To be sure, watching professional basketball bores the heck out of me, but professional business, now that’s exciting.

What is more blood stirring than fat, greasy, sweaty old white men smoking Cubans in a dimly lit room, practicing gentlemanly courtesy toward each other while stacking the chips they made upon the backs of less-fortunate men?

So that’s not exactly business, but you get the general idea of my feelings about NBA owners — and those in any other pro sport for that matter. Anyway, how happy was I when the Blazers got the first pick in the NBA draft? Super happy!

I love that the Sonics got pick number two as well.

Watching ESPN last night, I heard many an announcer say how bad the draft lottery was for “the league.” I heard them whine about the insignificant Northwest and how Greg Oden and Kevin Durant would take a ton of marketing money in order to impact the game’s books.

To the pigs around the poker tables in the dark rooms, I say give us our games back. All of them!

Idealist I may be, but whatever happened to the good old days, when boys were boys and summer lasted forever, and basketball didn’t have any rules, when football was rough and tumble and penalty-free, when baseball was five neighborhood kids, three mitts, two ratty balls and a beat-up wooden bat? Were there even good old days? Did sports ever really belong to the innocent masses, or have they always been controlled, taxed and packaged with luxury boxes and $8 beers?

I suppose this opiate of the male masses has always been run by emperors and kings, but what a shame. We love sports for a lot of simple, human reasons. I can think of a ton of reasons, I was drawn to them way back when I was a wee one. It was the competition, the challenge, the teammates, the camaraderie, the fun, the sense of accomplishment and the recognition. It’s just too bad that money is also one of those things pushing kids into sports.

But I’m getting off-track here. Nothing is perfect — sports included ––— but the draft came close. B-Roy is about to be big ballin.’ His small-market team was close to the playoffs already, and with Oden, they’d be serious contenders.

The Supersonics getting Durant would be even sweeter. Aside from him having the potential to be the next great one — real potential, mind you, not like the potential for every kid to become an astronaut or president or some crap — the local team’s trials make marketing a funny problem.

First, they have to pay to push the young buck in his Sea-town jersey, then, instead of riding his popularity to the bank and a new arena with enough luxury boxes to hold their corporate clients, they’ll have to start over with a move, new team, new logo and possible new number. Michael Jordan got a shoe, a number and a team, and he pushed that stuff for a decade.

The thing that bugs me about analysts is that they forget that fans — no matter what demographic they’re from — love their teams. The Blazers have sucked for a long while. The same goes for the Sonics.

For those of you out there that can’t get enough of these teams, congratulations. I’m happy for you. For at least one year, you’ll get to root for a sweet athlete. Beyond that, beware: loyalty no longer exists in sports. Already, trade deals are in the works in dark rooms among filthy rich men to trade off the next generation’s heroes. It’s just business.

Reach columnist Sam Cameron at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.