during the regular season, how will he respond to the intensity of the playoffs? No one can say. Roy is the leader of this team, and he has no idea what to expect from himself once the postseason rolls around.

The Blazers aren't to the point they can make demands on Oden. All they can do is submit requests.

"He's strong, he's athletic," Roy said. "We just want him to go out there and have fun."

J.A. Adande is an ESPN.com senior writer and the author of "The Best Los Angeles Sports Arguments." Click here to e-mail J.A.

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