Blazers get pair of first-round draft picks

Published 5:00 am Thursday, May 31, 2012

PORTLAND — The Portland Trail Blazers will have four total picks in June’s NBA draft.

The Blazers got the 11th pick in Wednesday’s draft lottery, but also picked up the 6th overall pick from the Nets. Portland acquired the conditional first-round pick from the Nets in the Gerald Wallace trade at the deadline.

It is the first time that the Blazers have had two lottery picks. Portland also has the 40th and 41st picks in the June 28 draft.

“Now it’s up to us to make the right decisions,” acting general manager Chad Buchanan said.

The New Orleans Hornets drew the No. 1 pick overall — which they almost certainly will use to select Kentucky star Anthony Davis.

Portland finished the lockout-shortened season 28-38 and out of the playoffs for the first time in four years. The rebuilding team is currently without a general manager or a head coach.

Buchanan, the team’s director of college scouting, took over as interim GM a year ago when the Blazers dismissed Rich Cho after less than a year on the job. Coach Nate McMillan was fired at the NBA trade deadline and the Blazers named assistant Kaleb Canales to the job for the rest of the regular season.

In addition to their four draft picks, Portland figures to be active on the free agent market in the offseason. The team could have as much as $24 million in cap space to work with. Right now, the priorities include re-signing forward Nicolas Batum and acquiring a starting point guard. Buchanan has said that a center is also high on the list.

In a conference call with reporters following the lottery on Wednesday night, Buchanan said the team would not use its picks to fill a specific need.

“We need to add talent to this roster,” he said. “We’re going to pick the best players available with those picks.”

Portland held its first draft workout on Tuesday. Included among those the team looked at were big men Tyler Zeller out of North Carolina and Meyers Leonard out of Illinois.

Buchanan said the team would also keep its options open when it comes to trading the picks or packaging them for a player.

“We’re not going to close the door on any opportunity to improve our team,” he said.

Team owner Paul Allen went to Twitter on Wednesday morning to announce that the search for a general manager was also taking place. The Blazers have said it would be ideal to have a new GM in place by the draft. The general manager, if hired, could also have input in the search for a new coach.

“GM search has made progress, I have interviewed four candidates in person, good talks, doing more reference checks now,” Allen posted. He did not name the candidates he had interviewed.

Hornets win draft lottery, will pick No. 1

NEW YORK — New owner, and now a new star player. The future suddenly looks bright for the New Orleans Hornets.

Meanwhile, it was yet another loss — in a historic season full of them — for Michael Jordan and the Charlotte Bobcats.

The Hornets, recently sold by the NBA to Saints owner Tom Benson, won the NBA’s draft lottery Wednesday and the No. 1 pick overall — which they almost certainly will use to pick Kentucky star Anthony Davis.

At least that’s what the consensus college player of the year is expecting. Moments after the Hornets won the lottery, Davis said he was looking forward to playing professionally in the place where he led the Wildcats to a national championship in April.

The good news for the Hornets comes after a difficult season in which they traded All-Star Chris Paul and a couple of years in limbo where they couldn’t do much to upgrade the roster while the league was looking for a buyer.

“Just a first step for us to winning it all,” Benson said in a TV interview after the lottery.

The Hornets moved up from the fourth spot, where they had a 13.7 percent chance, to earn the pick.

“Everything was surreal once they announced the fourth pick,” said Hornets coach Monty Williams, who represented the team on stage. “I said ‘This is pretty cool.’ I knew my wife and kids were home praying that things would go well and they did.”

The Bobcats, after going 7-59 for the worst winning percentage in NBA history, fell to the No. 2 pick. Washington will pick third and Cleveland fell one spot to fourth.

Charlotte had a 25 percent chance of grabbing the No. 1 pick, but instead will have to take the best player after Davis, possibly his teammate, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. The team with the worst record hasn’t won since Orlando drafted Dwight Howard in 2004.

“We will still take the best player available and when you win seven games you have a lot of holes,” Bobcats general manager Rich Cho said. “From a competitive standpoint and for anyone who has played sports or been competitive, you want to win and be No. 1. We know we’re still going to get a good player.”

Cho and team vice chairman Curtis Polk said they hadn’t heard from Jordan, the Bobcats owner.

“Being No. 2 isn’t terrible. We’ll be fine,” Polk said.

— The Associated Press