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The Portland Trail Blazers are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. They play in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The franchise was founded in the 1970–71 NBA season.
The Trail Blazers first participated in the NBA Draft on March 23, 1970, before their inaugural NBA season. Before each draft, an NBA draft lottery determines the first round selection order for the teams that missed the playoffs during the prior season. Teams can also trade their picks, which means that teams may have more or less than two picks in some drafts, although they must have at least one first-round pick every other year.
The first pick in the Trail Blazers' history was Geoff Petrie, a guard from Princeton University.