No blazing a playoff trail

Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard will add Greg Oden to a good young nucleus. (NED DISHMAN/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES)

Now comes the hard part for the people of Portland: patience.

You can't blame them for hoisting a microbrew or two in between bites of their Dungeness crab after the Trail Blazers came out of nowhere last Tuesday night to win the NBA lottery. General manager Kevin Pritchard is playing it coy right now, but if he passes on Greg Oden, he should be forced to watch a tape of LaRue Martin and Sam Bowie in a windowless room.

The arrival of Oden gives Portland some cachet, some hope, but, recent history tells us, not a lot of dramatic improvement right out of the box. In time, however, watch out. Recent history also tells us that.

Assuming Oden is what he is billed to be, he will be the fifth "can't-miss, difference-making, worth-losing-for" player to come out in the last 20 years and be drafted No. 1 overall. The others are Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, and, for the sake of globalization, Yao Ming. That's a pretty decent fab four, but three of those have something in common: They all missed the playoffs in their first season. Yet Shaq has gone on to win four rings, James has his team in the Eastern Conference finals, and Yao is about to embark on another spiritual journey under Rick Adelman, having lost in the first round for the third time. Duncan? He didn't join a real lottery team and he not only made the playoffs as a rookie (joining a team with David Robinson and Sean Elliott) but he won the first of his three titles in his second season.

Shaq was the No. 1 pick in 1992. He joined a team with two decent players, Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott. (There also were two future coaches in Scott Skiles and Sam Vincent and current Orlando GM Otis Smith. Oh, and Greg Kite played 72 games for them. They finished 21-61.)

Shaq's first year resulted in a 20-win improvement, but Orlando lost in a tiebreaker for the playoffs. Then, after winning the lottery again in 1993, the Magic won 50 games, but were swept (upset) in the first round by Indiana. The team made it all the way to the NBA Finals in 1995 and to the conference finals in 1996 and then Shaq left and, well, you know the rest of that story.

We don't need to bring up Duncan again.

Yao was the No. 1 pick in 2002. He joined a Rockets team that won 28 games in 2001-02 and was led by Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley. Houston won 15 more games in 2002-03, Yao's first year, but even with a 43-39 record, it fell one game short of cracking the top eight in the Western Conference. Houston then won 45 games the next season but was knocked out in the first round by the Lakers. Yao still has not won a playoff series.

James joined a Cleveland team that had gone 17-65 in 2002-03. On paper, it didn't look that bad, with Zydrunas Ilgauskas able to play 81 games and Ricky Davis, Carlos Boozer, and Darius Miles also in the lineup. The drafting of James led to an 18-game improvement in 2003-04 (but no playoffs) and then a seven-game improvement (but no playoffs) the next year. Last year, James's third, was his playoff debut.

Oden is joining a team that won 32 games this season, up 11 from the year before thanks in part to the draft-day additions of Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge. Portland might have the best young nucleus in the league, and with Oden and Aldridge, look for the Blazers to shop Zach Randolph, who would be quite appealing if he didn't have a burdensome contract and more baggage than Kate Winslet had in "Titanic." Ditto for Miles, who did not play at all this season and is owed a bundle of loot.

But however Pritchard chooses to reshape the team, the Blazers look more like the pre-Shaq Magic, the pre-LeBron Cavs, and the pre-Yao Rockets than the pre-Duncan Spurs. Give Portland a year or two. Then, if everyone develops as expected, start expecting to see a lot of those overhead shots of the Willamette River in June. Portland is beautiful at that time of the year.

Star cluster in the West

On Wednesday morning, ESPN's Mike and Mike went over the draft lottery and played the theme song to "Law & Order" in the background. Their contention? That justice had been served by the fact that none of the teams that, er, lost maybe more than they should have, won a shot at Greg Oden or Kevin Durant.

But by any other yardstick, the placing of Oden in Portland and Durant in Seattle (or wherever) is a marketing challenge for the league. Both are small-market teams, and the Sonics could well be headed to the Midwest (Kansas City, Oklahoma City) and another small market by this time next year. As for now, both teams are in the Pacific Division, three hours removed from the East Coast. So expect to see their games on the second half of the network weeknight doubleheaders. Yawn.

The other problem is that the two best players in perhaps the last four or five years are going to be playing in the already stacked Western Conference. Now that's good news for the Celtics, because the Eastern Conference will be weak as ever next year, and we've already been told that they really were a playoff team this year and will assuredly be one next year. (That's their story and they're sticking to it.)

But the West is going to be brutal for seasons to come, assuming Oden and Durant live up to their hype. Three of the top four picks in 2007 will end up playing in the Western Conference next season (Memphis has No. 4), and it would have been the first four had Atlanta finished fourth and Memphis third. The pick would have then gone to the Suns. Phoenix now has Atlanta's No. 1 next season, unprotected.

Unhappy endings for James

To shoot or not to shoot? Oh, the pain! LeBron James can't win either way.

In Game 1 of the Cavs-Pistons series, James was criticized by some for passing to a wide-open Donyell Marshall, who missed what would have been a game-winning 3-pointer.

In Game 2, James chose to drive to the basket to either score or get fouled, which is what his critics said he should have done in Game 1. He didn't score. According to the three referees, he didn't get fouled, either. And the Cavs lost that game as well, although they had two decent chances after James's miss, a short Larry Hughes jumper and an Anderson Varejao tip.

There was definitely contact when James took it to the hole at the end of Game 2. But he's been around long enough that it has to be a felony for the referee to call a foul in those circumstances. That's just the way it is and pretty much always has been, with some notable exceptions (Hue Hollins fingering Scottie Pippen, for instance).

In Game 1, James appeared to have a clear path to the hole after he had beaten his man. But a 2-pointer would have created a tie. Marshall is an excellent 3-point shooter and, on the road, teams like to go for the win.

What's gone mostly unnoticed (except by ESPN stalwart Chris Sheridan) is that the Cavs were out of timeouts at the end of both games. And both times the Pistons shot free throws and there was enough time for at least a catch and shoot if the ball was being inbounded at halfcourt. In Game 1, there were two seconds left after Marshall's miss. In Game 2, there was one second left.

Both games ended with finals right off of John Daly's miss-the-cut scorecard: 79-76.

Etc.

Third degree
The Pistons have become third-quarter beasts in close games during the postseason, turning four potential losses into victories. Twice against Chicago and in both games against the Cavs, the Pistons have trailed at the half. In Game 3 against Chicago, Detroit trailed, 44-28, at the half. The Pistons then outscored the Bulls by 15 in the third en route to taking a 3-0 series lead. When the Bulls bounced back to win Games 4 and 5 and led by 5 points at the half in Game 6, the Pistons outscored Chicago by 10 points in the third and the Bulls never recovered. In the two games against Cleveland, the Pistons outscored the Cavaliers by 7 and 9 and eked out wins in both games. Clearly, this is a team that knows how to make adjustments.

Complaint Dept.
The inbox was full of angry e-mails after Tuesday night's lottery debacle, almost all of them suggesting that the procedure needs to be changed. Funny, but I didn't get any of those before the balls dropped. David Stern said he was open to the possibility that the odds might be changed, but the lottery appears to be here to stay. (Where else could Joel Litvin and Adam Silver get their face time?) But when the teams with the worst records in two straight seasons drop from 1 to 4 -- Portland last year and Memphis this year -- maybe something needs to be changed. You didn't hear much of a hue and cry from Portland last year, mainly because there was no Greg Oden or Kevin Durant available. And LaMarcus Aldridge, the guy they did get after a trade with Chicago, might end up being one of the best in the class.

Return trip to Europe?
According to those ever-reliable reports from across the pond, at least three European teams have expressed an interest in signing Sarunas Jasikevicius. The Golden State guard, who played only six minutes in the postseason, can opt out of his contract, which calls for a $4 million payday in 2007-08. He might get that (the equivalent, after taxes, is around 1.9 million Euros) in Europe. Jasikevicius simply has not enjoyed the spectacular success he had in Israel, where he was treated like a rock star, married a former Miss Israel, and won a couple of Euroleague titles for Maccabi Tel-Aviv. Prior to that, he was a star in Spain. A Spanish news outlet had Real Madrid trying to lure both Jasikevicius and Fabrico Oberto from the NBA, perhaps in anticipation of hosting next year's European Final Four. Hey, it worked this year for Panathinaikos, which loaded up for the Final Four in Athens and won the whole shebang.

Kudos to Sam Vincent, the sixth member of the 1985-86 Celtics to become a head coach in the NBA. (The others were Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Dennis Johnson, Rick Carlisle, and Danny Ainge.) Keeping to form, Michael Jordan chose someone with whom he has a connection; Vincent and Jordan were teammates on the 1987-88 and 1988-89 Chicago Bulls. And as a first-timer, Vincent is not going to cost ever-frugal Bobcats owner Bob Johnson as much as, say, Carlisle or Stan Van Gundy might command. And as we noted a few weeks ago, Vincent certainly has paid his dues, having coached in Europe, Africa, the D-League, and, this past season, as an assistant for the Mavericks. Vincent's former boss in Dallas, Avery Johnson, gave Vincent a plug, telling the Associated Press, "He went through a lot of highs and lows and has coached in a lot of different environments, learning how people think. He was able to deal with a variety of personalities. He's got a lot of young kids to work with and he'll come prepared and do a nice job."

The Sonics , who have no coach, no general manager, possibly no future in Seattle after this season, have entrusted things, for now, to Lenny Wilkens (feel free to ask why at any time), and are coming off their worst season in 21 years. But they do, apparently, get Kevin Durant. And that already has paid off at the ticket gate, as the team reported that in the 24 hours since the draft lottery, around 100 full season-ticket packages had been sold as well as many more partial plans. Vice president of sales and marketing Bryan Byrnes called the lottery outcome "a gift from the basketball gods." Meanwhile, the Celtics ran half-page ads on Page 3 of the Globe's sports section Wednesday and Thursday hyping next season and pushing ticket sales. There were pictures of Paul Pierce and Al Jefferson -- and a lot of room to put in someone else. There even was a line in the Thursday ad that said, "By now you know we have the No. 1 pick in the draft." Thankfully, someone spotted that before it got to print. As for all the blank space in the ad? It remained blank.

The Blazers' somewhat checkered draft history (they passed over Jordan and Bird) is examined in a new book by Filip Bondy, a sports columnist for the New York Daily News. The book is called "Tip Off: How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever." Did it ever. Portland took Sam Bowie over Jordan, and it's pretty well known why. According to the book, the Rockets toyed with trading their No. 1 pick from the year before, Ralph Sampson, to Chicago for the No. 3 pick, i.e. Jordan. The 76ers, who had the fifth pick, offered Julius Erving for the Jordan pick and the Mavericks dangled Mark Aguirre for the pick. Looking back on that draft, there are four first-ballot Hall of Famers in Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley (he's already in), and John Stockton. The book also explores Bobby Knight's role in the draft and the selection of the 1984 Olympic team, which both Barkley and Stockton failed to make.

Peter May can be reached at p_may@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.