Call Center Company in Portland, OR

On Monday, the NBA will hold the 2025 Draft Lottery in Chicago and for the fourth-straight year, the Portland Trail Blazers will be there. The draft lottery has been around long enough that going through the details feels unnecessary (however, if you're so inclined, here you go) so let's just get to what you need to know...

The Trail Blazers, by tying the Suns for the ninth-worth record and by losing the coin flip to break that tie, have the tenth-best odds at the 2025 Draft Lottery. This means they can end up with the first, second, third, fourth, tenth, 11th, 12th, 13th or 14th pick at the 2025 Draft. Here are the odds...

Also, the Trail Blazers only have one pick in either round this yeas as the Raptors, via the Kings, own Portland's second-round pick. The Trail Blazers have won the lottery once. More recently they under-performed their odds in 2024 and 2022 -- both times they ended up with the seventh pick -- while they had the third-best odds and got the third pick in 2023.

The important thing to remember about the draft lottery is it technically only decides the top four picks, everything other than that is decided by regular season record (this is why the Blazers can't end up with picks five through nine). So if a team behind the Trail Blazers is NOT called before Portland, that means a team with worse odds has jumped into the top four. But if the Trail Blazers are not called by the tenth pick, that means they have jumped into the top four. A reminder that the Atlanta Hawks got the top pick in 2024 despite having the tenth-best odds.

The 2025 NBA Draft Lottery broadcast begins at 4 p.m. on ESPN. Toumani Camara will be the team's on-stage representative while assistant GM Andrae Patterson will be the team rep in the room where the drawing is actually conducted. The actual lottery is already conducted by time the broadcast starts so it moves relatively fast. And the team is holding three lottery parties if you'd like to either celebrate and/or commiserate with your fellow Trail Blazes fans.

The City of Portland has passed an ambitious new transportation program that, if all goes according to plan, would invest $50 million per year on sidewalks, improved shoulder pathways, and pothole repairs citywide — with a specific emphasis on southwest and east Portland. It’s one of the most significant pieces of policy passed by council since they convened for the first time in January and a major win for the two councilors who spearheaded it.

The Sidewalk Improvement and Paving Program (SIPP) first came to light back in March and was created by District 1 City Councilor Loretta Smith and District 4 Councilor Mitch Green (since then it’s gained support and is also sponsored by D4 councilors Olivia Clark and Eric Zimmerman). Smith and Green found common cause in a desire to correct the historic lack of sidewalk coverage in east and west Portland.

There’s no funding plan yet; but Councilor Green (an economist by training) is working on a bonding plan that will come before the Finance Committee shortly. He says debt financing should be sufficient to raise $200 million over four or five years. The use of funds secured through the sale of city bonds means the program could be implemented without raising taxes and without impacting the current transportation bureau budget.

While what passed yesterday is just a resolution, and doesn’t carry the legal authority of an ordinance, once a finance plan is in place, this program will have a major impact on how the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) builds out the city’s sidewalk network. And thanks to a successful amendment proposed by Councilor Clark, the program will also permit PBOT to build “alternative pathways” when full sidewalks are not feasible. These pathways give PBOT the ability to address sidewalk gaps by finding creative design solutions that are easier and/or cheaper to build than raised concrete sidewalks with curbs and all the related stormwater features they require. These pathways (which would be used by bicycle riders as well in many cases) are likely to be similar to the “alternative walkway” PBOT built on NE 60th Avenue in the Cully neighborhood in 2021.

Whether or not SIPP projects could happen in Cully, which is in District 2, and whether or not PBOT will be limited to building projects only in districts 1 and 4, was a major point of debate in Wednesday’s meeting.

Surprisingly, District 1 Councilor Candace Avalos proposed an amendment to remove districts from the policy language entirely. Avalos felt like creating programs that target specific districts might set a bad precedent. “I’m trying to prevent us from making this precedent where we’re going to turn this into some kind of turf war,” Avalos said. She believes PBOT should use its existing data and equity toolkit to determine which parts of Portland need sidewalks the most — instead of having politicians dictate where investments go.

Councilor Green disagreed strongly.

“I think if you strike the terms ‘District 1’ and ‘District 4’, it renders the point of this resolution largely moot and we just fall back on the broader transportation planning framework that we already have.” “How long should southwest Portland wait for sidewalks? Is it 50 years? Is it 100 years? Is it longer?,” Green asked rhetorically in a passionate defense of the program.

“I think we were elected to fight for our districts, and I’m doing that right now,” Green continued. “I’m not going to go back to my district and talk to the immigrant community in southwest Portland and tell them I did not fight for them.”

PBOT Director Millicent Williams was on hand to clarify how they would interpret the program. Asked by Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney whether the resolution would prohibit PBOT from using SIPP to build projects in districts 2 and 3, Williams said no. In the end, the Avalos amendment failed as councilors realized that, while the resolution prioritizes districts 1 and 4, other districts could receive investments as well.

Another element of this new program that was clarified on Wednesday was what resolutions sponsors mean when they say “pavement.” “Just for the record, ‘pavement maintenance deficiencies’ [in the resolution language] is a euphemism for potholes,” Councilor Clark said.

When it came time to cast a final vote, one of the resolution’s chief architects, Councilor Loretta Smith said, “We are writing our past wrongs and making sure that everyone in the city of Portland has an opportunity not just to survive, but they have an opportunity to safe streets and sidewalks.” In a statement yesterday, Smith said its passage was, “a watershed moment.” And her colleague Councilor Green added, “I think today is going to mark a turning point in the history of this city where we say we are no longer going to accept neighborhoods in our city to be ignored.”

District 3 Councilor Steve Novick was the lone “no” vote. “I think asking PBOT to spend time planning,= to do things we have no money to do is putting the cart before the horse and I’m not prepared to say that I prioritize $200 million for sidewalks before we have addressed the pavement maintenance deficit,” he said.

From here, Councilor Green and his staff will work on the funding plan that will soon be on the agenda of the Finance Committee. That plan will be an ordinance and, if it’s passed, will give the SIPP the funding and legal backing it needs to be something much more than just another plan. Smith said in a statement that PBOT would begin planning and implementation immediately and said the community can expect major developments in SIPP by this summer. Stay tuned.

Share on Bluesky Share on Facebook Share on Reddit Share on Email

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, contact me via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a paying subscriber.