ODEN LEAD = DONE DEAL

That Greg Auman has me addicted to the acronyms now.

So Greg Oden goes No. 1, which is neither a surprise nor folly. You look at him and all of his 84 inches (that's more than five inches per year of his life) up on the stage and he's very impressive. In fact, Portland should consider changing their uniforms to pinstriped jerseys.

Let me tell you something about the hoops journalism elite I currently find myself amongst: a nice young man with an accent just asked another person in our row, as he looked at Oden, "Where's he from?"

And Seattle selects Kevin Durant--again, no shock and the smart pick-- second overall. The Oden vs. Durant rivalry is going to make the Pacific Northwest interesting, suddenly. I-5 will be abuzz for years--or at least until the Sonics move to Las Vegas--and the folks in Fords Prairie, nearly midway along the route, won't quite know whom to root for. If you're interested, it's about 175 miles between the two cities.

So who's going to be No. 3? My guess is that Atlanta will select Al Horford. Mike Conley, Jr., is who they should pick, though.