Well, Sonics fans, it looks like the basketball gods have cursed Seattle again.

It wasn’t enough for them to take Seattle’s only winning team in a major professional sports league. Now, they give the second-year Oklahoma City Thunder a chance to reload, too.

On Tuesday night’s bouncing of the ping-pong balls — better known as the NBA draft lottery — Oklahoma City was awarded with the third overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft, despite being only the fourth-worst team in the league last season.

At least OKC only picks third.

The Thunder will most likely end up taking Connecticut’s Hasheem Thabeet or Spain’s Ricky Rubio, whomever Memphis — owner of the No. 2 pick — passes on.

The No. 1 pick?

That goes to the Los Angeles Clippers, receiving a gift from the aforementioned basketball gods who allowed them to jump from their projected third pick to the first.

The Clippers will probably pick Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin, who many say is the best the player in the draft and has already drawn comparisons to former Utah Jazz forward Karl Malone.

Or, will they?

The Clippers are, after all, still the Clippers, and there’s always the chance they will bungle the first pick, much like they did in 1998 by selecting Michael Olowokandi, one of the NBA’s all-time biggest busts.

Should the Clippers select someone other than Griffin, the Memphis Grizzlies will be sure to snap him up.

Right?

The thing is, Memphis — another former Pacific Northwest team — also has a recent history of performing boneheaded personnel moves.

It was the Grizzlies who pretty much gave Pau Gasol to the Lakers, making them the Western Conference favorites for the past two years.

In return for Gasol, Memphis received Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie, Pau Gasol’s little brother, Marc Gasol, as well as the Lakers’ first-round draft picks in the 2008 and 2010 NBA drafts.

None of those guys have become superstars thus far, and Brown isn’t even with the Grizzlies anymore.

So if Memphis also passes on Griffin, it creates a perfect storm of events in which the team formerly known as the Supersonics can select Griffin.

Make no mistake; given the chance, Oklahoma City will select Griffin.

The opportunity to create fan excitement and draw crowds by signing a college star from nearby Norman, Okla., will be too much to resist for the Thunder, even if questions about the Sooner star arise in the near future, possibly even causing his hypothetical fall.

In reality, the Clippers probably will end up drafting Griffin because it is the only logical thing to do and all of this previous talk will have been moot.

That said, keep in mind that drafts don’t always play out the way they’re supposed to. As with most other years, the team with the worst record and the best chance for No. 1, the Sacramento Kings, missed out on the top pick again.

And as history has shown, bad franchises have shown a tendency toward whiffing on top picks, and the Clippers and Grizzlies have been two of the worst ever.

Reach columnist Honsen Lin at sports@dailyuw.com.