Wow! Talk about your shockers. I called it this morning when I said that I didn't think Memphis or Boston, the two teams with the most number of ping pong balls, would win tonight's NBA lottery. I also said I hoped that the Portland Trail Blazers, the team I used to work for, would win the lottery. Oh what a night!! The Trail Blazers pulled off what many are calling the biggest upset in NBA Draft lottery history. The team had a 5.3% chance of landing the #1 pick and they did it.

The Seattle Sonics also did quite well for themselves moving in to the #2 spot and will have their chance to draft whomever is remaining between Oden and Durant. The Sonics will have a face for their franchise and Clay Bennett and company have more leverage for a new arena in Washington or if they decide to move to Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Las Vegas or elsewhere. The franchise value also immediately increases.

Memphis, Boston and Phoenix all couldn't have had things turn out much worse than they did. Memphis couldn't have done any worse than 4th and that's exactly where they landed. Their luck tonight may impact the team's ability to recruit a GM and head coach. Boston also couldn't have done any worse than they did tonight by getting the 5th pick. (Someone should put ESPN.com columnist and Boston-native Bill Simmons on suicide watch).

Then Phoenix, was due to get Atlanta's 1st round pick as part of the Joe Johnson - Boris Diaw deal.....as long as the Hawks' pick wasn't in the top 3. That's exactly what happened. Its been a very bad week in Phoenix between this and the suspensions.

I'll write about this more in the coming days and weeks, but I'm literally stunned at tonight's amazing turn of events. As someone who calls Portland home, I haven't seen people in Portland this excited about the Trail Blazers since the team was playing the Lakers in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals in 2000.

I'm really happy for all of my friends in the Trail Blazers front office - Rip City is officially back!