Roy, Morrison go in top six

The Beacon Hill house where Brandon Roy spent the first five years of his life became something of a shrine Wednesday.

More than 50 Roy family and friends congregated at the home of his grandmother, Frances Roy — where Roy and his parents first lived when they moved back to Seattle in 1984 from San Diego — to watch the NBA draft amid a bevy of trophies, plaques and pictures celebrating Roy's career.

Looming over it all was a photo above the living room fireplace taken at the Wooden Award ceremony in April prominently featuring Roy and Adam Morrison standing with arms around each other.

It was a fitting backdrop for a day in which the state of Washington again dominated the top of the NBA draft.

Morrison, who attended Gonzaga University and Mead High in Spokane, was selected with the third overall pick by Charlotte. Roy, who attended Washington and Garfield, was taken sixth by Minnesota and then traded to Portland for the rights to Villanova guard Randy Foye and cash considerations.

"I was thinking that Portland was going to be able to take me, but once Minnesota called my name I was like 'well, I'm sure that somebody will say there will be a trade,' " Roy told reporters in Portland. "But when it didn't happen for a while, I was like 'well, maybe I'm going to be in Minnesota.' I was doing an interview and in the middle of the interview they said 'OK, you are a Trail Blazer.' "

It was the second straight year two Washington players had been taken among the first six picks in the draft. Last year, Bremerton's Marvin Williams went No. 2 to Atlanta and Seattle Prep's Martell Webster went No. 6 to Portland, where he will be joined by Roy in the backcourt of a Blazers team that is being rebuilt by former Sonics coach Nate McMillan.

Webster attended Portland's draft-day celebration and talked enthusiastically with reporters about playing alongside Roy.

"I'm just glad to see that this program is going down the right path now," Webster said.

Roy sounded just as pleased to be heading to Portland, a development that drew an even bigger cheer at the Roy family party when it was announced via a cell-phone call from Roy's mother than did his original selection.

"We really wanted him to stay close," said Renee Roy, one of his aunts. "He is so deserving of this."

Said Brandon Roy: "Where you get picked doesn't matter, it's about where you go and if you are comfortable with the guys there. All those things played into me going to Portland. I mean, I'm comfortable with the coach and comfortable with the players and I think it's going to make me a better player."

Roy became the highest-drafted UW player since Bob Houbregs, who was the No. 3 selection in 1953.

Morrison, meanwhile, became the highest-drafted Gonzaga player ever. Guard John Stockton was the No. 16 pick by Utah in 1984, the previous high-water mark.

One of Morrison's new bosses in Charlotte will be Michael Jordan, who recently became a co-owner of the Bobcats, who went 26-56 last year in what was their second season in the NBA. Morrison said he has yet to meet Jordan though he did work out in Charlotte recently.

"It's going to be awesome to be able to work under the greatest basketball player of all time," Morrison said. "It means you are going to have to be ready to play every day because he's such a competitor and a winner.

"If he told me how to tie my shoes a certain way, I would listen. So whatever's he's got to say, I'm going to definitely welcome it."

Morrison, who led the NCAA in scoring last winter at better than 28 points per game, should be able to make an immediate impact with a Charlotte team that was tied as the worst-shooting team in the NBA in 2006.

"I feel like with [Jordan] coming in they are only going to get better and I feel like I can contribute and do whatever it takes to help them out," Morrison said.

Interestingly, it was a few Portland fans who had waged a grass-roots campaign to get the team to select Morrison, something they called "Draft the Stache."

But UW coach Lorenzo Romar said he had a feeling that Roy might end up in Portland, recalling a recent phone conversation with McMillan.

"We talked on the phone and he expressed that he really liked Brandon as a basketball player and as a person," Romar said.

That latter quality might have been just as important as the former as the team seeks to re-make its "Jail Blazers" image.

At the Roy family party, a cousin, Billy Sterling, remembered a day that he said foreshadowed the type of player and person Brandon Roy became. Sterling was living in the same Beacon Hill house when Roy, then in the fourth grade, walked into his room and saw a picture of a Lamborghini on Sterling's wall.

"I'm going to buy you one of those someday," Sterling said Roy said that day. "Now after today, he can buy one for himself and give me a drive."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.