On the clock: Portland gets first pick in NBA Draft

The Trail Blazers, who finished with a 32-50 record this past season and missed the playoffs for a fourth straight year, had just the sixth-best chance (5.3 percent) of winning the lottery, but beat the odds and will have the No. 1 draft selection in a year that is full of quality prospects.

"I didn’t think we had any chance," said NBA Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy, who represented the Trail Blazers at the lottery. "I was up there talking to Lenny Wilkens, and I told him I really wasn’t expecting this at all. Last year, Portland had the worst record in the NBA and wound up with the fourth pick, so I knew anything could happen. In the end, I think it’s great."

By winning the lottery, Portland has the opportunity to immediately improve its franchise by selecting the highly-touted Greg Oden of Ohio State or Texas’ Kevin Durant as the likely top pick.

"I was really getting nervous," explained Roy after making it into the top three. "Before it started, I figured things would probably hold up. Then when we made it to the top three, I started thinking about the possibility of playing with a Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. We really have a chance to have a great young team, and I’m excited to grow with this team."

The Seattle SuperSonics will pick second, followed by Atlanta, Memphis and Boston. The Grizzlies, who had the league’s worst record (22-60) this past season, had the best opportunity with a 25-percent chance at getting the top selection. The Celtics had the second best chance of getting No. 1 overall at 20 percent.

Milwaukee, which had a 15.6-percent chance at the top selection, dropped to the sixth pick, followed by Minnesota, Charlotte, Chicago via New York, and Sacramento. Atlanta via Indiana, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and the Clippers completed the field in the lottery.

By remaining in the third spot, the Hawks now have two picks in the lottery. If Atlanta dropped out of the top three, the Phoenix Suns would have received the pick as part of the Joe Johnson trade from 2005. The Pacers, who needed to slide into a top three spot to keep their selection, send their pick to the Hawks due to the Al Harrington trade from last offseason.

"I’m happy because we got two picks in the first round," said Atlanta vice president of basketball operations Dominique Wilkins. "We were positioned if we get the fourth pick, we lose that pick, so to keep the pick and get the 11th spot here is great for us."

The lottery has been in place since June of 1984 when the NBA Board of Governors voted to adopt a lottery system among the non-playoff teams to determine their order of selection in the first round of the NBA Draft beginning in 1985.

From 1966 through 1984, the teams that finished with the worst records in each conference participated in a coin flip to determine which team would draft first. The remaining teams picked in inverse order of their won-lost records.

The New York Knicks won the first-ever lottery and used their No. 1 selection on Georgetown center Patrick Ewing.

Toronto won last year’s draft lottery and selected Italy’s Andrea Bargnani with the first overall pick.