“The guttural scream that came – I was like, oh yes, that is the experience of being a Blazers fan.”
Brenna Greene’s description of the fan reaction at a Portland bar when the Blazers landed the 11th pick in the NBA draft lottery perfectly captures the collective heartbreak of yet another disappointment for a franchise and fanbase that desperately needed some luck.
On the latest episode of the Oregonian Sports podcast, hosts Bill Oram and Greene unpack not just the disappointment, but the fundamental unfairness of how the lottery results played out.
- Generative AI was used to summarize a recent episode of the Oregonian Sports podcast. This story was reviewed and edited by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
The cruel irony wasn’t lost on anyone: Dallas, with just a 1.8% chance, leaped to the number one pick – a miraculous bailout mere months after trading away superstar Luka Doncic for what Oram describes as “peanuts” and “a mind-numbingly idiotic trade.” Philadelphia, another major market with multiple stars already on their roster, also jumped into the top four.
Meanwhile, Portland – along with other small market teams like Utah, Charlotte, and Washington – fell victim to the mathematical probabilities they were always fighting against. But as Oram articulates in one of the podcast’s most passionate moments, the stakes are dramatically different for these franchises:
“Portland, Utah, Charlotte, Washington, Milwaukee… These are the franchises in the markets that need the lottery, that have an outsized need to build through the draft. Because the Blazers are not signing a free agent All-Star. The Blazers are not going to be the recipient of an All-Star asking for a trade to Portland. So getting guys here is just harder.”
While teams like Dallas and Philadelphia can recover from front office mistakes through free agency and trade demands, small market teams have a dramatically narrower path to contention. The draft represents their best and sometimes only opportunity to acquire franchise-altering talent.
“It just feels like a stick in the eye, when Portland needed the luck,” Oram continued. “Utah, Charlotte, Washington needed the luck. Dallas was going to be fine if it drafted at 11. Philly was going to be fine if it drafted at number five.
“Portland, screwed. Utah, screwed. Charlotte, screwed. Washington, screwed. Are you sensing the theme here?”
The conversation highlights how, despite the NBA’s effort to flatten lottery odds and discourage tanking, the system still seems to produce outcomes that disproportionately hurt the teams most dependent on draft success. For the Blazers, this represents the third time in four years they’ve moved back in the lottery, a disheartening trend for a franchise trying to rebuild following the Damian Lillard trade.
Greene’s account of watching the lottery unfold with other Blazers fans provides a human dimension to the statistical bad luck. This shared experience of disappointment has become almost ritualistic for Portland fans, a collective trauma that binds the fanbase together.
While the hosts acknowledge that winning the lottery isn’t a guaranteed path to success, citing examples like Anthony Bennett going first overall in 2013, they emphasize the fundamental disadvantage small markets face in team building.
“When you are a small market team, your lane is so much narrower, you are threading such a tight needle that you need the draft,” Oram said. “In a way that teams that are going to attract free agents, are going to have players wanting to get traded there don’t need it.”
The podcast discussion speaks to a broader structural issue within the NBA, where market size creates inherent advantages that even the most well-intentioned lottery reforms can’t fully address.
For the complete breakdown of the lottery results, the hosts’ unfiltered reactions, and the passionate argument about why this matters beyond just the Blazers, check out the full episode of the Oregonian Sports podcast.
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