Honk once for Oden, twice if you're dumb enough to pass him up

Portland general manager Kevin Pritchard is playing dumb. Or he is dumb. Those are the only plausible options at this point.

The Trail Blazers have the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft on Thursday, and if Pritchard is to be believed, he doesn't have the faintest idea what he's going to do with it.

That's right, there's only one obvious choice for the No. 1 pick: Oden. (Getty Images)

I don't believe him.

Trust me, that's the nicest thing I can say about that. Because if I did believe him -- if I truly thought he didn't know what he was going to do with that pick -- I would have to believe Pritchard is the dumbest executive in the NBA. And that's not easy to be, the dumbest executive in the NBA, considering so many of them have hired Larry Brown. And considering Michael Jordan, Chris Mullin and Danny Ainge are NBA executives.

Kevin Durant will be a great pro. That's pretty much a given. He's generally described as a taller Tracy McGrady or a shorter Kevin Garnett, and if his career arc lands anywhere on that dart board he will be an All-Star within two years.

But if the Trail Blazers are thinking of drafting Durant, even maybe, then Kevin Pritchard should be tested for a chronic case of stupid.

Kevin Durant is no Greg Oden. Hell, Patrick Ewing is no Greg Oden. And Patrick Ewing was a pretty good pro, no? Almost 25,000 career points. More than 11,000 rebounds. Eleven All-Star Games. Hall of Fame. Ewing was one of the best centers ever.

Oden's better. Or he will be better. Oden and Ewing put up almost identical numbers in their final year of college, but Ewing was a senior. Oden was a freshman with one good wrist. That was their starting point. We know what Ewing became. What will Oden become? Something greater than Ewing, like David Robinson or Hakeem Olajuwon or maybe even Shaquille O'Neal -- great centers who, unlike Ewing, won NBA titles.

How many championships have Tracy McGrady and Kevin Garnett won, again?

Pritchard has to take Oden. Simply has to. The NBA is full of long athletes who can score from all over: McGrady, LeBron, Nowitzki, Vince, Paul Pierce, Garnett, Carmelo, Kobe, Bosh, Rashard Lewis, Antawn Jamison, Joe Johnson. Durant's going to be better than some of those guys, but to count the number of Durant-like players in the NBA, guys who can score 30 any given night, you'd need every finger you've got, plus a few toes.

To tally the players who can put up 25 points, 15 rebounds and five blocks on a regular basis, you'd need one hand -- and you could give your pinkie and thumb the day off: Tim Duncan, Dwight Howard and Shaq. Shaq from five or six years ago, I mean.

But Pritchard is pretending to be considering Durant.

"I'm sitting over there thinking, 'How in the world can we get both of these guys?'" Pritchard told the Oregonian last week. "We owe it to ourselves to make the best decision. Unfortunately, we can only make one decision."