Wow. Really, I mean ... wow.

I don't want to put myself in the middle of the story or anything, but I can't shake the feeling that I did this. Clothespins fashioned as butterflies with my daughter's face on them now have a 100% success rate in bringing home the best possible draft pick.

It really is an amazing moment for the Portland Trail Blazers. Now Kevin Pritchard gets to do all his gamesmanship magic and try to freak out the rest of the league -- who know that he'll do some bold stuff because he did it last year.

I am not convinced that that this is guaranteed to be a Greg Oden pick, and I imagine this'll be like the Dwight Howard/Emeka Okafor draft where no one will really know for sure until David Stern says the name.

Even if Portland intimates they have a clear favorite, I'm not buying it until it's official.

I thought about it a lot last night and this morning and I’ve had time to ponder the implications.  You’d think that after that I would have a better perspective.  Sorry.  I don’t.  I’m still depressed.

Maybe Danny can still turn things around, but even good GMs need a lot of luck.  Aside from drafting, Danny hasn’t proven that he’s good.  Doc is still the coach, and I can’t say that I’m very excited about that.

We have a pick in a “deep” draft.  Well who cares how deep it is?  If Oden/Durant are perfect 10’s, and there are a bunch of 5’s in the draft, that means we still end up with a 5.  So maybe we’ll have a decent 2nd round pick.  Yippee. I don’t know what I want the team to do now.  I haven’t figured it out.  Part of me wants to fire Danny, trade Pierce, and start over.  Part of me wants to package the pick, Gerald, Theo, and whatever else to get a player to put next to Paul.  All of me wants to sit on the couch and go into a coma until the games start.  It’s going to be a long, long offseason.

Durant is both a "sexier" pick (stop) and fills a bigger need for the team, but Oden is the rarer commodity. Presuming that the Blazers are still a few years away from competing (for a division title, let alone a West title, let alone an NBA title), they'll have plenty of draft picks, free-agency options and trade moves to find a perfectly good swingman. Not as good as Durant, mind you, but they simply won't be able to find a post player even remotely as dominant as Oden. Put more succinctly: Durant's VORP isn't as high as Oden's VORP. The Blazers should draft Oden. The Sonics would take Durant, move to Oklahoma City (familiar Big 12 country) and start their "new" franchise with an appropriately "franchise" talent.

An Open Letter to one, Kevin Durant:

Kevin. By now, you probably realize that you will be living in Portland, Oregon for at least the next three years of your guaranteed rookie contract. Congratulations! I have surveyed the inhabitants of this apartment, and I am proud to let you know that I am in 100% agreement with myself: We (I) can't wait to have you!

One way is to say that there is a certain degree of justice in the lottery's outcome. The Grizzlies, Celtics, and Milwaukee Bucks were all accused of tanking games in their quest to get the most number of ping-pong balls. And yet they had the worst results last night, falling down in the draft as far as they possibly could under the lottery rules. Sure, there is probably 0% chance that Commissioner Stern or anyone at the NBA had anything to do with that, as an independent lottery firm performs the actual drawing of the balls. But those who were upset with the tanking may feel like there was some sort of vindication last night, even if the vindication resulted entirely from chance.