King Kaufman's Sports Daily
NBA draft: Blazers take Oden and his cold, Sonics take Durant, and who knows what the Celtics are up to.
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June 29, 2007 | One thought for each of the NBA's new millionaires, the 30 first-round picks in Thursday night's draft. That's 32 more thoughts than I have on the average summer day.
1. Portland Trail Blazers: Greg Oden, C, Ohio State
About a minute into the five-minute clock, the Trail Blazers war room erupts, guys high-fiving each other. Did they just decide to pick Greg Oden or what? It's like someone said, "Hey, there's this 7-footer from Ohio State who's really good and -- oh! Look at this! We have the first pick! All right!"
Oden proceeds to that little desk where Stuart Scott is going to interview the draftees who are present. Scott notes that he saw Oden worrying his hands before the pick and wonders why, since everybody knew Oden was going No. 1, the kid was so nervous.
"I wasn't," Oden says. "I was putting on hand sanitizer. I didn't want to get Mr. Stern sick. You know, I'm here with a little cold."
Oden has the most famous cold since Yuri Andropov. A New York Times profile of him this week led with him clutching a tissue, coughing and talking about hand sanitizer. He mentioned his cold on his blog. Now his first utterance as an NBA property is about his cold.
The cold has a publicist and an agent and is negotiating to be on that new ABC comedy about the car-insurance cavemen. Things are rocking now but in a few years it'll be happy to get a spot on "Surreal Life: Minor Afflictions" with Winona Ryder's broken arm and George Brett's hemorrhoids.
2. Seattle SmovingOnics: Kevin Durant, Texas
I just want to thank Scott for his pointless mention of Beyoncé at this juncture, so I can get her name in here for page-view purposes. I don't have any free hot nude photos or anything, but every little bit helps.
Kevin Pritchard, Portland's general manager, says the process of choosing Oden over Durant was "very difficult." Kevin, get back in the war room. You have like 30 trades to make before the night's over. The Blazers kept things hopping on draft night last year by trading every known particle of matter in the universe for every other known particle, plus a second-round pick in 2010, but things seem to be a little more sedate this time around.
Wait, here we go. Seattle sends Ray Allen to Boston for the No. 5 pick plus Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak. Later it'll come out that the Sonics are also sending the 35th pick, a second-rounder, to Boston. That pick will end up being Glen "Big Baby" Davis of LSU, just on the off chance you were able to follow all that.
What on earth are the Celtics doing?
We will now traverse the Marianas Trench, the gap between Oden-Durant and everyone else in this draft.
Next page: Everybody else in this draft